Scientists have found a treatise Churchill about the existence of extraterrestrial life
MOSCOW, 15 Feb — RIA Novosti. Historians have discovered a previously unknown article by Winston Churchill about extraterrestrial life, in which he said about the possibility of the existence of living beings from distant stars, writes the journal Nature.
“Recently, the Director of the Churchill Museum in Fulton handed me an 11-page article, “are we Alone in the Universe?”, written by sir Winston. Churchill’s thoughts were much the same then as it is today argue modern xenobiologists. Overall, he builds his ideas about extraterrestrial life in the modern Copernican principle — the idea that the Earth is not unique, and that it does not play a special role in the life of the Universe,” says Mario Livio (Mario Livio), an astrophysicist from the space telescope Institute in Baltimore (USA).
“Are we alone in the Universe?”
According to Livio, Churchill all his life was interested in the latest achievements of science and regularly read the most important scientific treatises of his time and published in the early years of his life several popular scientific works devoted to the evolution of life and the structure of cells. Later he predicted the discovery of thermonuclear reactions and pointed out its importance for human development.
Churchill was the first Prime Minister of great Britain, who was Advisor for science and deliberately developed it, including for the fight against Nazi Germany
As it turned out, Churchill’s interests were not confined to the theory of evolution and nuclear physics. Last year, says Livio, Director of the Churchill Museum in Fulton, the famous American gave him the manuscript of the Prime Minister, which he wrote at the end of 1939, shortly before the Second world war.
What inspired Churchill to write such an article in such a difficult time? According to Livio, the reason for the preparation and writing of this work was that in 1938, radio USA and Britain began to broadcast a radio version of the famous “war of the worlds”, Hg wells novel, written in 1898. It is possible that Churchill decided to present its own answer to the question “are we Alone in the Universe?” to maintain the reputation of Amateur science on the wave of popularity Radiorama.
This article, apparently, was to be published in one of the periodicals, where Churchill published his column, but something prevented him from doing so. He later added and rewrote part of the article at the end of the 1950s, before the publication of his memoirs, giving an article to a friend to emery Reves, who never published and was not told about it. As a result of it, no one knew until may 2016 until she accidentally found the Museum’s Director, Timothy Riley.
Article, first reviewer, which, by the will of fate, became Livio was very serious for its time, and it quite corresponds to what scientists think of the search for extraterrestrial life.
As modern xenobiologists, Churchill linked the existence of life in the first place with availability of water and the ability of living organisms to multiply and divide
Victorian cosmism
Another key concept of modern science of extraterrestrial life, followed by Churchill — the idea of the existence of the so-called “life zones” of distant stars. He knew that water in liquid form can only exist at a certain distance from the star, and that the search for life should focus on planets that is within this “zone of life”.
Churchill correctly identified before this question is interested in serious scientists that life in the Solar system, besides Earth, could only exist on Venus and Mars and in other regions of the country or too hot, like mercury, nor too cold, as beyond the orbit of Mars. He believed possible travel to the moon, Venus and Mars, whereas interstellar flight he imagined a much more complex thing because of the large delays in the communication systems.
From the point of view of the presence of life outside the Solar system, the British Prime Minister also held very modern views. He believed the Sun is an ordinary star, and questioned the fairness of the popular in his time the theory that the planet was the result of an unsuccessful meeting of the Sun and other stars, “breaking” a piece of matter of the Sun. Churchill drew attention to the fact that in our Galaxy have been formed millions of binary stars, as indicated, in his opinion, the presence of an equally large number of planetary systems.
In his opinion, some of these planets will be in the “zone of life”, and on their surface will develop the right conditions for the emergence of primitive life forms.
Therefore, we can say that Churchill was one of the first seriously thinking about the existence of alien life, although he believed that we hardly ever get to meet her
“Given the existence of hundreds of thousands of galaxies in which they live billions of stars, there are huge chances that in the Universe there are innumerable planets where there were conditions favorable for the origin of life. I’m not ready to believe that we are the pinnacle of cosmic evolution, and that only on Earth there are living, sentient beings” — with these words, Churchill concludes his article.