如果在我們這個時代之前數百萬年地球上就存在工業(yè)文明,它會留下什么痕跡,今天還能探測到嗎?
If an industrial civilization had existed on Earth many millions of years prior to our own era, what traces would it have left, and would they be detectable today?譯文簡介
網友:這取決于他們的工業(yè)化程度,我們的地球周圍已經滿是工業(yè)粉塵,在未來很長一段時間里,這些塵埃將會出現在冰冰核等事物中。我們也已經開采了大部分資源,如石油、煤炭,如果這些東西未能出現在你期望的地方,未來的科學家們會覺得很奇怪......
正文翻譯
圖
評論翻譯
很贊 ( 3 )
收藏
By industrial I believe you mean pre-space and are talking about the Industrial revolution era.
So there are several things they would have left behind.
Industrial Pollutants in atmosphere
Any industrial civilisation would have left behind a changed atmosphere. Heavy pollutants and waste products would definitely exist. However this is just an industrial age civilisation we’re talking about. If we look at our own pollution levels, we see that in 19th century, this was all but negligible. Air pollution is not that serious yet, and here we have a civilisation which produces a fraction of what we produce, and the air as a whole has not brought any health issues in most areas of the world.
And this is millions of years ago. So this will not be detectable at all.
Environment Changes
Any civilisation will significantly alter their environment. They will build structures and clear forests. Already humans have changed the world in ways unimaginable making huge changes to the land around us. However, once again, 2 factors come into play which completely nullify this. They are an industrial civilisation. They produce a fraction of our energy, and they have a fraction of our population, and a fractions of our production and change to the environment. Whatever we do, they will be far less so. Even that though, is quite a bit, and in the more densely populated areas, there will be more change. But the 2nd factor, time - millions of years - nullifies this completely. Concrete, one of our most widely used building materials, has an average lifespan of 100 years. Mount Toba’s supervolcano eruption, which reduced Earth’s human population to 30000, was 75000 years ago. And hardly a trace. And millions of years? Not a chance.
我相信你所說的工業(yè)化是指前太空時代,是指工業(yè)革命時代。
所以有幾樣東西他們會留下:
#大氣中的工業(yè)污染物
任何工業(yè)文明的存在都會改變大氣層,重污染物和廢物肯定會存在,然而,如果我們談論的只是工業(yè)文明,我們可以看看我們自己的污染水平,我們會發(fā)現在19世紀,這種程度的污染幾乎是微不足道的,空氣污染還沒有那么嚴重,這期間的工業(yè)文明只占到了我們生產產量的一小部分,而且空氣作為一個整體在世界大多數地區(qū)并沒有帶來任何健康問題。
所以,如果是幾百萬年前的事情,這是不會被發(fā)現的。
#環(huán)境變化
任何文明都會顯著改變環(huán)境,他們將建造建筑物和清除森林,人類已經以難以想象的方式改變了世界,給我們周圍的土地帶來了巨大的變化,然而,再一次,有兩個因素起了作用,完全抵消了這一點,如果他們是一種工業(yè)文明,他們生產的能源只是我們的一小部分,他們的人口也只是我們的一小部分,他們的生產和對環(huán)境的改變便也只是我們的一小部分,他們所造成的影響要小得多,當然,即使這樣,其影響也相當多了,而且在人口更稠密的地區(qū),將會帶來更多的變化,但是,第二個因素,時間——數百萬年——完全足以抵消這一點。混凝土,我們最廣泛使用的建筑材料之一,其平均壽命為100年,托巴超級火山爆發(fā)發(fā)生在75000年前,當時地球上的人口只有30000人,其留下的痕跡幾乎消失了,如果是數百萬年前呢?更沒可能留下多少痕跡。
Even now we really haven’t used much of the Earth’s resources. Our deepest hole is 12 km. As someone once said, if the Earth was an apple, we wouldn’t have even pricked its skin. And that hole was for Science. Remeber this is an indsutrial civilisation, much less power-consuming than us. And there are millions of years as well. By then oil and all these resources will surely be replenished. We probably won’t even notice a major difference if they weren’t!
Fossils
This actually has a chance. If the population was widespread enough, we might eventually find a fossil or two. But no trace of that industrial civilisation. At all.
