century

Sorry. It's a bit long:


  Most people believe it would be quite incredible to find other forms of intelligent life in our universe, but many physicists are actually surprised that we have not discovered any signs of intelligent life in the universe. Each star is a bright sun that could support life for billions of years, but so far radio telescopes have not detected any signals from intelligent aliens.
  There is an interesting and disturbing theory that explains this situation. Scientists believe that there is nothing unique about the way life developed on earth. It would develop everywhere in the same way, following the same steady path of evolutionary biological development. The scientific knowledge of an intelligent species would also develop by the same steps as the scientific discoveries made on Earth by humans. Therefore, all intelligent species, anywhere in the universe, would first discover radio waves. Then, at this level of knowledge, they would soon discover uranium and the secrets of nuclear power. Both of these discoveries happened in the same century on Earth, and one hundred years is a very short time in the history of the universe. The irony of the theory is that so-called "intelligent" life would be too stupid to live peacefully with such powerful technology and it would quickly destroy itself within a few hundred years.


About 'the same century' above, does it mean 'the same 100 years'? Or does it literally mean 'the same synchronous century'?

the time difference between them was under 100 years ...

Hi,

I think that the grammatical structure of this sentence is wrong. If you look at preceding sentences, you will observe that those are talking about possibility of an event happening. I feel that this sentence should use "would".

Clive wrote:

Hi, I would take this to mean, eg they both happened in the 20th. century. If A happened in 1870 and B happened in 1960, it doesn't seem natural to say they happened in the same century. I'd say it another way , eg they happened within a hundred years of each other. Best wishes, Clive

Clive, if they both happened in the 20th century, isn't it quite possible that radio telescopes have detected  signals from intelligent aliens, because "intelligent" life hasn't destroy itself yet? Isn't the reason why the theory is disturbing, why we have not discovered any signs of intelligent life in the universe, that it might have destroyed itself within a few hundred years before human beings appeared on the earth—otherwise; it hasn't reached the 100 years radio-wave-discovery stage yet?

Clive,

These comments of mine above surely don't make any sense. As I'll explain later, I made a big mistake in understanding the sentence.

I'm very sorry. Please forget those comments.