size of an alien?

I think many people here believe that somewhere in the universe intelligent life
exists.
I do too, but i was wondering(forgive me if this has been done to death) is it possible
that they could be any size and shape? for example; could you have a planet the size
of a marble thats teeming with life? And if possible could they travel here? Could there
be aliens in outer space that are a 100ft tall?

Just a thought.

Well there has to be some limits on physical aspects to any living creatures I assume this is largely to do with environment that they live in. But looking at the various sizes of the grays that have been reported to date by people and you can imagine humanoid life forms in a lot of differing sizes. Look at the planets in our solar system and their sizes and this is a rather narrow range of possibilities.

Originally posted by denythestatusquo
Well there has to be some limits on physical aspects to any living creatures I assume this is largely to do with environment that they live in. But looking at the various sizes of the grays that have been reported to date by people and you can imagine humanoid life forms in a lot of differing sizes. Look at the planets in our solar system and their sizes and this is a rather narrow range of possibilities.

Our solar system is a very small part of the universe, surely it cant all be the same.
ive seen pics on this site of suns that dwarf ours by a long way, is it possible that our
size depends on the size of the sun?

See the different sizes of the animals that live and have lived on Earth and you can see that with only the conditions we have here we have an extremely large variety of shapes and sizes.

But the size depends of the type of animal.

For example, and contrary to some old sci-fi movies, insects cannot be larger than something about 50cm(or 20 inches) because of the way their body functions. The lack of blood vessels is a major factor, I think.

Mammals, on the other hand, can be as small as the Hog-Nosed Bat (3.1cm) to as big as a blue whale(25m).

But if the environment was different what could be changed?

A smaller gravity could lead to bigger animals, in the same way that a planet with a stronger gravity would make animals like the elephant not very likely, for example.

And I was only speaking of what we know that exists.

Think of a life system similar to the coral but made by highly evolved animals living in colonies and that could move and join to make bigger colonies with the ability to make the shape that they wanted.

Something like this is, as far as I know, possible, even on Earth, and an animal like that could easily be a evolutionary success(or maybe not, I am just talking about things I do not really know).

Originally posted by thesneakiod
I think many people here believe that somewhere in the universe intelligent life
exists.
I do too, but i was wondering(forgive me if this has been done to death) is it possible
that they could be any size and shape?

curious thing about quantum physics. seems to be showing us that matter is not matter, but just fluctuating vibrating light and energy reduced to look like electrons, protons, and neutrons.

if you were as small as an atom, and were told to reach out and grab an elextron, neutron or proton, you could not do it.

Why?

it is not matter.

::::::::::::::::::

So, what has enough gravitational force to make light appear as though it is matter?

yep. Black holes are the only known source to effect light in such a fashion.

so, to answer your question, i believe that an alien lifeform can be smaller than subatomic. perhaps alien life could be smaller than a singularity, or even singulariti pluraliti.

but, maybe life just ends when it dies?

show me a thing, anything that you can, that when you apply enough pressure to it it can cease to exist all together.

can you find a thing that you can compress out of existance?

Hm, when I think of this question I think of the end of "Men in Black" when the camera zooms out of Earth's atmosphere, out of our galaxy, out of our solar system, etc. until the whole thing is inside of a marble being used by what to us would be infinitely enormous beings, but looked normal-sized. Perhaps our universe is actually a single cell of a being, and all of our cells are universes themselves. Seems extremely unlikely to me, but kind of an interesting theory. I suppose that would make size a relative variable. Although those beings would seem unfathomably enormous to us, they only know their own percepted reality, like ourselves. Anyway that's a little off-topic I guess, but I'd say that extra-terrestrials could be of any imaginable and/or unimaginable size.

[edit on 15/11/06 by an3rkist]

I don't wanna sound dumb, but what if there is life out there that has no mass?Kinda like radio waves or some form of energy.Just a thought....

Can you find a thing that you can compress out of existance?



Air?

Originally posted by thesneakiod
Can you find a thing that you can compress out of existance?



Air?

You can compress air out of existence? I'm pretty sure that makes you the closest thing to God I've ever met. Laws of physics state that matter and energy CANNOT be destroyed, only have their states altered. Correction: I need to research this more because now I'm reading about matter and anti-matter colliding and destroying each other. Hm....

[edit on 15/11/06 by an3rkist]

Originally posted by an3rkist

Originally posted by thesneakiod
Can you find a thing that you can compress out of existance?



Air?

You can compress air out of existence? I'm pretty sure that makes you the closest thing to God I've ever met. Laws of physics state that matter and energy CANNOT be destroyed, only have their states altered. Correction: I need to research this more because now I'm reading about matter and anti-matter colliding and destroying each other. Hm....

[edit on 15/11/06 by an3rkist]

If you had a box, which was airtight, and all six sides got compressed where would the air go?

Originally posted by thesneakiod
If you had a box, which was airtight, and all six sides got compressed where would the air go?

You wouldn't be able to physically compress it, the air would have to be able to escape. What happens when you squeeze a balloon filled with air?

Nice thread you got going here!
I have thought about this quite a bit before. I think the only limitation is the imagination. Odds are, in my opinion, that there could be any form at all. From compressed waves of energy to giant creatures, just no way to know. I actually find it very doubtful that they would resemble us in size or shape at all.
It is fun to throw the ideas around in the head, but we just cannot comprehend the possibilities out there!
I mean really, who is to say that the laws of physics are really that? They may be nothing at all except limiting factors for us only! Albert Einstein and Newton and the like may not be so smart after all when it comes to other possiblities.
People say that the laws of physics are constant, but according to who....us obviously, but how much do we know in the greater scheme of things!

My head hurts a bit now, but again...nice thread

Peace, Mondo

Originally posted by Mondogiwa

People say that the laws of physics are constant, but according to who

True, perhaps the laws of physics that govern our infinitely miniscule part of the universe don't even apply in other parts of the universe. Or perhaps there really aren't any "laws" of physics, and the only reason we are limited to the things we label as laws is because we don't have the capacity to alter our percepted "physical" reality. I'm reminded of the bumble bee analogy. It has since been proven false, but not too long ago it was said that according to our stated "law" of physics, or atleast what we understood of them, a bumble bee should not be able fly. The bumble bee defied what we knew of the law of physics, simply because our knowledge of the laws was incomplete or incorrect. That's just a small example of our own tiny place in the universe. Who knows what possible law-defying things we could find outside our bubble...or possibly in other dimensions

Um...my apologies, I searched the internet for a reference to the bumble bee thing and it appears it was an urban myth. Here's a link that I guess explains my folly:

www.paghat.com...

[edit on 15/11/06 by an3rkist]

Originally posted by an3rkist

I'm reminded of the bumble bee analogy. It has since been proven false, but not too long ago it was said that according to our stated "law" of physics, or atleast what we understood of them, a bumble bee should not be able fly. The bumble bee defied what we knew of the law of physics, simply because our knowledge of the laws was incomplete or incorrect. That's just a small example of our own tiny place in the universe.

Very well said, that's exactly what I am talking about....you just explained it alot better! Just think about all the things that have been taught in schools twenty years ago that were FACTS, only to be changed again and again. Now those FACTS are nothing more than funny old ancient beliefs that we now KNOW are wrong..or do we??
It is a constantly changing thing, these laws and rules and even our interpretation of them!

Peace, Mondo