Do Space Aliens Exist?

 
I got an email from a friend
with some UFO links in it. With
his email came the question of
whether or not UFOs really exist
and whether or not space aliens
are visiting our Planet Earth.

My friend seemed to feel that
space aliens would have little
reason to come here as we would
have little to offer them
technologically.

I was not really that interested
in the question of existence.
Whether space aliens exist or not
does not interest me as much as the
reasons that people come up with to
say they are non-existant.

One common reason given for the
non-existence of space aliens is
that we don't see or hear from them
enough. To my way of thinking, it
would be remarkable if we ever did
hear or see them.

This web page describes how many
stars there are in the universe:

How Many Stars?

How many zeroes does it take to
answer the question, How many
stars are there in the Universe?
According to this web page somewhere
between 22 and 24 zeros. That is
to say, 10²² or 10²⁴.

That's a lot of stars! We have 8 planets
in our solar system. Assuming that other
solar systems have, on average, at least
one planet , there are a lot of planets
out there.

Is all that planetary real estate being
wasted? I doubt it. Why would God
create all that real estate and then
waste it all? Planetary real estate
is cheap if there is no life out there.
Less than a penny an acre. Maybe less
than a penny a planet.

Back to the original premise. It doesn't
make much sense to me to say that space
aliens do not exist just because we
encounter them so seldom.

As hard as it is to discover distant stars,
it is even harder to discover distant planets.
If distant planets are hard to discover, think
how hard it would be to discover life on those
planets.

What if space aliens were to come to Earth?
How would they behave? Probably like we do.
They would probably act somewhat like us.

They would study us the same way we study
lions and tigers in the jungle.  In other
words, they would regard us with some
curiosity, but would otherwise be
uninterested. No need to bother the locals.
No need to try to become friends.

We would do the same thing.  We would
venture out with small scientific
parties, but otherwise most of us would
stay home on our home planet, Earth.

That's how we do anthropology work.  We
don't show up at the tribal site and say,
Take me to your leader.  I want to
negotiate peace.  Instead, we send
in small bands of scientists, as few as
one person, to study the people.  

To truly study something, you have to
leave it in its primitive state as much
as possible.  In other words, non-interference.

Perhaps they too would have some amongst
them --- those who say what some people
say about Dolphins -- Dolphins are
intelligent beings that deserve better
treatment than we give them.

For me, the universe is rather consistent.  
There's a lot of things that rhyme in the
universe.

The way we study life here on Earth is to
seek it out in its natural habitat and study
it while trying to avoid being observed
ourselves. I would think that space aliens
would do the same. Observe the locals but
don't get caught doing it.

How Does Insulation Work?

OK. This is a new blog.

Just got an email from a
high school student. He
writes:

Hello,

my name is Name Withheld and
I attend Name Withheld High
School. Three of my friends
and I are doing a science
project on how we can make used
coats warmer.

We saw you gave advice on how
to stay warm in the winter.

My friends and I were wondering
if you could tell us how
insulation works and also if you
have any ideas of what we could
fill a coat with.

Please keep in mind that young
teens should be able to re-create
our project themselves. We also
need materials that are in common
households. I hope you can help
us!

Thanks,

Name Withheld

The student refers to an article
I wrote:

12 Tips to Help You Choose Warmer Clothes

Here is how I replied to him:

Hi FirstName,

Good to hear from you.

How does insulation
work?

I suppose I should answer
another question first.  How
does heat transfer from one
place to another?

Knowing how heat transfers
is essential to understanding
insulation.

Heat transfers in 3 ways:

1. Radiation.  You feel this
   when getting too close to a
   fire.
2. Conduction.  This can cause
   you to burn your hand when you
   touch a hot stove.
3. Convection.  You feel this when
   you open an oven door and you get a
   hot blast of air in your face.

Basically, the 3 ways heat transfers
from one place to another are quite
simple:

1. Radiation.  Radiation travels
   through the air.  McDonald's uses
   light bulbs that emit infrared light
   to keep hamburgers and french fries
   warm.  You've probably seen this.
   
   Think of the red lights that the
   french fries sit underneath.
2. Convection.  Anytime you feel
   a warm or cold patch of water when
   swimming in a lake, you are
   experiencing convection.
3. Anytime you touch something
   warm, such a potato that has just
   come out of the oven, you are
   experiencing conduction.

