data and a mathematical formula.”
“Formu lae ,” Stephen corrected with a polite cough.
Thomas spun around to him. “Excuse me?”
Stephen sank back to the flats of his feet. “Um, plural. Formu las , then.”
Thomas huffed and turned back to Catherine. “Formulae, formulas—regardless. Pixels,” he said, “on a screen.”
Ajay interjected, “Technically, to us, it is pixels on a screen. I suppose if they were sentient, we’d have a very large bridge to cross, shall it come to that. The implications would be huge. Besides, if life develops—particularly in a way that is familiar to us—we’d have more information and knowledge about our universe and physics in general than anyone else on Earth—the real world. Though, at the end of the day, their presumptively hypothetical ‘lives’ remain pixels on a screen.”
Catherine said, “Sorry for the interruption, then.” She waved dismissively toward Don, obviously pissed at being talked down to by Thomas and Ajay. “By all means, proceed.”
Thomas inhaled deeply and picked up where he had left off. “Don’s going to walk us through a process we can use for finding planetary systems that might be suitable for life.”
“Thanks,” Don said.
He glanced at everyone and turned tentatively to the dry-erase board. These dry-erase boards, unlike the ones in the Rack, were frosted glass, mounted flush in the walls, and lit from behind. Perhaps the neatest thing about them was the button on the bottom right corner—simply pressing it released a charge of static electricity, and the boards would “erase” themselves. Of course, before they erased themselves, a snapshot was taken and placed in a shared folder to be viewed by anyone with the proper security clearance for that room.
Don drew a rough representation of a galaxy.
“This is an average spiral galaxy. It is one of the three main types of galaxies—”
Ajay yawned audibly. In the last few years, he had grown more dismissive of the need for academics to want to teach, or in many cases, pontificate as part of this process. He, of course, was entirely unaware of his own tendency to do this.
Don ignored him. “The other two types,” he said, “are elliptical and irregular. Gotta love the sweeping catchall classifications like ‘irregular.’ Anyway, life is much more likely to appear in a spiral galaxy because of the way stellar systems cluster and the fact that they are more likely to have more dense elements.”
“So to narrow our search, we will look specifically at spiral galaxies. I won’t draw it, but there are also certain areas in the universe, based mostly on age, where galaxies are probably at the right point in their development process. Closest to the edge of the universe are the oldest galaxies, but they are light on the heavy elements that are necessary for life and even most planets to develop. The opposite is also true. Too close to the center of the universe and things aren’t fully formed. Lots of activity can impact the stability of stellar systems, even galaxies.
“The problem is that there are hundreds of billions, maybe even a trillion or more, of galaxies. In our universe, the Hubble space telescope project estimated one hundred and seventy-six billion galaxies. Another study says there are over five hundred billion. Eventually, we’ll be able to count the galaxies in our simulated universe, but that work is not even close to being done.
“Once we identify some galaxies that might be good targets, we’ll be able to narrow our search. We’ll focus in the spiral arms. Stars will populate these areas less densely, which is good. Too many stars in close proximity, such as a globular cluster or areas closer to a galactic core, could result in planets that never have a night or can create overlapping gravity wells. These could possibly result in only minor effects, but I believe that possibility is too small to risk. I suspect instead that these effects will,
“Formu lae ,” Stephen corrected with a polite cough.
Thomas spun around to him. “Excuse me?”
Stephen sank back to the flats of his feet. “Um, plural. Formu las , then.”
Thomas huffed and turned back to Catherine. “Formulae, formulas—regardless. Pixels,” he said, “on a screen.”
Ajay interjected, “Technically, to us, it is pixels on a screen. I suppose if they were sentient, we’d have a very large bridge to cross, shall it come to that. The implications would be huge. Besides, if life develops—particularly in a way that is familiar to us—we’d have more information and knowledge about our universe and physics in general than anyone else on Earth—the real world. Though, at the end of the day, their presumptively hypothetical ‘lives’ remain pixels on a screen.”
Catherine said, “Sorry for the interruption, then.” She waved dismissively toward Don, obviously pissed at being talked down to by Thomas and Ajay. “By all means, proceed.”
Thomas inhaled deeply and picked up where he had left off. “Don’s going to walk us through a process we can use for finding planetary systems that might be suitable for life.”
“Thanks,” Don said.
He glanced at everyone and turned tentatively to the dry-erase board. These dry-erase boards, unlike the ones in the Rack, were frosted glass, mounted flush in the walls, and lit from behind. Perhaps the neatest thing about them was the button on the bottom right corner—simply pressing it released a charge of static electricity, and the boards would “erase” themselves. Of course, before they erased themselves, a snapshot was taken and placed in a shared folder to be viewed by anyone with the proper security clearance for that room.
Don drew a rough representation of a galaxy.
“This is an average spiral galaxy. It is one of the three main types of galaxies—”
Ajay yawned audibly. In the last few years, he had grown more dismissive of the need for academics to want to teach, or in many cases, pontificate as part of this process. He, of course, was entirely unaware of his own tendency to do this.
Don ignored him. “The other two types,” he said, “are elliptical and irregular. Gotta love the sweeping catchall classifications like ‘irregular.’ Anyway, life is much more likely to appear in a spiral galaxy because of the way stellar systems cluster and the fact that they are more likely to have more dense elements.”
“So to narrow our search, we will look specifically at spiral galaxies. I won’t draw it, but there are also certain areas in the universe, based mostly on age, where galaxies are probably at the right point in their development process. Closest to the edge of the universe are the oldest galaxies, but they are light on the heavy elements that are necessary for life and even most planets to develop. The opposite is also true. Too close to the center of the universe and things aren’t fully formed. Lots of activity can impact the stability of stellar systems, even galaxies.
“The problem is that there are hundreds of billions, maybe even a trillion or more, of galaxies. In our universe, the Hubble space telescope project estimated one hundred and seventy-six billion galaxies. Another study says there are over five hundred billion. Eventually, we’ll be able to count the galaxies in our simulated universe, but that work is not even close to being done.
“Once we identify some galaxies that might be good targets, we’ll be able to narrow our search. We’ll focus in the spiral arms. Stars will populate these areas less densely, which is good. Too many stars in close proximity, such as a globular cluster or areas closer to a galactic core, could result in planets that never have a night or can create overlapping gravity wells. These could possibly result in only minor effects, but I believe that possibility is too small to risk. I suspect instead that these effects will,
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