Martians

parallaxicality · #1 (**permalink**) 23-January-2005, 09:17 PM

In preparation for the double-header of cinema adeptations headed our way this summer, I was re-reading The War of the Worlds for the first time in years recently and I was struck by how far HG Wells went to justify the existence of intelligent Martians on scientific grounds.

I thought it would be interesting to look back on Wells's Victorian deductions on the Red Planet, examine his arguments, and refute or update them. I was wondering if it was still possible, with our current knowledge of Mars, to create a plausable argument for the existence of intelligent inhabitants.

Quote:

The planet Mars, I scarcely need remind the reader, revolves about the sun at a mean distance of 140,000,000 miles, and the light and heat it receives from the sun is barely half of that received by this world. It must be, if the nebular hypothesis has any truth, older than our world; and long before this earth ceased to be molten, life upon its surface must have begun its course. The fact that it is scarcely one seventh of the volume of the earth must have accelerated its cooling to the temperature at which life could begin. It has air and water and all that is necessary for the support of animated existence.

Quote:

The secular cooling that must someday overtake our planet has already gone far indeed with our neighbour. Its physical condition is still largely a mystery, but we know now that even in its equatorial region the midday temperature barely approaches that of our coldest winter. Its air is much more attenuated than ours, its oceans have shrunk until they cover but a third of its surface, and as its slow seasons change huge snowcaps gather and melt about either pole and periodically inundate its temperate zones.

SkepticJ · #2 (**permalink**) 23-January-2005, 10:00 PM

Before Mars lost its magnetic field it could have had a nice thick atmosphere. Once it went down though the solar wind blew most of it away. Mars's gravity is so low it couldn't hold onto it. There might be subsurface life(as we know it) on Mars still, we just have to look. Intelligent life, um, probably not.

It's still a good book writen to the best knowledge of the day. It's kind of like the quote from the book 2001:ASO where it says the moon was never part of the Earth due to isotope studies. This was before the lunar landings and we now know the moon did come from the Earth.

tofu · #3 (**permalink**) 24-January-2005, 07:38 PM

My mom has been a school teacher for more than 20 years. I remember once when I was much younger, she had cleaned out her classroom and brought home a big stack of old books so that she could decide which ones to keep and which to throw away. One of the books was about the solar system. The book used a question and answer format, and one of the questions was, "how do scientists know there is life on mars." The answer had to do with observations of seasonal changes on the surface. Unfortunately, I was too young to appreciate the historic significance of it. I just laughed and (arrogantly) commented about how little people must have known about the solar system. My mom threw the book away but now I wish I would have asked her to keep it. I think it must have been published in the mid 1950's. The question was phrased exactly as I've written it. "How do we know...?" It was very matter-of-fact. Very typical of the '50s.

There isn't any obvious life on the surface of mars. We know that now only because we have a lot more data than they had back then. So the answer to the original question is, to believe there is life on Mars, you'd just have to pretend that you don't have all the data.

Weird Dave · #4 (**permalink**) 24-January-2005, 10:18 PM

We know that Martians exist, because of the canals they built. What should REALLY scare us is that they went to all the trouble to hide them as soon as we built decent telescopes...

:-k

Seriously though, that's the line I would take if I was filming WotW. Then I could open with the camera flying across a realistic Martian terrain before diving below the surface, to reveal vast caves full of water and vegetation, and a giant gun slowly being manouvered into place...

Did I mention that Jeff Wayne's music would be playing?

parallaxicality · #5 (**permalink**) 25-January-2005, 05:34 PM

I'm sorry; looking back I don't think I stated my question very clearly. Wells used up-to-the-minute science as a justification for his speculations. He even (I think) referenced an actual paper published in Nature in 1894.

Quote:

During the opposition of 1894 a great light was seen on the illuminated part of the disk, first at the Lick Observatory, then by Perrotin of Nice, and then by other observers. English readers heard of it first in the issue of Nature dated August 2. I am inclined to think that this blaze may have been the casting of the huge gun, in the vast pit sunk into their planet, from which their shots were fired at us. Peculiar markings, as yet unexplained, were seen near the site of that outbreak during the next two oppositions.

