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Lost Winston Churchill Essay Reveals His Thoughts On Alien Life (theverge.com)
"A newly discovered essay by Winston Churchill shows that the British statesman gave a lot of thought to the existential question that has inspired years of scientific research and blockbuster movies: are we alone in the University?" reports The Verge. "The essay was drafted in the 1930s, but unearthed in a museum in Missouri last year." Astrophysicist Mario Livio was the first scientist to analyze the article and has published his comments in the journal Nature. The Verge reports: Livio was "stunned" when he first saw the unpublished, 11-page essay on the existence of alien life, he tells The Verge. The astrophysicist was visiting Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, for a talk last year, when he was approached by Timothy Riley, the director of Fulton's US National Churchill Museum. Riley showed him the essay, titled "Are We Alone in the Universe?" In the essay, Churchill reasons that we can't possibly be alone in the Universe -- and that many other Suns will likely have many other planets that could harbor life. Because of how enormously distant these extrasolar planets are, we may never know if they "house living creatures, or even plants," Churchill concludes. He wrote this decades before exoplanets were discovered in the 1990s; hundreds have since been detected. What's impressive about the essay is the way Churchill approaches the existential and scientific question of whether life exists on other planets, Livio says. Churchill's reasoning mirrors extremely well the way scientists think about this problem today. The British leader also talks about several theories that still guide the search for alien life, Livio says. For example, he notes that water is the key ingredient for life on Earth, and so finding water on other planets could mean finding life there. Churchill also notes that life can only survive in regions "between a few degrees of frost and the boiling point of water" -- what today we call the habitable zone, the region around a star that is neither too hot or too cold, so that liquid water may exist on the planet's surface.
Anthropological principle states that the universal laws are tweaked in such a way for intelligent life to exist. So the universe tweaked its laws for intelligent life to exist and it took billions of years to evolve. Would such an universe be left extremely vulnerable to few mad men who could destroy intelligent life at the touch of buttons or some cosmic phenomena destroying intelligent life on the only planet? Based on this argument, you can say that intelligent life in the universe would be so robust that no matter what you do, you can't get rid of them, not at least in a fraction of evolution time. So, not only intelligent should exist in outer planet in our galaxy but it should exist all over the entire universe. Laws of cosmology prevents us from destroying significant portion of the intelligent life in the universe due to horizon limit (even if we can sent virus via rocket at the speed of light).
I don't know if we are *truly* alone in the University, but it sure is empty here in the proof-reading department.
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
'Intellectual' used to be an admired quality in a leader.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
"alone in the University." If nothing else the janitor and security staff are always around.
"A newly discovered essay by Winston Churchill shows that the British statesman gave a lot of thought to the existential question that has inspired years of scientific research and blockbuster movies: are we alone in the University?"
. Well, let me quote the guy:
What is adequacy? Adequacy is no standard at all.
You can't handle the truth.
He also wrote:
"Might not a bomb no bigger than an orange be found to possess a secret power to destroy a whole block of buildings -- nay, to concentrate the force of a thousand tons of cordite and blast a township at a stroke? Could not explosives even of the existing type be guided automatically in flying machines by wireless or other rays, without a human pilot, in ceaseless procession upon a hostile city, arsenal, camp or dockyard?"
in 1924.
Tsss, no education!
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
What's impressive [...] Churchill's reasoning mirrors extremely well the way scientists think about this problem today.
For me this is a clear sign of how little has the subject progressed in the last 80 years. Our reasoning hasn't changed because we know nothing new. Up to this point we have just confirmed some of the things we already suspected.
There's so much more to discover yet.
No, we are not alone in this universe. according to all studies till now about universe and space we can predict that there is possibility of life depending upon the climate they adopt for living like we did on earth.
My thoughts on Thai food.
Fish sauce gives me the shits.
The Winston Churchill connection to H G Wells was well known.
The why of Frederick Lindermann who was liked over a lot of other staff and the design of the British nuclear project.
Lindermann sent Churchill a book on nuclear physics in 1926 and gave a talk that ensured Churchill was ready for nuclear issues.
H G Wells was just one of the people Churchill kept in contact given the interest in The World Set Free https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/....
So Churchill had been reading and meeting a lot of interesting people over many decades. Given the early contact with Wells and the topics in his books,
Churchill was much more ready for nuclear e.g. the work of Frederick Soddy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... and space topics.
