Chance and the Cosmos

What if we are alone? With the recent breathtaking Venus in Transit pictures happening yesterday, I was amazed at the size and scope of this cosmic happening. What struck me was how everyone was talking about how rare an event this was, and it got me thinking about space, and probabilities, and are we alone?

I remember as a kid hearing Carl Sagan talk about the billion upon billion of stars in the universe and the probability that somewhere out there, there has to be life around one of those other stars. According to the European Space Agency’s scientists, there are 1 times 10 to the 12 (a 1 with 12 zeros trailing) stars in our galaxy, and perhaps 1 times 10 to the 11 or 12 galaxies in the universe. That means there are 1 times 10 to the 23 or 24 (1 with 24 zeros trailing) stars in our universe. That is a vast amount of places that could have a planet like ours. But now we have to think small, like in chance and probabilities, and this got me postulating.

Earth is pretty rare and the conditions for making life on Earth are even rarer as coincidence after long shot coincidence happened to make Earth the perfect place for life. So, I did a little estimating and came to the possibility that the conditions that made Earth are rare enough that we MIGHT be all alone. Here are my estimates:

Everyone now knows how the Earth and moon were formed, but not everyone talks about the probabilities of the results happening just right. Here are my estimates and remember, as you multiply probabilities together, it becomes more difficult to do. So say you have a 1 in 5 chance of something happening, but when you are doing two things that have a 1 in 5 chance of happening, you now have a 1 in 25 chance of that thing happening together.

Here is my list of probabilities on Life on Earth Occurring:

Chance of Asteroid Becoming a Moon after collision: 1 in 1,000,000
Chance of collision tilting the Earth exactly 7 degrees: 1 in 40,000
Chance of Sun Being the right size / giving right about of energy: 1 in 5,000
Chance of amino acids hitting earth to begin life: 1 in 1,000
Chance of enough water forming on earth for life to begin: 1 in 400
Chance of Earth having enough iron to create a magnetic field to protect us from radiation: 1 in 50
Chance of Earth being the right distance from the sun: 1 in 25
Change of Earth being the correct size for life to form as it did: 1 in 10

Individually, all of these do not look too farfetched from what we are discovering about other worlds and stars, but taken together, the probability of life forming on Earth is EXACTLY 1 in 10 times to the 24th! The same number of stars there are in the universe, so if you multiply both numbers together, you get 1. I am NOT saying there cannot be life elsewhere, just that an Earth-like planet might be a lot rarer than we think.

The Moldy Middle

While taking statistics during my quest to get an MBA and while earning my engineering degree, the professors always emphasized the importance of finding the statistical mean of any population by using the Central Mean Theorem (a.k.a the highest point of the Bell Curve). As an engineer, this was essential in order to maximize throughput, minimize cost and waste, and ultimately make a better, faster, cheaper widget. A funny thing happened on the way to the dark side of marketing. I discovered that the only thing in the middle of the road was quite literally dead road kill. I do not know if you remember stores like Bradlees, Ames and Service Merchandise (just to name a few), but they all folded because the environment changed and they were caught trying to service the mythological “average customer.” Part of that change came when Wal-Mart began its juggernaut with the discount department store. Wal-Mart did two things right: 1) Focused on “mobile” consumers, and 2) Fo

The Rush to Bottom

I cannot take credit for these words of wisdom, and sadly I do not know who wrote it originally. So, I cannot acknowledge them by name but I can acknowledge their exceptional talent to get a message across with clarity and hard-hitting truths. Whomever this author is, I thank and admire you and take pleasure in sharing this with others! I have also included a video if anyone is interested in sharing it. “When the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great...but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.” An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had recently failed an entire class. That class had insisted that socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer. The professor then said, “OK, we will have an experiment in this class on socialism. All grades will be averaged and everyone will receive the same grade so no one wi

How Much is Enough?

I have been thinking about integrity and honesty, and frankly should humanity even continue, but that is another thread. In my thinking, I keep coming back to the same question: How much or little cheating is enough? Or stated another way? How much of a lie makes you a liar? How much cheating do you have to do to be a cheater? How much do you need to steal for you to be considered a thief? How much infidelity do you need to be considered an adulterer? How much fraud to you need to commit for it to be criminal? How much of the truth needs to be changed for it to be untrue? How much shit exactly, does something need to have to be considered a shit sandwich? How dead must a person be to be considered murdered? How pregnant do you have to be to be considered pregnant? OK, the last two were off topic but the answer is “any”.. Any amount of lying makes you a liar. Any amount of cheating makes you a cheater. Any amount of stealing makes you a thief. Any amount of infidelity makes you an adult

The Profit Prophet

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