If one were making a modern-set version of the story (and Stephen Spielberg is doing just that), it would seem, if one wanted to remain true to the spirit of Wells's novel, that one would have to use up to the minute science to justify the story.

I like your idea Weird Dave; I suppose the only way to make a Martian invasion even remotely probable would be to have them be underground. After all, since Mars no longer has a molten core, the Martians could go as deep as they want.

skrap1r0n · #6 (**permalink**) 25-January-2005, 06:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by parallaxicality

I'm sorry; looking back I don't think I stated my question very clearly. Wells used up-to-the-minute science as a justification for his speculations. He even (I think) referenced an actual paper published in Nature in 1894.

Quote:

During the opposition of 1894 a great light was seen on the illuminated part of the disk, first at the Lick Observatory, then by Perrotin of Nice, and then by other observers. English readers heard of it first in the issue of Nature dated August 2. I am inclined to think that this blaze may have been the casting of the huge gun, in the vast pit sunk into their planet, from which their shots were fired at us. Peculiar markings, as yet unexplained, were seen near the site of that outbreak during the next two oppositions.

If one were making a modern-set version of the story (and Stephen Spielberg is doing just that), it would seem, if one wanted to remain true to the spirit of Wells's novel, that one would have to use up to the minute science to justify the story.

I like your idea Weird Dave; I suppose the only way to make a Martian invasion even remotely probable would be to have them be underground. After all, since Mars no longer has a molten core, the Martians could go as deep as they want.

Nope, they could only go as deep as the radius, then they would be surfacing again

skrap1r0n · #7 (**permalink**) 25-January-2005, 06:48 PM

double post

parallaxicality · #8 (**permalink**) 25-January-2005, 07:45 PM

I kinda took that point as understood in my previous post, skrapiron

skrap1r0n · #9 (**permalink**) 25-January-2005, 08:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by parallaxicality

I kinda took that point as understood in my previous post, skrapiron

Sorry I forgot the

beck0311 · #10 (**permalink**) 25-January-2005, 08:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by skrap1r0n

Nope, they could only go as deep as the radius, then they would be surfacing again

If they dug down as deep as the radius they would only be half way to the surface. #-o

EDIT: Ohhhh...you said surfacing. I read it 3 times and my feeble brain kept filling in "at the surface". As usual, I'm the idiot, here.

Doodler · #11 (**permalink**) 25-January-2005, 09:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by beck0311

Quote:

Originally Posted by skrap1r0n

Nope, they could only go as deep as the radius, then they would be surfacing again

If they dug down as deep as the radius they would only be half way to the surface. #-o

I believe we've added a new dimension to debating. A spherical arguement. =D>

Weird Dave · #12 (**permalink**) 25-January-2005, 10:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by parallaxicality

I'm sorry; looking back I don't think I stated my question very clearly. Wells used up-to-the-minute science as a justification for his speculations. He even (I think) referenced an actual paper published in Nature in 1894.

Quote:

During the opposition of 1894 a great light was seen on the illuminated part of the disk, first at the Lick Observatory, then by Perrotin of Nice, and then by other observers. English readers heard of it first in the issue of Nature dated August 2. I am inclined to think that this blaze may have been the casting of the huge gun, in the vast pit sunk into their planet, from which their shots were fired at us. Peculiar markings, as yet unexplained, were seen near the site of that outbreak during the next two oppositions.

If one were making a modern-set version of the story (and Stephen Spielberg is doing just that), it would seem, if one wanted to remain true to the spirit of Wells's novel, that one would have to use up to the minute science to justify the story.

I like this idea. Perhaps Spielberg could suggest that "failed" Mars probes like Beagle 2 were shot down because they were getting too close to signs of civilization? As for that observation, I might try to look it up in the library. If it is true, could it have been a volcanic eruption or a meteorite? I might start a new topic in Martian Chronicles if I find anything interesting.