That later interest in science, nuclear weapons was what saved the UK's nuclear weapons design work from the USA.
The "other planets" question would have been talked about a lot given the interest in H G Wells.
What can political leaders learn from this? Read a lot, be interesting and talk a lot to the best minds of your generation.
Find the scientist who can speak about emerging topics and who can hold a conversation. The best scientists to work on any project are easy to find later on.
Never trust another nation with your own science, they will not share or give back.
That allowed the UK to be ready for a nuclear future.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
That's a question I usually ask myself when the holidays kick in. The answer has still to be found.
Video of some good progressive thrash music
The western, romanticized image of Churchill is of the stoic rock that beat the Nazis in WWII, bravely leading the British people to oppose fascism while America dithered.
The rest of his bio is rounded out by his fond nostalgia for shooting "savages" in Africa - i.e. blacks not yet subjugated by European colonialism. And the post WWII crushing of Kenya's rebellion against British rule, where you'd have a hard time looking at the treatment of prisoners and thinking you weren't hearing descriptions of a Nazi concentration camp. Shit like shoving sand in anuses with metal rods, crushing men's testicles and shoving glass into women's vaginas. "I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes" was a real knee-slapper, too.
Churchill wasn't opposed to barbarous tranny, as long as it was coming from his own country.
If it were lost we wouldn't know what was in it.
What does your post have to do with the topic?
Nothing.
...
Churchill wasn't opposed to barbarous tranny, as long as it was coming from his own country.
Ooooh-tay, Buckwheat!
What does your post have to do with the topic?
Nothing.
This topic has to do with opening the book of Winston Churchill.
The parents post, although poorly titled, is just another chapter.
So yes, while the content may be a bit unsettling, it is relevant.
At least, Churchill is kind enough to kill quickly!
The Nature article while more informative only provides a handful of selective quotes from the essay but still no link. Instead it frames the essay in the context of Churchill's interest in science. How about an actual link to the actual essay?
Ask Africa: has kicking out the Europeans helped? Who, among the Africans, has benefited from their departure? There seems to be no lack of savages in the continent. Cf. Congo. Or Rwanda. Or Nigeria. Or SA. All of which are various levels of fucked-up disaster. Best you can get is, maybe, Kenya, where there are still beggars everywhere (in the midst of an incredibly fertile land) and gates blocking the entry to the driveways of hotels in Nairobi - and that was before the mall catastrophe.
damn mexicans
...but we still have no actual observational evidence of life outside our solar system. But at least we get a lot of entertainment value out of the subject...
A brave little theory, and actually quite coherent for a system of five or seven dimensions -- if only we lived in one. Academician Prokhor Zakharov, "Now We Are Alone"
Inheritance is the sincerest form of nepotism.
Churchill wasn't opposed to barbarous tranny, as long as it was coming from his own country.
Unfortunately, his position on shemales and ladyboys remains unknown.
Not from College student. "RE: Aliens in my University. We are hiding in a safe space and have no idea what is out there. Please write something nice on a note and slip it under the door after sanitizing the document. As we consider the amount of analprobaphobes on campus it should be known that messages not fitting our confirmation bias will be ignored."
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
The effect of classic and neo-colonialism on Africa is unequivocally disastrous, on a scale that makes the Holocaust look like a walk in the park.
Victims of 9/11: <3000. Traffic in the US: >30,000/y
He was friends with The Doctor, after all.
It might have been lost once upon a time, but now surely it's a found essay.
OK, semantic moment, I should have known better.
No, your children are not the special ones. Nor are your pets.
It's existential in that it addresses breaking apart the frozen sea inside each person?
Or its highly reflective with a possibility of enabling us to confront our own superficiality?
Oh wait. This is like "existential" according to the Charlie Gibsons and intellectual snobs who don't know what it means to have an existence.
Surely if a lot of money "exists" in my bank account than I'm existential also.
To elaborate a bit, it's obvious that Africa isn't in great shape right now. But it should also be acknowledged that things _are_ improving, at least at the moment.
Extreme poverty is on the decline, though work is ongoing (poverty statistics, poverty report) and it seems like Africa is overall starting to move into Stage 3 of population growth (In a Nutshell - Overpopulation)
So colonialism fucked the place up, things are _generally_ getting better since then, but it's still going to take awhile (and more hard work.)
