EARTH-LIKE PLANET WITH
INTELLIGENT LIFE?
WHY 400 YEARS?
Paul H. Carr, IEEE Life Fellow
AF Research Laboratory Emeritus
www.MirrorOfNature.org

• In 1584, Dominican monk Giordano Bruno envisioned the
stars as "countless suns with countless earths, all rotating
around their suns.”
• In 1995, the Swiss astronomers Michel Mayor and Didier
Queloz announced the first discovery of a planet orbiting a
star similar to our sun (51 Pegasi). On Feb 2, 2011, NASA
announced 1200 planet candidates.
• Why 400 years?

ASTRONOMY MILESTONEs 300 years.
1543 Copernicus: Heliocentric solar system
1584 Bruno: “Countless suns with countless earths”
1609 Galileo: First astronomer to use the telescope.
1687 Newton’s Laws of Gravity and Motion.
1725 Bradley measured stellar parallax of earth’s orbit.
1851 Foucault's Pendulum proved the earth rotates.
IEEE ELECTONICS MILESTONES: 100 years
1910 Vacuum tube invented.
1947 Transistor invented by Bardeen, Brattain, & Shockley
1958. Invention of Integrated Circuits by Kilby & Noyce
1972 Texas Instruments patented a electronic camera making
digital image processing possible.
1995 Discovery of large gassy planet orbiting a star.

When Bruno found that proceedings were being initiated
against him for new ideas such as these, he fled from his
native Naples, Italy to Protestant Geneva.
Bruno’s search for intellectual freedom led him to France,
England, and Germany. Homesick, he accepted a patron’s
invitation to return to Italy. Their relationship soured
shortly thereafter, and Bruno was imprisoned for seven
years during his lengthy trial.

The Roman Inquisition finally condemned Bruno for heresy;
he refused to recant and was burned at the stake in 1600.
Bruno had published about 20 books.

PTOLEMY 150 A. D. COPERNICUS 1543
From The Bones of Copernicus by Dennis Danielson, “American Scientist,” Jan-Feb 2009

Photo, Prof. Owen Gingerich's Book,
“The Book Nobody Read,”
• Canon of cathedral in
Frauenberg, East Prussia.
•"The sun, seated on its
royal throne, governs the
family of planets going
around it. For in this most
beautiful temple, who
would put this lamp in any
other or better place than
that from which it can
illuminate all the
planets?” De revolutionibus
orbium coelestium (1543)
NICHOLAS COPERNICUS
1473–1543.

Through the newly invented telescope, Galileo
(1609) observed craters & mountains on the
moon and spots on the sun. He thereby
challenged ancient cosmology, where heavenly
bodies were thought to be perfect spheres made of
“ether,” in contrast to the imperfect and corruptible
earth.
Galileo’s Sunspots Craters & Mountains on Moon

Galileo (1632) published his DIALOGUE ON THE TWO
CHIEF WORLD SYSTEMS, Ptolemaic & Copernican

The DIALOGUE, written in Italian, was a “best seller.”
The Copernican, Salviati, and the Ptolemaic
advocate, Simplicio, tried to convince Segredo,
originally neutral, of their respective positions.
The Jesuits convinced Pope Urban VIII that he was
satirized as Simplicio, who supported earth-centered
Ptolemaic astronomy. The Pope believed he had been
double-crossed because:
(1) Galilo betrayed their former friendship &
(2) had not kept their agreement that Copernican
cosmology was only a hypothesis.
This plus the Protestant Reformation in Germany led
the Church to bring Galileo to trial.

Galileo’s discoveries led him to
advocate the new heliocentric
Copernican cosmology.
Galileo Galilei
1584 - 1642
GALILEO TRIEDby the CHURCH
Galileo believed that God
had written 2 books:
• NATURE &
• “THE BIBLE.”

Paradoxically, the Church was scientifically
correct that Galileo had no proof that the earth
was rotating on its axis while moving around
the sun. The Church supported the great
astronomer Tycho Brache’s cosmology, who
did not observe the stellar parallax of the
earth’s orbit.
Galileo courageously argued:
“The Bible tells us how to go to heaven,
not how the heavens go.”
He was nevertheless convicted at age 69.

