Hawking warned humans not to touch alien life. Should mankind stop exploring immediately?

Everyone who looks up at the stars must imagine some life outside the earth.

The universe is so big, it would be too lonely if only the earth has life, so since humans mastered the technology of sending signals to space, they have been tirelessly looking for news of aliens.

People have different attitudes towards this kind of behavior. Some people think it is a very meaningful and optimistic thing, while others think it is a very dangerous thing, such as Professor Hawking, the most famous scientist who died in 2 1 century.

He warned mankind not to take the initiative to look for alien life, thinking that it might bring a devastating blow to mankind, and cited the example that American civilization was destroyed by colonists in the era of great navigation.

Well, this article will tell you my views on this issue.

Lack imagination

First of all, let me tell a traditional joke: one day, two farmers worked in the hot sun and were so tired that they were sweating. One of the farmers stopped and said to another farmer:

"Tell me, did the emperor plow the fields with a golden hoe?"

Another wanted to think, say with smile:

"You fool! Does the emperor still use farming? He must be lying in a cool bed now, eating watermelon and shaking his fan, not to mention how carefree and happy he is! "

Well (expressing hesitation, etc.) ... why should I tell this story? Because most of our imagination of aliens is actually similar to these two farmers. Some people say that people's imagination is infinite. In fact, on the contrary, we can never imagine what we saw. No matter how scary the ghosts in horror movies are, we can always find the prototype from reality. So compared with the truth we know through exploration, imagination is really too dry and barren.

When I was in college, I watched a funny movie "Cowboys vs. Aliens", not to mention that the aliens who could roam in interstellar space were badly beaten by Indians, and even the reasons for invading the earth were made up too casually-in order to rob the earth of gold. ...

Collecting rare metals in the universe is actually meaningful. After all, precious metals such as gold are very rare in the whole universe, but how can you clever aliens find the earth? 99% of the gold on the earth has sunk into the core, and there is so little gold on the surface that it can't fill a standard basketball court.

Moreover, it will be much easier for aliens to find them near Qiannovas, so it is no exaggeration to say Duran peanuts. The neutron star merger event of GW 1708 17, which was observed in 20 17, produced about 200 earth masses of gold in 1.7 seconds. How much do aliens hope not to rob the earth of gold?

The precious resources we have always thought are not worth mentioning on the scale of the universe. Some people think that the earth is a very rare planet in the universe that can survive, so the earth itself is a resource, but this makes another mistake-if you look at the formula for calculating the emergence of life in the universe, you will know that there are definitely far more planets suitable for life than those that have already produced intelligent life. Even if aliens want to find a new home, there is no need to have a hard time with humans. If you have a picnic in the suburbs, what is the reason to drive wild ducks out of their nests and sit on their eggs?

I'm the main character?

This is a pessimistic but gradually accepted view that human beings may be the earliest life in the universe, and intelligent life earlier than us may not exist at all.

The age of the universe is about 65.438+0.37 billion years, which looks very long, but it is impossible for life to exist in the first few billion years, because the universe at that time was too young, unstable and quite high in energy, and it was not a universe suitable for life. And most importantly, there needs to be enough heavy nuclear elements in the universe to form life, because there are only three elements in the Archaean universe: hydrogen, helium and a very small amount of lithium. The source of heavy nuclear elements is the material ejected from the death and explosion of stars and the material ejected from the collision of star fragments. In other words, there must be enough elements to breed life until the second or even the third generation of stars.

The sun and the earth were formed about 5 billion years ago, accounting for more than one-third of the total life of the universe at once. Life appeared on the earth for more than 3 billion years, and finally an intelligent life was born, that is, us. Therefore, whether preparing materials in advance or gradually evolving life is an extremely long and time-consuming process. Our sun is probably the second generation star, so we are quite ahead.

According to some scientists' calculations, about 92% of the planets suitable for life in the universe have not yet been born. In this vast and desolate universe, perhaps no one will respond to our search, and human beings may really be lonely. ...

Finally, Mr. Hawking. Of course, he is a respected scientist, but everyone has his limitations and can't be right forever. Even the great Einstein blindly changed the equation to satisfy his imagination of the eternal universe. In the world of science, without absolute authority, even well-known scientific leaders may express some views lacking common sense, which is normal. I dare not say that what Mr Hawking said about aliens must be wrong, but it is not advisable to take his reputation as the standard. ...

Science is a process of constantly challenging the common sense of predecessors, isn't it?