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
Well then you are a boor and uneducated to boot.
"Sir" is a title of respect and has nothing to do with the British Monarchy, except that the Queen bestows the honors. Your rant about the monarchy and the American Revolution is out of touch and out of place.
Also, Sir Winston Churchill is possibly the greatest leader of the 20th century, of any country. He was an author and an interesting dude besides. If you achieved even 1/100th of what Churchill achieved in his life, you would be noteworthy and memorable.
Somehow I don't think that's going to happen though, right? Instead you get your kicks out of taking cheap shots at people who are noteworthy and accomplished. What's your deal, are you jealous, anti-intellectual, or just a bastard? "Who are these great people, and why are they better than me!?"
Yeah, have another drinkypoo, I for one am not impressed.
"I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes"
He was talking about tear gas. Including the previous sentence, the quote is:
"It is sheer affectation to lacerate a man with the poisonous fragment of a bursting shell and to boggle at making his eyes water by means of lachrymatory gas. I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes."
Given that this point of yours turned out to be social-justice nonsense, I rather suspect that the rest of your claims are the same.
You should not have posted this as AC. Many will not read your comment who otherwise would have.
Haha.I was at 'the mall" before the "catastrophe". And I'll say that some groups aren't fucked-up disasters like the Masai, I wouldn't say they're going anywhere either.
I think the Bible is quite clear that non-human intelligent life exists. For example the angels.
I think in the late 19th and early 20th centuries intelligent alien life was a concept more widely accepted than today. For example life on Mars was considered a possibility. Visible features of Mars being interpreted as canals received some support until better optics were developed and the "canals" were determined to be an illusion.
"We know matter exists, and we know consciousness exists, but we really don't know the first thing about how consciousness works."
I hate to say this, but you don't exist. You're just a figment of my imagination, so you can't prove to me that you exist. All of you supposedly "other" people "out there" are images on a VR simulation permanently attached to me that gives me the sensations of sight and sound, and sometimes other more intimate sensations, like the taste of chocolate and bananas or the feel of sweat and heat.
The Solipsist (aka The Mind in the Vat)
He quite clearly said poisoned gas. You yourself quoted it.
The previous sentence is "He also wanted to use M Devices against the rebellious tribes of northern India." What's that? "An exploding shell containing a highly toxic gas called diphenylaminechloroarsine."
If documented facts are "social-justice nonsense", then you just might be a dishonest, willfully blind American Exceptionalist.
Yeah, they might miss out on the sophistry of complaining about the previous sentence in the article...when the actual previous sentence was on Churchill wanting to use exploding shells containing diphenylaminechloroarsine to pacify areas of India under British rule.
Do you also pretend that Iraq is in shambles because the U.S. (nominally) ended its occupation of the country, rather than the Iraq War that overthrew the government and destabilized the region? Every place you just mentioned is a mess because of European powers who went there in the first place, not because those European powers (nominally) ended rule over the continent. You willfully ignorant Western Exceptionalist, you.
And I say "nominally" because western powers still dominate Africa, only now under the banners of the International Monetary Fund, rather than England or France. If you get too uppity, you get your country overthrown - just ask Zombie Gaddafi, after he tried to start a gold-backed African currency to compete with the Franc.
And you can thank the same western powers that screwed them over in the first place for the slow recovery. Enforcing debts accumulated under colonialist rule, IMF "bailouts" that force the sale of public assets to foreign "investors", being forced to rely on international monetary markets. Libya might have been able to help with some of that, as Gaddafi had plans for a gold-backed African currency, so naturally he was targeted for regime change.
http://softwareengineeringmca....
I think as a whole we would be a lot better off as a species without it.
You might as well give the full quote:
"The cabinet was hostile to the use of such weapons, much to Churchill's irritation. He also wanted to use M Devices against the rebellious tribes of northern India. "I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes," he declared in one secret memorandum. He criticised his colleagues for their "squeamishness", declaring that "the objections of the India Office to the use of gas against natives are unreasonable. Gas is a more merciful weapon than [the] high explosive shell, and compels an enemy to accept a decision with less loss of life than any other agency of war."
So, he thought gas was more humane than explosives, and had a better deterrent effect on the enemy, shortening the conflict and leading to less loss of life.