Disappearance of Species
It is hard enough to identify all the dinosaurs there are. There would be hundreds of thousands if not more. We probably will never notice the disappearance of those species that this civilisation drove into extinction. We don’t even know they exist!
Conclusion
1 million years is too much for an industrial civilisation to still make a mark. Never mind many millions. There will be almost no trace of them, and what effects we do find, we will likely not attribute it to them, but something else.
#發(fā)掘不同/較少的資源
即使是現在,我們也真的沒有使用多少地球上的資源,我們鉆探出來最深的洞也僅僅12公里,正如有人曾經說過的那樣,如果地球是一個蘋果,我們甚至都還沒有刺破它的皮膚,而且那個洞還是用于科學研究的,請記住,如果它是一個工業(yè)文明,那么它比我們所消耗的能源要少得多,何況時間還是數百萬年前,石油和所有其它資源一定會得到補充,我們甚至可能甚至不會注意到其間有什么大的區(qū)別!
#化石
這其實是有機會留下痕跡的,如果種群足夠廣泛,我們最終可能會發(fā)現一兩塊化石,但是不會有那個工業(yè)文明的痕跡,完全不會有。
#物種消失
要識別所有的恐龍已經很困難了,曾經存在的恐龍可能高達數十萬種,我們可能永遠也不會注意到那些被這種文明逼到滅絕邊緣的物種的消失,我們甚至不知道它們的存在!
#總結
對于一個工業(yè)文明來說,100萬年的時間太長了,更不用說數百萬年了,它們幾乎不會留下任何痕跡,而且即使我們發(fā)現了什么痕跡和影響,我們很可能也不會歸因于它們,而是歸因于別的什么東西。
It kind of depends on how industrial they were. We’ve already put a layer of industrial dust around the planet that will be seen in things like ices cores long into the future.
We've also extracted most of the resources like oil, coal, it would look strange to scientist in the future if stuff just wasn’t were you'd expect it to be.
We’ve dug holes deep underground that will only really be erased by continental shifts. We've done lots of major infrastructure like canals and islands.
We’ve done so much in so many places that some stuff is bound to survive in some shape or form.
If the civilisation was able to go into space then we should be able to see they’re space junk. Without space junk it means the civilisation probably never made it past the industrial age. Which kind of implies they never got advanced enough to wipe themselves out.
這取決于他們的工業(yè)化程度,我們的地球周圍已經滿是工業(yè)粉塵,在未來很長一段時間里,這些塵埃將會出現在冰冰核等事物中。
我們也已經開采了大部分資源,如石油、煤炭,如果這些東西未能出現在你期望的地方,未來的科學家們會覺得很奇怪。
我們在地底深處挖了一些洞,這些洞只有在大陸移動時才會真正被抹去,我們也建造了很多重要的基礎設施,如運河和人工島嶼。
我們做了這么多事情,有些東西一定會以某種形式存留下來。
如果該文明能夠進入太空,那么我們應該能夠看到他們的太空垃圾,如果沒有太空垃圾,那就意味著該文明可能從來沒有度過工業(yè)時代,這就意味著他們從未先進到足以消滅自己。
This is a question that comes up whenever people postulate some mystical pre-existing highly-technical “super-civilization” did all sorts of things: like levitating pyramid blocks or similar feats.
Evidence of a truly advanced industrial civilization would have left traces of purified and refined metals (steel (not iron or magnetite) as well as other alloy-types not found naturally).
Iron deposits worldwide, for example, do not have trace-amounts of manganese, chromium, vanadium, silicon, nickel, copper, and others that would be required to get the strength and characteristics needed to SUPPORT (pun intended) advanced structures.
Likewise Aluminum would likely have alloying elements (copper, zinc, magnesium, silicon, manganese and lithium) that are not found in or around deposits of bauxite—the common ore of aluminum.
Copper is another material that an advanced technical civilization would be expected to use—because of its versatility and usefulness in a wide range of applications. Copper has the OPPOSITE property: copper for electrical or electronics use is necessarily nearly pure (99.995+ % Cu) WITHOUT the other materials (sulphur, iron, carbon and oxygen).