Back to the original question.  
How does insulation work?

Mostly by breaking up convection
currents into little tiny air
bubbles.  The smaller the bubbles,
the harder it is for the air to
travel far.

That's it in a nutshell.

So how would you make old coats
warm again?  Probably by repairing
them and stuffing them with insulation
again.

You need a cheap source of insulation.

Ground up leaves would work but are
useless when wet.

Polar fleece would be better but might
be a bit expensive.

A rather interesting solution might be
to take some old jackets, cut them up,
and use them to insulate other old jackets.

In other words, do some triage.

If a jacket is beyond helping, you
cut it up to better serve the jackets
that can still be salvaged.

This way, you know you are using
jacket-like material and are less
likely to get into trouble.

Keep in mind that almost all light
airy materials will work to some
degree but not all materials
are safe for this purpose.

For example, some materials
deteriorate quickly, others
form mold and other undesirable
things. Still others, are
useless when wet.

So, you have to choose carefully.

I'd say, just guessing, that old
jackets might work to fill other
old jackets.  However, you are
going to want to launder the
jackets before doing anything.  
Otherwise, the jackets could
prove a bit funky.

Ask your teacher what this means
if you do not know.

Kind regards,

Ed Abbott

In looking over and lightly
editing the two letters, I
realize that I probably could
have given a better explanation
of how insulation works.

I said that insulation breaks
the air up into small air bubbles.

This is true.

However, it is not much of an
explanation.

In general, any material that is
light and prone to float in the
air is probably a fairly decent
insulator.

For example, bird feathers are
very light and make great down
jackets.

I mentioned in the letter that
you could use leaves. This is
probably true. You could use
leaves and pine needles.

However, you'd have to find a way
to keep them light and try.

Manufacturers of down jackets refer
to something called loft.
Basically, that's the ability of the
material to re-inflate itself after
it gets wet.

I doubt that wet leaves would ever
re-inflate and they would be very
difficult to keep dry.

One of the beauties of wool is that
it does not deflate when wet.
Therefore, it keeps you warm, even
when wet.

Fur, in general, has this quality.

For example the Inuit of Alaska,
often called the Eskimos, used
Caribou fur to keep warm. Caribou
fur is warm, even when wet.

So, this leads me to my explanation
of how insulation forms little air
bubbles. Basically a good insulator
is light because it is mostly air.

• Wool is mostly air
• Caribou fur is mostly air
• Blown-in attic insulation,
  made out of treated and recycled
  newspaper, is mostly air
• Fiber-glass insulation that
  you put in your walls is mostly
  air
• Polar fleece is mostly air
• Bagged leaves are mostly air

An interesting aspect of the
lives of the Inuit is that they
made temporary traveling shelters,
called igloos, out of snow.

Snow, especially when dry and freshly
fallen, is mostly air. This is especially
true of snow that falls at low temperatures.

Snow that falls at low temperatures
is known as dry snow. Dry snow
is especially light and dry with
air.

In short, good insulators typically
have lots of little tiny spaces to
trap air bubbles.

That's how good insulators work. They
form little air pockets, thus breaking
up the transfer of heat away from your
body or away from your house.

The heat can still escape, but it escapes
much more slowly because it has to travel
across so many tiny air bubbles.

Think of it this way. If a
calorie of heat, which is,
basically, a little tiny piece
of heat, tries to get across
25 thousand air bubbles, it is
going to have a much more
difficult time of it than if it
tries to traverse the same distance
in open air.

Air bubbles are harder for heat to get
across than open air is, given the same
distance. For example, the distance
between the inner and outer layer of your
ski parka.

Given the same distance, air bubbles are
harder to traverse than open air is. Heat
travels faster and better in open air
than it does when trying to get from the
inside layer to the outside layer of your
parka.

Why? Because on a microscopic level, your
parka is mostly air bubbles. That's why, when
traveling, your ski parka is so easy to squeeze
into your backpack.

You can squeeze your parka into a small
space because the tiny air bubbles deflate
when you stuff your parka into a back
pack.

That, in short, is how most insulators
work.

Most insulators, when fully inflated,
consist mostly of tiny little air bubbles
that slow up, but do not stop, the heat
transfer process.

Ed Abbott