DataCable · #13 (**permalink**) 26-January-2005, 06:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Weird Dave

Perhaps Spielberg could suggest that "failed" Mars probes like Beagle 2 were shot down because they were getting too close to signs of civilization?

...Only to be sued for plagarism by the conspiracy nuts who've already conclusively declared that's what happened. :roll:

Weird Dave · #14 (**permalink**) 09-February-2005, 12:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Weird Dave

Quote:

Originally Posted by parallaxicality

I'm sorry; looking back I don't think I stated my question very clearly. Wells used up-to-the-minute science as a justification for his speculations. He even (I think) referenced an actual paper published in Nature in 1894.

Quote:

During the opposition of 1894 a great light was seen on the illuminated part of the disk, first at the Lick Observatory, then by Perrotin of Nice, and then by other observers. English readers heard of it first in the issue of Nature dated August 2. I am inclined to think that this blaze may have been the casting of the huge gun, in the vast pit sunk into their planet, from which their shots were fired at us. Peculiar markings, as yet unexplained, were seen near the site of that outbreak during the next two oppositions.

If one were making a modern-set version of the story (and Stephen Spielberg is doing just that), it would seem, if one wanted to remain true to the spirit of Wells's novel, that one would have to use up to the minute science to justify the story.

I like this idea. Perhaps Spielberg could suggest that "failed" Mars probes like Beagle 2 were shot down because they were getting too close to signs of civilization? As for that observation, I might try to look it up in the library. If it is true, could it have been a volcanic eruption or a meteorite? I might start a new topic in Martian Chronicles if I find anything interesting.

I've done that, at last. Here it is.

Van Rijn · #15 (**permalink**) 09-February-2005, 08:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tofu

My mom has been a school teacher for more than 20 years. I remember once when I was much younger, she had cleaned out her classroom and brought home a big stack of old books so that she could decide which ones to keep and which to throw away. One of the books was about the solar system. The book used a question and answer format, and one of the questions was, "how do scientists know there is life on mars." The answer had to do with observations of seasonal changes on the surface. Unfortunately, I was too young to appreciate the historic significance of it. I just laughed and (arrogantly) commented about how little people must have known about the solar system. My mom threw the book away but now I wish I would have asked her to keep it. I think it must have been published in the mid 1950's. The question was phrased exactly as I've written it. "How do we know...?" It was very matter-of-fact. Very typical of the '50s.

How true this is. There was a huge wave of new information about the solar system starting in the mid '60s and increasing greatly during the '70s. The solar system "changed" in waves, over and over. My picture of the solar system today is very different from what it was in grade school. It wasn't unusual for an astronomy textbook to become obsolete overnight. It is a bit hard for people to understand today just how LITTLE we knew back then about any of the other planets. It was easy to fill in the things you didn't know with what you wanted to find. Scientific texts tended to be more guarded than popular or general teaching material, but there were many incorrect assumptions everywhere.

I feel a bit of deja vu when I see current bits about all we have learned about exoplanets and what they mean, related to the prospect of ET life, etc. We know some are there - which is great - but there is so much more we don't know.

parallaxicality · #16 (**permalink**) 11-February-2005, 09:38 PM

I just wanted to say thanks Weird Dave, for doing that wonderful bit of investigation. I don't really have much to add, unfortunately, since I don't have a scientific background. I can at least say this thread gave birth to your thread; unfortunately, this thread's main topic is pretty pointless now, because it's been revealed that the aliens in the WotW remake won't be from Mars.

Weird Dave · #17 (**permalink**) 13-February-2005, 05:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by parallaxicality

I just wanted to say thanks Weird Dave, for doing that wonderful bit of investigation. I don't really have much to add, unfortunately, since I don't have a scientific background. I can at least say this thread gave birth to your thread; unfortunately, this thread's main topic is pretty pointless now, because it's been revealed that the aliens in the WotW remake won't be from Mars.

It wasn't that hard. All I had to do was go upstairs from my lecture to the library. The only hard part was not being scared of very old books.

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