Believers in the concept of a previous technically-advanced civilization hedge-their-bet by positing that some ceramic-based technical materials might have served at the base of a civilization. However, high-temperature fired ceramics (+- 1800 degrees C) have NOT been found anywhere, while the remains of any ceramics found at any archeologic sites are specifically low-temperature fired pottery.
The bottom line is: there just is not the required evidence—which there WOULD BE—if any million-year-old technical civilization had existed.
And there are no bone deposits, burial sites or ruins that would indicate civilization(s) from that time either. It appears the hypothesis lacks sufficient evidence to be considered anything other than a wistful belief in mysticism.
每當人們推測某些神秘的、先前存在的、高科技的“超級文明”做了各種各樣的事情時,這個問題就會出現:比如懸浮的金字塔塊或類似的壯舉。
一個真正先進的工業(yè)文明的證據會留下純化和精煉金屬的痕跡(鋼(不是鐵或磁鐵礦)以及其他自然界中沒有的合金)。
例如,全世界的鐵礦床都沒有錳、鉻、釩、硅、鎳、銅以及其它微量元素,而這些元素是支撐先進結構所需的強度和特性所必需的。
同樣,鋁中也可能含有合金元素(銅、鋅、鎂、硅、錳和鋰),而這些元素在鋁土礦——常見的鋁礦石中或周圍都沒有發(fā)現。
銅是另一種先進技術文明有望使用的材料——因為它應用廣泛,具有多種功能性和實用性,銅具有相反的特性:用于電氣或電子用途的銅必須幾近于純銅(99.995+%銅),不包含其他元素(硫、鐵、碳和氧)。
相信史前先進文明概念的人認為,一些以陶瓷為基礎的技術材料可能在文明的基礎上發(fā)揮作用,然而,現今發(fā)現的任何地方都沒有出現高溫燒制的陶瓷(+-1800攝氏度),而在考古遺址發(fā)現的任何陶瓷遺跡都屬于低溫燒制陶器。
很明顯:如果存在一個百萬年前的技術文明,其所需的證據是缺乏,真有這樣的文明,一定會留下證據。
而且,也沒有任何化石沉積物、埋葬地或廢墟可以證明那個時代存在文明,由此可見,這個假說缺乏足夠的證據,僅僅是對神秘主義的一種渴望、信仰。
For millions of years the only traces likely to be noticeable would be pockets of super high concentration of metallic ores and strange pockets of complex carbons that are unlikely to be made by living organisms.
數百萬年來,唯一可能被注意到的痕跡是一些超高純度的金屬礦石和一些奇怪的復雜碳化物,這些都是不太可能由生物體制造的。
If we can find Dinosaur bones, all over 65 million years old, we would certainly have no trouble in finding remnants of those putative civilizations. Remember, humans are on Earth only 200,000 years or so, so it would have to be another species.
如果我們能找到恐龍化石(它們的年齡都超過了6500萬年),那么我們肯定也能毫不費力地找到這些假定文明的遺跡。
記住,人類在地球上只有20萬年左右的歷史,所以這種文明如果存在必須得是另一個物種(創(chuàng)建的)。
While much would be completely gone because of the length of time involved, look at examples of what we can find from millions of years ago.
We can find bones, changes caused to the earth by digging, imprints from bones, leaves, flowers, insects, fossilized obxts, records of the composition of the air, pollutants and residues dropped through the air or water, etc. No level of industrial civilization could have existed without leaving vast traces that we could easily find, as easy as traces of dinosaurs having existed.Now, what might be interesting is to consider if a civilization similar to the early stages of the ancient Summerians or Egyptians might have begun during the last ice age near the ocean and because of the vast flooding which may have suddenly risen the ocean levels by 50 feet around the world that first civilization was wiped out, but the remains are under 30 to 50 feet of water and yet to be discovered because of that.
That could then have led to myths about Atlantis and the various Great Flood myths.
