Aliens

 

Aliens

The subject of so many books and films it almost seems the aliens must exist. From the sublime to the ridiculous “little green men” have become a cliché. There are plenty of delusional folk who have seen, heard or been kidnapped by aliens. There is an active fantasy that an alien was dissected in Area 51 in the USA in 1949. Area 51 has become infamous for sightings of flying saucers and other alien space craft.

After all this craziness it comes as something a surprise that there is a serious scientific search for alien life. This is centred around the Search for Extra-terrestrial Intelligence ( SETI ) This operation is scanning the skies in the radio spectrum for any signal which might be from an extra-terrestrial. Any discussion of this serious organisation always begins with the Drake equation.

The Drake equation ( not really an equation at all) came from Drake, a serious scientist , musing there are a lot of stars in the universe, a lot of the stars probably have planets, a lot of the planets are the right distance from the star not to be either overheated or frozen, and so on. Drake reasoned that although the probability of a suitable home is very low there are so many possibilities ( many billions ) that is seems likely that life exists in other places in the universe.

There is a problem with this line of thinking. The universe is big, very, very big, so big that even at light speed radio waves take a very long time. Distances around the universe are often measured in light years, that is the distance light travels in a year. Even the closest star, Proxima Centauri is over 4 light years away. Let us say that humans have been sending out radio signals ( just via ordinary terrestrial radio ) for about 80 years. This means that the imaginary bubble around earth by which aliens could pick up a signal is only 80 light years across.

Turn this round, if we receive an alien signal it will be at least 80 light years away. Imagine a conversation where the message takes 80 years to reach the alien and 80 for his ( or her or its )  reply to reach us.

However life is not that simple- we are reading a message sent long ago ( remember it travels at light speed at best ). The intelligence concerned may have evolved , become extinct or just simply not be around at the same time we are looking.

In a sense this doesn’t matter. To get some sort of message would be of profound significance. That we couldn’t reply would not change the psychic shock..

Then there is the matter of how to communicate. There is general acceptance that it would be mathematical. This does not require language and is universally true. Any aliens must have the same maths as us. In practice SETI is looking for patterns for which there is no explanation from physical laws. SETI has seen a few anomalies but nothing approaching any pattern although not everything is explicable by known physics.

The practical interest is in exobiology. This is the study of biology away from the earth. All life on earth uses essentially the same chemistry. Although we don’t know the full story of the evolution of life we can say to the first approximation all life on earth is the same. There is huge interest in exploring for possible life on Mars. In its early history Mars was quite earth like and it was only later that Mars evolved into the cold, airless planet of today. Because the surface conditions are so harsh it is half expected that if microbial life exists it will be sub surface.

Because sufficient time wasn’t available before conditions changed for the worse it is not expected that anything other than the most elementary life will  be found but hopes are high that Martian microbes exist and will be found.

There will be a final conundrum on Mars. If the life has the same chemistry as earth then it may be the result of contamination. Care is taken to sterilise Marian landers which is relatively easy with robots but probably impossible for human explorers.

As for the wider question of alien life I’m at one with philosopher Wittgenstein “whereof I do not know, thereof I cannot speak”

Going electric 11

 Going Electric 11

Since I’ve done 3 months hybrid electric driving it might be time to give an account of my experience. In truth my experience has been fairly limited because of Covid. As a vulnerable person I’m sheltering which has meant our travel has been limited. I’ve had very little experience using the normal hybrid mode combining the use of electric and internal combustion  ( IC ) engine and none at all with the two modes of power combined together.

Pure electric driving is excellent. Before I had wondered about the true electric range as this has been a bone of contention with different standards. In this case Hyundai claim 30 miles and this is what I’ve got. This is the range from fully charged down to 15% charge at which point the car switches to its internal combustion engine. This level of charge is necessary for the car to run in hybrid mode switching between electric and IC. If anything this is a very slight underestimate of range as depending on route and driving style more than 30 miles is possible. Since most of our journeys are local this means that electric drive is the most usual mode of travel. Unfortunately this doesn’t mean no petrol is used. The car is heated by the IC engine  which means in winter the engine runs at tickover intermittently to warm the cabin.

The all electric performance is very good. I had thought that a 60bhp electric motor was not very generous but in practice it has no problems. If anything it is all too easy to find oneself exceeding the speed limit  because it is quiet yet powerful.. Hill climbing is fine and there always seems to be enough power to keep up with traffic. 70 mph is possible on motorways although I suspect at a cost in battery range.

I find I’m using the trickle charger from a domestic 13 amp socket to charge the battery. Although this takes maybe 4 hours with the car parked by the house, cable through a window, walk away and leave. There is a handy system to show the extent of charge and it automatically stops when fully charged. The only downside is that the window has to left open enough to pass the cable through which on cold days is shivery.

The electric revolution globally I see as another matter. Batteries have two big problems- they are heavy and expensive. Very roughly the 9kWh battery I have weights 100kg. While specific power to weight ratios are coming down there is little prospect of any major change just incremental improvements. The cost issue is even more vital. To have the modest battery in the Ioniq has cost roughly £4000 compared with the small battery in the self charging version. So to go from 2kWh to 9kWh is rather expensive. I particularly wanted the plug in version ( Annette insisted as the price of getting a new car ) but this is an issue with spreading electric usage. Again battery costs are coming down on a cost per capacity basis and I think the prospects are rather better than with weight per capacity.

The IC engine is another matter. I suspect Hyundai in searching for the best economy have gone a bit too far. The IC engine develops its power at high revs. Even quite minor hills have the car changing down a gear. Coming from a diesel car with a lot of low end torque I’m finding it a bit hard to adjust  At least the IC engine is fairly quiet and unobtrusive on fairly flat roads. I’ve been looking closely at the engine specification and it appears very modern in design and incorporates many of the latest features.

Hybrid mode driving is interesting. At a halt the IC engine stops and the electric accelerates from rest with the IC engine cutting back in as speed rises. The battery is recharged partly by regeneration and partly by the IC engine. If there is a period of slow speed then electric persists but I’m unclear for how long.

The circumstances of the purchase led me to take the highest spec option. Because this was immediately available and the high part exchange prices of last autumn meant the extra cost was negligible I took this rather the  somewhat lower spec I normally would have chosen. This means that I have a bewildering set of gizmos. Some are very useful such as sat nav  and memory seat adjustment. The lane keeping assistance is disconcerting as it tries to steer the car to keep in lane. While easily overcome I find it best switched off.

In an effort to make entering and leaving easier the steering wheel has the bottom section cut off so it is no longer round. I find this quite strange and something which I am getting familiar to using. The one thing I haven’t mastered is linking to music played through a mobile phone. I’m using the option of digital tracks on a USB stick. I can’t say that music in the car is a major concern. The radio is far easier to use than my previous car as the station linked to preset is now noted clearly.

All in all I’m well pleased and I feel I’m making my little contribution towards mitigating climate change