Friday 20 September 2013

Things which came from space

1. Life

2. Gold nuggets

3. Everything else

FFS.

The whole of Planet Earth came from space, it's just a load of rocks and iron and stuff which was whizzing around in space and which clumped together over a period of millions or billions of years.

One of those rocks will have had "life" on it, and I'm not sure it's relevant which one. We can decide an arbitrary date for when the clump was big enough to count as Planet Earth, so whether life originated on Planet Earth or not depends entirely on whether that that date is after or before the time that the rock bearing life arrived here.

And I suppose the order in which things arrived is quite interesting, but they all came from space.

32 comments:

Lola said...

Since you are so clever then, where does space end?

Bayard said...

Are you sure? I thought it was all created out of nothing in six days.

Lola said...

B. No, that was Tesco's...

Anonymous said...

@Lola "Since you are so clever then, where does space end?"

That depends whether space is closed,open or flat and whether its bounded or not. Could be doughnut shaped too, which might be nice.

Anonymous said...

@Bayard "Are you sure? I thought it was all created out of nothing in six days."
Creation ex nihilo is 'apparently' something of a misunderstanding of genesis. The real translation suggests there was something already when genesis starts. So something exists, it has no shape. So even genesis doesn't explain the origin of everything.

A K Haart said...

"The whole of planet earth came from space"

Including your blog?

Anonymous said...

L, ask Paul.

B, ask Paul.

AKH, yes of course. And yours.

Lola said...

Paul, and outside the doughnut...?

Furor Teutonicus said...

XX paulc156 said...

Could be doughnut shaped ;XX

Torus, it is called.

Furor Teutonicus said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cln6LsO6E1k

Anonymous said...

FT:

a) It's spelled "Taurus"

b) That's astrology, not astronomy.

Anonymous said...

@Lola "Paul, and outside the doughnut...?"

Ha. Thought you'd go for the doughnut. There's basically two ways of answering this.
1.'Depends whether space is closed,open or flat'

2.Icing sugar, sprinkles, anything you fancy really. :)

Furor Teutonicus said...

It is spelled TORUS and has FUCK all to do with astrology;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torus

Furor Teutonicus said...

https://www.google.de/search?q=torus&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=n3Q8UqvzA-TZ4QS3-YGwBg&sqi=2&ved=0CEYQsAQ&biw=1280&bih=887&dpr=1

Anonymous said...

FT, Wiki begs to differ:

Taurus (astrology).

Lola said...

P. And so, if it is closed, what is outside the Torus? If it's closed, open or flat, it still begs the question, where does it end? Or doesn't it? End that is.

Furor Teutonicus said...

XX Mark Wadsworth said...

FT, Wiki begs to differ: XX

Did you even BOTHER your arse, looking at the links I provided FROM "Wiki"?!?!

ageing man said...

life can be shit at times....so let me be the first to say it.... I reckon it started on uranus....

Macheath said...

Alternatively:

http://kidsneedscience.tumblr.com/post/31131824389/torus

I'm intrigued by the attribution; if Roman cushions were indeed that shape, it probably tells us more than we need to know about the effects on Senatorial posteriors of sitting for hours on marble benches.

Meanwhile, back to the main story, the best sub-heading on the subject surely has to be the endearingly specific Telegraph version:

Aliens do exist and have been found living in the clouds above the Peak District, according to new claims by scientists.

Anonymous said...

@Lola. "And so, if it is closed, what is outside the Torus? If it's closed, open or flat, it still begs the question, where does it end? Or doesn't it? End that is."

If it's open or flat it doesn't end, or really it does but expands for ever. If it's closed it is finite.It can be finite and bounded which is probably what you're referring to. That 'could' be a doughnut or sphere or some others.
If so it 'probably' doesn't end in the conventional sense. If you set a straight course you simply get back to where you started from, as on a two dimensional surface of a sphere. As to what's outside such a space. Outside of space itself means outside of time as well.
Spatial dimensions don’t exist, and time doesn’t exist. It's not even something. [I'm going for a drink now, I find that helps]

Radical Rodent said...

Can anyone argue that the Earth is NOT the centre of the universe?

Mark Wadsworth said...

FT, I was engaging in a bit of light hearted banter, don't take it so seriously :-)

AM, I refer you to the episode of Futurama where Prof Farnsworth announces that Uranus has been renamed in order to prevent silly schoolboy jokes.

McH, so what do these smart arse aliens do when it's a sunny day with blue skies? Why didn't they choose to hover over Wales?

Paul, it's like a Moebius Strip in three dimensions. Easy.

RR, no. By definition. Because there's nobody anywhere else to take that stance.

Mark Wadsworth said...

Sorry, I forgot to add the obligatory link to the punchline.

Lola said...

P. Have one for me too. It does me pieces when I think about it....

Bayard said...

"Paul, it's like a Moebius Strip in three dimensions. Easy."

Isn't that a Klein Bottle? (www.kleinbottle.com)

Mark Wadsworth said...

"These elegant bottles make splendid gifts, outstanding classroom displays, and inferior mouse-traps."

Ralph Musgrave said...

I'm suspicious of that small particle they found in the Stratosphere which contained life and which allegedly couldn't have been wafted up there by air currents.

James Higham said...

Did common sense come from space?

Furor Teutonicus said...

Did it come from Earth?

Mark Wadsworth said...

Rm, me too, but I'm no scientist and they might well be right, I mean, tectonic plates, you would have guessed?

JH, no idea. What do you think?

FT, whatever life forms arrived on earth were barely sentient, so ascribing "common sense" to them is maybe going a bit too far.

Anonymous said...

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/23/truth-actual-evidence-alien-life

Ralph Musgrave [above] was right to be suspicious. Panspermia fan authored the paper.

Anonymous said...

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/23/truth-actual-evidence-alien-life

Ralph Musgrave [above] was right to be suspicious. Panspermia fan authored the paper.