h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

. . ... .... .....the kerfuffle who is fluffy silly-walks back in with a plate of sausages and saurkraut and two . .. ... .. . . ...sets the plate and down on the table and pulls a sliderule out of her apron pocket...

"i think you may be correct there" ... .. .. fidgeting with the sliderule.... "yes, it appears there may be a before prior to the BB" , ,, ,,, , , , ,snaps the sliderule back into her pocket and silly-wanders out mumbling something about how kettles shouldnt call pots black.

. . ... . . . ..kerfluffy silly-returns with two forks. .. .. ...plops down in a chair at the table and starts digging in to the string of universes... . . . . .

you still around WG?

Yeah, I'm just enjoying watching this fluffy thing flitting around.

please have some of these excellent universal sausages ...they came out of the oven BEFORE there was a big bang which would have been them exploding. and some of this

i dunno.... . . .(munching on a slice of time). .. .. where do you find these House Rules SoRB alluded to? cuz i heard that saying mean things to people wasnt allowed but i cant find those rules.

Lovely sausages and ale. About the house rules, I also thought we were supposed to be polite and unabusive. Oh well. Apparently I'm going to go out and play cricket now. Don't hog all the sausages, ok Fluffy?

okay WG just thought that needed to be spoken about after SoRB low blowed with the Trolling reference... have fun!!

Apologies to SoRB and others for derailing the discussion with sausagetalk. I seem to bring out the wurst in people.

No worries. It's always hard to decide whether or not to derail a coversation with talk of sausages. You could say you're bit wiener rock and a hard place.

SoRB

http://www.umich.edu/~gs265/bigbang.htm

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"...About 15 billion years ago a tremendous explosion started the expansion of the universe. This explosion is known as the Big Bang. At the point of this event all of the matter and energy of space was contained at one point. What exisisted PRIOR TO this event is completely unknown and is a matter of pure speculation."

I sure hope for their sakes Sorb doesn't read this.

That's uncanny - just got back to find 333 new posts on this subject - maybe there's at least half a devil somewhere!

Some time back we had a little chat about whether or not life formed spontaneously by chance.

Eventually, after a little tussle, we agreed that evolution/abiogenesis is about the spontaneous generation and development of life.

So we agree it was spontaneous, but what about the role of chance? Did it happen by chance?

ok so to Decide Whether We Are Alone in the Universe, i just Replyed to "More sausage, anyone?" Thread...Yes by the way :D, anyway, we CANT be alone in the universe, the odds are against us being alone, about, 9999999999999999999999999999999... Planets, who is saying that only 1 of these planets can sustain life?...

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Hmm. Just pondering this: imagine another planet anywhere in the universe that could already sustain HUMAN life. Is there such a planet where we could just turn up and colonise it straight away?

I don't mean somewhere like Mars, where we'd have to do a lot of work to make it habitable.

No chance. The HSE would insist on a full risk assessment first. Given that this takes a full day for the average office kitchen, carrying out a risk assessment on a planetary scale would probably take around 10 to the power 8 years.

By which new HSE rules would have evolved and the process would have to begin again.

By which *time* new...

Forget intelligent life in space. Is there intelligent life in the HSE?

HSE are life? i though they where programmed computers the Goverment used for H&S, that Crashed and the goverment takes every word for Gospel!
<< sorry for the mouthfull >>

<< and i dont know who said...but SOMEONE DID! >>

Are the odds so much against us being alone? I had read a biologist's point of view that the size of universe and amount of planets might not actually outweigh the odds against life forming. His stand was that he would be ready to believe in millions of other inhabited planets provided you could show him only one, and that until then it was by no means obvious that there had to be any.

I mean, would you also find it likely that there is another inhabited planet on which one species developed a language such that the expression "Gin and Tonic" exists and means some drink?

Do not mix up the idiots in companies who *think* they know what the HSE requires in terms of risk assessments and what the HSE actually want.

The vast majority of the 'safety gone mad' headlines are due to 'overzealous' poorly trained jobs-worths in companies who go on a basic training course and think they know everything.

Risks assessments can be quick and easy as long as some common sense is used. People who get into these positions have little common sense and use health & safety as reasons for implementing draconian idiotic rules which would not get through anyother way.