由于所涉及的時間太長,很多東西可能已經完全消失了,不妨看看我們能從數百萬年前發(fā)現的例子。
我們可以找到骨頭、通過挖掘引起的土壤變化、骸骨、樹葉、花朵、昆蟲、化石、空氣成分的記錄、空氣或水中的污染物和殘留物,等等,任何工業(yè)文明的存在都會留下我們能夠輕易找到的大量痕跡,就像曾經存在過恐龍的痕跡一樣。
現在,一個可能很有趣的考慮是,是否有一個類似于古夏(朝)人或古埃及人早期階段的文明可能在最后一個冰河時代靠近海洋的地方開始發(fā)跡,由于巨大的洪水使世界各地的海平面突然上升了50英尺,第一個文明被摧毀了,但遺跡在30到50英尺的水下,因此尚未被發(fā)現。
這可能導致了關于亞特蘭蒂斯和各種大洪水的神話。
It would 100% sure have been detected.
We detect animals living 500 million years ago, a couple of million is absolutely no problem to detect, and if it was industrial it would be spread out over the globe and extra easy to detect.
100%肯定會被探測到。
我們能探測到了5億年前的動物,發(fā)現幾百萬年前的文明遺跡是絕對沒有問題的,如果它是工業(yè)化的,它就會分布于全球各地,更容易被探測到。
If they were similar to us, I'd expect the vast majority of their stuff to be destroyed over that timefrx.
My guess would be that the only obvious stuff that might survive would be massive mines in tectonically stable areas.
There'd probably be things that would turn up on closer inspection though…cities and landfills would make weird layers in rocks and there might be evidence of atmospheric changes in deep ice cores…though I'm not sure if they'd last that long. They might have left stuff on the moon, I assume that would survive.
如果他們與我們相似,我預計他們的絕大多數東西都會在這一時間框架內被摧毀。
我的猜測是,唯一可能幸存下來的又很明顯的東西會是部分地理構造穩(wěn)定地區(qū)的大型礦山。
不過,可能會有一些東西經仔細檢查能夠被發(fā)現......城市和垃圾填埋場會在巖石中形成奇怪的巖層,深層冰核中可能有大氣變化的證據......不過我不確定它們是否會持續(xù)那么久,他們還可能在月球上留下了東西,我想這些東西會留存下來。
An industrial civilization would be likely to explore their planet and in exploring the planet, there would likely be clues somewhere. We don’t have evidence of every dinosaur, in fact, the preserved and identified dinosaur bones are probably a tiny fraction, much less than 1% of all the Dinos that ever lived, but that tiny fraction that was preserved in ideal conditions, is enough that we know a lot. We’ve identified numerous species over millions of years.
A large, and spread out industrial civilization would have likely left clues, however, a less advanced . . . lets say, Egyptian level civilization with buildings and cities, but localized, such a theoretical historic civilization could potentially be buried if the continent they were on has since subducted. It’s possible that a civilization, millions of years ago, left no visible trace that we can find. Even something under the ice in Greenland might still be there, but currently undetectable.
一個工業(yè)文明可能會探索他們的星球,在探索星球的過程中,很可能會在某些地方留下線索。
我們無法獲得證明每種恐龍存在的證據,事實上,保存下來并被確認的恐龍化石可能也只是很小的一部分,遠遠低于所有曾經生活過的恐龍的1%,但這一小部分在理想條件下保存下來的恐龍化石,足以讓我們知道很多,我們已經確定了數百萬年來的眾多物種。
一個大型的、分散的工業(yè)文明很可能會留下線索,然而,一個不太先進的......比方說,埃及那樣的文明,有建筑和城市,但只是局部的,如果這樣一個理論上的歷史文明所在的大陸已經消亡,它可能會被埋葬,幾百萬年前的文明有可能無法留下我們可以發(fā)現的明顯痕跡,即使是格陵蘭島冰層下某些東西可能仍然存在,但目前也無法探測到。
In fact, if we were tasked with removing all traces of our existence from the Earth, we just could not do it. Let me list a few examples why.
Let’s start with the atmosphere. Beyond CO2, there are a great many other pollutants as a result of human, industrial activity. Even if these disappear over time from the atmosphere proper, they will leave their mark in everything, from layers of sediments to polar ice or even trees. Even millions of years from now, our past presence would be evident to anyone with access to our level of science and technology; they’d just need to examine an antarctic ice core sample or the fossilized remains of a tree.
