Gazing into space, again...

About those 'reaction wheels'....is that kiddie-speak for 'gyros'? And Kepler isn't just 'semi-retired', it's evidently dead, period. A Hubble, it's not, unfortunately.

It's postulated that there's billions of Earth-like solid-bodied planets orbiting the billions of Sun-like stars (a main sequence, Population 1, yellow dwarf star) in just our own galaxy, and there's unknown billions of galaxies. So we've still got the same kind of problem those ancient Egyptian star-gazers had as they looked at the heavens on a clear moonless night those several thousand years ago; we're still asking ourselves, like Pink Floyd in one of their hit albums, "Is there anybody out there?" And there's been no reply yet from 'ET'. 

I have a theory about that. It's very possible ET may have already intercepted some of those radio and TV signals that have been flying off into space now for 
some 77 years or so, and perhaps rightly concluded that he, she, or it wants no part of those backward, war-like, and more than slightly loonie humans who inhabit this whatever-it-is here. Can't say as I'd blame old he, she, or it for feeling that way. Especially if they've watched a variety of our TV commercials   portraying most of us as simple-minded boobs who spend far too much of our time and energy primping, preening, and applying or removing various cosmetics and items of clothing, or hunting for nourishment at various buildings with small dispensing windows and big colorful signs, or looking at the newest devices for creating something we call 'gridlock'. If I was an ET, I'd be keeping a safe distance from all that myself, wouldn't you?

And today's Question Everything, in keeping with the above, is: "If we were on one electron orbiting one atom's nucleus inside an elephant's toenail, how could we possibly know we were part of an elephant?" We couldn't, of course - and that's the problem: given our limited perspective, and looking outward far enough, our known science, technology, philosophy, and religion all blends together into an inseparable mass of unanswered questions. We have hints, speculations, guesses, hopes, and a lot of fervent wishes, but no absolutely conclusive answers. Of the possible knowledge in the known universe, we presently possess a percentage in the single digits; someone said '4%' but even that is unprovable. In any case, it isn't a lot. So let's keep trying, shall we?