Closing Statement
We are at a time in our history when we have built telescopes that we have been able to put in
space. They have enabled us to detect some of the tiny specks orbiting other stars that are
planets, tiny specks that we always guessed should exist if our theory was right that planets
orbiting other stars are common place. Some of these planets that we have found have turned
out to be like the Earth, solid and at the right distance from their star to not be to hot for water
to vaporize, or too far for it to freeze, but for it exist in its liquid phase, a condition we believe to
be necessary for life to happen as we understand it.
We are further at a time in our development where we can leave the Earth and explore some of
the planets orbiting our star, the Sun. Our technology in the realm of computing power, as
achieved with solid state technology and integrated circuitry in our computers has taken off into
beyond what we ever dreamed it would reach so early on. It has enabled us make robotic landers
and send them to Mars to send back information about its terrain, whether it has water and can
be colonized, a necessity for us to do because resources on Earth are finite, and our survival in
the end depends on us being able to expand out into space.
But these are interplanetary missions, and in the end we need to travel between the stars. While
the planets orbiting our Sun are accessible — it takes about a year with current technology to get
to Mars — the distances between the stars are immense, with current technology it would take
thousands of years to reach the nearest one. Space is inhospitable: its is cold and devoid of air, it
is a major undertaking just to leave the Earth and go to the Moon that takes months of planning;
we can’t just press a button and take off and go their at anytime we wish.
But computers are not just making developments in the physical and biological sciences, giving
us an idea or our origins, where we going, and what we are about, they are making
advancements in our ability to engineer better ones of them, themselves; the ability to make
more complex computations quicker and store information in smaller and smaller volumes.
With such computing power we may be able to develop a way to not just travel to the planets of
our star system, but to travel to the planets of other star systems.
This I believe is important to do. Especially in light of this study. Because, through it, we see the
solar system and the atom have a profound structure mathematically that is connected, and we
have to ask, why our solar system has this apparent design, and the Earth has such favorable
conditions to support life over the billions years needed for life to develop into something as
sophisticated as the human, that can alter its environment in it favor to such a degree that no
other animal has ever achieved.
We have to ask if this not just true of our star system, but of other star systems; there are many
kinds of stars, big hot ones, and small cool ones. If our solar system in its mathematical
structure reveals so much about us, what does the mathematical structure of other star systems
reveal about the inhabitants of their planets? Are the different star systems related but different,
and if so what would that tell us about our purpose in life, or its meaning?
In order to to make the jump to the stars, we have to undergo an expansion of consciousness to
adapt to space travel and its implications. It may be we will soon find that there is already a
social structure for the different worlds in common that allows for the different space faring
civilizations to function together, and that Earth might be invited to join such an intergalactic
community. I leave this paraphrasing a poem by the astronomer Carl Sagan:
The surface of the Earth is the shore of cosmic ocean
From it we have learned most of what we know
Some part of our being knows this is from where we came