There is a theory that if alien life exists, those organisms will be roughly our size. The reasoning is that you can’t achieve advanced civilisation without fire, and you can’t tend a fire if you’re much smaller or larger than a human.
Not my theory, but an interesting thing to consider
I don’t know specifically about fire but I think the square-cube law plays a significant factor in the idea that alien life would be similar in scale to humans.
But maybe you wouldn’t need as much fire cause bigger animals tend to hold heat better?
I thought the same thing. Then again, fire is not only needed for heat, but also for cooking food and creating new materials (metallurgy essentially). But surely a large creature could just make fires the same size as humans do if they needed to do those things? But perhaps it’d be impractical to cook food at a tiny fire hehe
I find that theory fascinating, as well as the one where it would have to be carbon based like us because chemistry. (Silicon a distant second on supporting chemistry that a life form might need)
Then intelligent life would need to be land based because you can’t easily do things requiring heat without an oxygen atmosphere and something to burn (an octopus or porpoise might be intelligent but that’s a dead end without fire)
To be space faring, your planet couldn’t have much more gravity than earth, else chemical rockets wouldn’t work
At what point is it usefully generalizing on what any life form would need vs where are preconceptions limiting your thinking?
Fire is a thermodynamics problem, so it relates to area and volume, not gravity.
Gravity does impact creature size, however. A lower-gravity environment supports larger creatures, higher forces creatures to go smaller. Thought is a chemical process though, so that would have a minimum size as well.
There is a theory that if alien life exists, those organisms will be roughly our size. The reasoning is that you can’t achieve advanced civilisation without fire, and you can’t tend a fire if you’re much smaller or larger than a human.
Not my theory, but an interesting thing to consider
Smaller I suppose, but larger? Why not? Wouldn’t you just have a really large fire?
I don’t know specifically about fire but I think the square-cube law plays a significant factor in the idea that alien life would be similar in scale to humans.
Bigger fires burn out quicker cause they burn hotter.
But maybe you wouldn’t need as much fire cause bigger animals tend to hold heat better?
Curious what the actual research reasoning would be.
I thought the same thing. Then again, fire is not only needed for heat, but also for cooking food and creating new materials (metallurgy essentially). But surely a large creature could just make fires the same size as humans do if they needed to do those things? But perhaps it’d be impractical to cook food at a tiny fire hehe
I find that theory fascinating, as well as the one where it would have to be carbon based like us because chemistry. (Silicon a distant second on supporting chemistry that a life form might need)
Then intelligent life would need to be land based because you can’t easily do things requiring heat without an oxygen atmosphere and something to burn (an octopus or porpoise might be intelligent but that’s a dead end without fire)
To be space faring, your planet couldn’t have much more gravity than earth, else chemical rockets wouldn’t work
At what point is it usefully generalizing on what any life form would need vs where are preconceptions limiting your thinking?
What about using heat from geothermal vents?
I’ve never heard that before! It’s interesting.
I think it depends a ton on environmental conditions. Could combustion on planets with different gravity and pressure take place at different scales?
Fire is a thermodynamics problem, so it relates to area and volume, not gravity.
Gravity does impact creature size, however. A lower-gravity environment supports larger creatures, higher forces creatures to go smaller. Thought is a chemical process though, so that would have a minimum size as well.