Same thing for the oceans, made even worse by things like non-degradable plastics. Even millions of years from now, oceanic sediments could be examined, and our presence in the past would be revealed.
Human activity already led to a mass extinction comparable to that caused by geological upheavals in the past. These, too, will show up unambiguously in the fossil record. There is a reason why some people advocate that in the past ten thousand years, a new epoch started in the geological and ecological history of the Earth, which they call the Anthropocene. Yes, human impact is that significant.
Our nuclear activity also leaves a lasting legacy. Even if you ignore the hyping of the dangers of nuclear waste , spent fuel and other nuclear waste will have recognizable signatures, never mind millions, even billions of years from now, just as we know that billions of years ago, a natural nuclear reactor with a self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction existed near Oklo, in present-day Gabon.
事實上,假如有這么一項任務:將我們存在的所有痕跡從地球上清除,我們是做不到的。
讓我列舉幾個例子說明原因。
我們從大氣層開始,大氣種除了二氧化碳,還有許多其他的污染物,都是人類工業(yè)活動的結果,即使這些污染物隨著時間的推移從大氣層中消失,它們也會在一切事物中留下痕跡,從沉積物層到極地冰層甚至是樹木,即使在幾百萬年后也不會磨滅,過去的存在對任何擁有我們的科學和技術水平的人來說都是顯而易見的,我們只需要檢查一下南極冰芯樣本或樹木的化石便可知悉。
海洋的情況也是如此,像不可降解的塑料這樣的東西使情況變得更糟,即使是幾百萬年后,海洋沉積物也可以被檢查出來,而我們在過去的存在將被揭示。
人類活動導致了大規(guī)模的滅絕,與過去的地質動蕩造成的滅絕相當,這些也會毫不含糊地顯示在化石記錄中,有人主張在過去的一萬年里,地球的地質和生態(tài)歷史開始了一個新的紀元,他們稱之為 "人類紀元",這是有原因的,是的,人類的影響就有這么大。
我們的核活動也留下了持久的遺存,即使你忽略了對核廢料危險性的渲染,用過的燃料和其他核廢料依然具有可識別的特征,不用說幾百萬年,哪怕幾十億年以后依然可以檢測出來,比如我們今天就知道在數十億年前,今加蓬的奧克洛附近存在一個自我維持的天然核反應堆。
And sure, our artifacts will likely have disappeared from the surface of the Earth… millions of years are enough for the sturdiest building or pyramid to crumble, for the mightiest machine to rust away (though not necessarily for small bits of non-degradable plastic to vanish.) But what about… outer space?
Satellites in low Earth orbit won’t last very long due to atmospheric drag, but many of those higher up are in orbits that are stable for millions of years. A future civilization at our level of technology, actively monitoring space junk to avoid satellite collisions, would find these in short order. And then what about our landing sites on the Moon? Six manned expeditions, two unmanned Soviet rovers (and, almost forgot, a smaller, more recent Chinese rover — sorry, Yutu!) and several other landers all over the place. These will likely remain undisturbed for millions of years, the equipment slowly degrading under a continuous bombardment of UV light and charged particles from the Sun and also cosmic rays, but mostly surviving in recognizable form over geological timescales. They may not be easy to find (they are small; the Moon is big) but they can be identified even from photographs taken from lunar orbit.
那么,我們使用的各種原材料呢?枯竭的油田,枯竭的礦藏......我想,對于一個訓練有素的地質學家或采礦工程師來說,不需要很長時間就能弄明白發(fā)生了什么。
當然,我們的人工制成品很可能已經從地球表面消失了......數百萬年的時間足以讓最堅固的建筑或金字塔崩潰,讓最強大的機器生銹(雖然不一定能讓小塊的不可降解的塑料消失), 但是,外太空呢?