Johannes Kepler (1571- 1630) in Germany adopted the
heliocentric system.
1. planetary orbits were slightly elliptical.
2. Square of the period proportional to the cube of the
radius

Before Kepler (1571- 1630) , astronomy was mainly
observational. Kepler therefore made a unique contribution
in postulating that a magnetic force kept the planets in orbit
about the sun.
Kepler was on the right tract.
But it was Isaac Newton (1642 – 1726) realized that the
gravitational law of attraction between a terrestrial apple
and the earth was the same as that between the celestial
moon and the earth. As the moon orbited the earth, the
force of gravity caused it to continually "fall towards the
earth." In contrast to Greek cosmology, Newton believed
that celestial and terrestrial bodies had the same properties,
as well as obeying the same laws of motion.

The synchronized performance of the
moons and planets can not be explained
by “mere mechanical causes”
“This most beautiful system of the sun,
planets, and comets could only proceed
from the counsel and dominion of an
intelligent and powerful Being.”
SIR ISAAC NEWTON
(1642-1727)
Discovered laws of
gravity & dynamics
Poet Alexander Pope wrote:
"Nature and Nature's laws
lay hid in night;
God said, Let Newton be!
and all was light."

The Newtonian synthesis of celestial and terrestrial motion is
one of the great intellectual achievements of all time. Isaac
Newton's laws of motion and gravity led to the acceptance of
the Copernican system. The massive sun in the center was the
source of gravity which kept the planets in orbit.

Newton had no "proof positive" that the earth
moved, but his gravitational theory made no sense
without a massive, comparatively immobile sun near
the gravitational center of the solar system.

In 1725 James Bradley measured the small stellar
aberration, which does demonstrate the earth’s orbit.

Foucault's pendulum was "proof positive." This
proof in 1851 was anti-climactic, however, as the
Copernican system had already been accepted.
FAUCAULT’S PENDULUM 1851
The plane of the pendulum's
swing, like a gyroscope
keeps a fixed direction in
space, while the Earth
rotates under it.

Over the centuries, telescopes
got better and better…
Galileo and his Refractive Telescope, 1609 Herschel’s Reflecting Telescope, 1789
The Hooker Telescope -
Mount Wilson, ca 1920

In 1995, a breakthrough:
the first planet around another star.
A Swiss team discovers a planet – 51 Pegasi –
48 light years from Earth.
Didier Queloz and Michel Mayor

ASTRONOMY MILESTONES 300 years.
1543 Copernicus: Heliocentric solar system
1584 Bruno: “Countless suns with countless earths”
1609 Galileo: First astronomer to use the telescope.
1687 Newton’s Laws of Gravity and Motion.
1725 Bradley measured stellar parallax of earth’s orbit.
1851 Foucault's Pendulum proved the earth rotates.
IEEE ELECTONICS MILESTONES: 100 years
1910 Vacuum tube invented.
1947 Transistor invented by Bardeen, Brattain, & Shockley
1958. Invention of Integrated Circuits by Kilby & Noyce
1972 Texas Instruments patented a electronic camera making
digital image processing possible (CCD).
1995 Discovery of large gassy planet orbiting a star.

The star & its planets rotate about a common center of gravity,
resulting in a wobble in the orbit of the star and Doppler Shifts.

SPECTROMETER for MEASURING the DOPPLER
SHIFTS of WOBBLING STARS

”Are there other planets in space similar to our own
that contain living beings?"
Soon, for the first time in history, we will have the
technology to find more of them.

Feb 2010, Stars with planets: 362
Number of planets observed: 429
ttp://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/

17
Most of new discoveries are gas giants like
Jupiter or Saturn and in the wrong location.
The right location in our solar system.

Most of them have highly elliptical orbits,
or are too close to their parent stars.
Many of the new planets get too
hot or too cold to support life.
Too hot! Too cold!Just right!

Tiny Area of Milky Way Yields Six-Planet Solar System
and 1200 Exo Planets (58 in Life-Zone Orbits)
February 2, 2011
* NASA’s Kepler telescope has found more than 1,200
extrasolar planet candidates.
* Smaller worlds, like Earth, appear to be more common
than gas giants, like Jupiter.
* One six-planet system is unique in that the planets orbit
very close to their sun.

PROPOSED DEBATE ON
LIFE in the UNIVERSE
Between
Cosmologist, CARL SAGAN (1934 – 1996)
Believed the Drake Equation suggested that many kinds of intelligent
life could form, but that the lack of evidence suggests that intelligent
beings destroy themselves rather quickly.
And
Evolutionary biologist, ERNST MAYR (1904 - 2005, Bedford, MA)
Single cell life in the universe is very likely,
but intelligent life very rare.