由于大氣阻力,低地球軌道上的衛(wèi)星不會持續(xù)很長時間,但許多更高的衛(wèi)星在軌道上是穩(wěn)定的,可以持續(xù)數百萬年,積極監(jiān)測太空垃圾以避免衛(wèi)星碰撞的未來文明,會在短時間內發(fā)現這些。然后,我們在月球上的登陸點呢?六次載人探險,兩次無人駕駛的蘇聯漫游車(還有,差點忘了,還有一個較小的、較新的中國漫游車--對不起,是“玉兔”號!)和其他幾個著陸點都在,這些設備可能會在數百萬年內不受干擾,在持續(xù)不斷的紫外線、來自太陽的帶電粒子以及宇宙射線的轟擊下,設備會慢慢退化,但大多數設備在地質時間尺度上以可辨認的形式存留下來,它們可能不容易找到(它們很小,月球很大),但至少可以從月球軌道上拍攝的照片中識別出來。
Many of these arguments are based on the false assumption that this hypothetical ancient civilization originated on Earth.
If you assume that they evolved from single cell organisms to intelligent beings all on the same planet, and that their technologies must have advanced the same way that ours did (ie, fire > electricity > atom splitting), then sure — there may be evidence of that progression left over in Earth’s geological and archeological records. (Though this also assumes that the evidence couldn’t have been cataclysmically erased by asteroid bombardment, nuclear decimation, etc.)
But if the civilization originated elsewhere, and then established a colony on Earth, there’s no telling what their terrestrial “footprint” would look like. So we can’t simply say “If someone was here, we would have found sidewalks and rebar in the ground by now.”
Just look at what we’re planning to do on Mars. Colonists’ habitats will consist of either lightweight, modular dome structures — or no structures at all (because they’ll be in underground lava tubes, caves, etc.)
許多答主的論點都是基于一個錯誤的假設,即這個假想的古代文明起源于地球。
如果你假設他們在同一個星球上從單細胞生物進化到了智慧生物,并且他們的技術一定和我們的技術一樣發(fā)展(即火>電>核),那么當然——地球的地質和考古記錄中可能有這種發(fā)展的證據。( 盡管這也假設這些證據不可能被小行星轟炸、核毀滅等災難抹去)
但是,如果該文明起源于其他地方,然后在地球上建立了殖民地,我們就不會知道他們的陸地 "足跡 "是什么樣子,所以我們不能簡單地說 "如果這里有過文明,我們現在就會在地上發(fā)現人行道和鋼筋"。
看看我們在火星上的計劃就知道了,火星殖民者的棲息地將由輕量級、模塊化的圓頂結構組成——或者根本沒有結構(因為它們位于地下的熔巖隧道、洞穴等等地方)。
The problem with your hypothesis is the stipulation that the civilization would be like ours.
Like how Viktor T. Toth explains it, it is technically impossible that a civ like ours was around back then. There would be traces left. Which is to say, if we were somehow wiped out today, a million years from now there would be evidence we were here.
But if we remove your stipulation, and wonder about the possibility of another Type 0.7 - 0.8 civilization existing a million years ago, one that unlike us is in perfect harmony with its surroundings and does not shape its environment to suit its needs, but rather the opposite; kind of what Frederick Mikkelsen wrote about. Then it is technically possible, but still highly unlikely.
Why highly unlikely? Look at all the life this planet has borne. Most of it has left a mark without even reaching a level that qualifies as civilization. This hypothetical civilization would have to have been hell bent on deliberately removing all traces of its existence. That would be a feat in itself, but it also goes against a common definer of civilization: Recording.
你所假設的問題是設定該文明將像我們一樣。
就像樓上 Viktor T. Toth 解釋的那樣,理論上來說,像我們這樣的文明在當時是不可能的,如果存在就一定會有痕跡留下,也就是說,如果我們今天以某種方式被消滅了,一百萬年后還會有我們存在的證據。
但是,如果我們去掉你的設定,想一想一百萬年前存在另一種0.7-0.8型文明的可能性,這種文明與我們不同,它與周圍的環(huán)境完全和諧,不塑造環(huán)境來滿足它的需要,而是相反,有點像弗雷德里克-米克爾森寫的那樣,那么它在理論上是有這種可能性——但仍然是極不可能的,為什么極不可能?看看這個星球所孕育的生命,它們中的大多數甚至沒有達到文明的水平,也都留下了痕跡,這個假想的文明將不得不一心一意地故意消除其存在的所有痕跡,這本身就是一個不可思議之舉,也違背了文明的一個常見定義:記錄。