Figure from “Cosmic Dawn” by Eric Chaisson
EMERGENCE OF LIFE ON EARTH

LIFE on EARTH
Single celled life for billions of years.
Cambrian Explosion of Multicelled life, 600 million years ago.

The earth and our solar system began 4.5 billion years ago

This monument to Bruno was erected in 1889 at the
place he was executed, Campo de Fiori in Rome.

• In 1992, Pope John Paul said the Roman Catholic
Church had erred in condemning Galileo.
• He expressed "profound sorrow" and acknowledged
error in Bruno's condemnation to death.

In contrast to Bruno, Dominican monk Francisco Ayala was born
in Spain in 1934 and ordained in 1960. The next year he came to the
US where he earned a Ph. D. at Columbia University in
evolutionary biology. He has been President of Sigma Xi and the
American Association for the Advancement of Science and was
recently awarded the $1.6M Templeton Prize for progress in
spiritual reality. Ayala believes that religion and science offer
complementary windows for viewing the world.

AMERICAN SCIENTIST, July-August 2011
ALONE IN THE UNIVERSE
Despite the growing catalog of extrasolar planets, data so far do
not alter estimates that we are effectively on our own
Howard A. Smith
This artist’s impression shows
the planet HD 189733b, about
63 light-years from Earth,
which is known to have water
and methane in its atmosphere,
although at temperatures over
1,000 degrees Celsius.
However, data from extrasolar
planets so far do not alter
estimates that we are probably
alone in the universe, for all
practical purposes.

“…Life on earth is precious and deserves
supreme respect. Even if we are not
unique in the universe-though we may
not know one way of another for eons-we
are fortunate. We have a responsibility
to act with compassion toward people
and our fragile environment.”
Howard Smith

Long-Term Life on Earth vs. Near-Term Economic Gain:
President Obama’s Decision on building a Pipeline from the
Canadian Tar Sands to the US Gulf Coast
Dr. James Hansen, NASA: phasing out coal burning in 20 years will
result on CO2 emissions decreasing. If Tar Sands are mined, C02
emissions will increase and “the game will be over.”
“We have to figure out how to live without fossil fuels someday…
Why not now?” Hansen

Fires Are Increasing World-Wide
Source: Westerling et al. 2006
Western US area burned
Wildfires in Western US have increased 4-fold in 30 years.

Dr. Hansen has joined Bill McKibben’s demonstration outside the
White House http://www.tarsandsaction.org/
The IEEE can contribute to a long-term solution: renewable energy
from solar, wind, biofuels, and nuclear.
INNOVATE or EVAPORATE!

Innovative SOLAR UPDRAFT TOWER
Aug 2011, a contractor was selected to build two 200 MW Solar
Updraft Towers in Western Arizona. Construction Cost $0.15/Watt
SOLAR ENERGY FROM OUR STAR IS FOREVER (5 B YEARS)

ASTRONOMY MILESTONEs 300 years.
1543 Copernicus: Heliocentric solar system
1584 Bruno: “Countless suns with countless earths”
1609 Galileo: First astronomer to use the telescope.
1687 Newton’s Laws of Gravity and Motion.
1725 Bradley measured stellar parallax of earth’s orbit.
1851 Foucault's Pendulum proved the earth rotates.
IEEE ELECTONICS MILESTONES: 100 years
1910 Vacuum tube invented.
1947 Transistor invented by Bardeen, Brattain, & Shockley
1958. Invention of Integrated Circuits by Kilby & Noyce
1972 Texas Instruments patented a electronic camera making
digital image processing possible.
1995 Discovery of large gassy planet orbiting a star.

To Learn More
BEAUTY in Science & Spirit
Chapter 3:
“From the 'Music of the Spheres' to the Big Bang's
Whisper.” http://
mirrorofnature.org/BBookCONTENTS.html
Atmospheric CO2: Principal control knob
governing Earth's temperature.
Science 2010:, 330, 356-359,
doi:10.1126/science.1190653. byLacis, A.A,
G.A. Schmidt, D. Rind, and R.A. Ruedy.
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/abstract.cgi
=la09300d

Dec 5, 2011, Kepler 22b. Best candidate for life.
600 light years away, orbiting sun-like star
Temperature 72F, Year 290 days.
Is it rocky like our earth? Does it have an atmosphere?