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Looking For Aliens In All the Wrong Places
LtFiend writes "Evidently, some astronomers believe that SETI is searching the skies for the wrong type of signal. This new telescope built by Harvard will search for laser light and can detect pulses " as short as a billionth of a second." Looks like we'll need a new version of SETI at home so we can help with
this one."
I think the only thing we can safely say about extraterrestial life is that if we are going to find any with sufficient technological progress within the 'lifetime' of humankind, it will have to be from a very small cluster of stars near us, which might have been formed near the same time after the big bang, such that planets capable of supporting life would have all started the evolution timer at the same point. But again, that rate of evolution is so different that the chances of us seeing one another would be very very high.
What I think we should focus on more (and it would be hard to say if we will be able to) is to look for the evidence of early life (single celled protozoa), or evidence of a race gone dorment, on other planets in the nearby cluster. Finding such would at least tell us that the development of life was not a chance happenstance on Earth.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
This is the Harvard group's page.
'Zeelub, stop pointing your laser-pointer at Earth -- you're making the mammals excited.'
Room for all scans. We have an over-abundance of computing power to process these signals as is evident with sei@home. Why is searching using radio signals wrong? Once the sensors are built, there are millions of people willing to spend their cycles analyzing your data. I believe there is room for both projects, and many more.
Also, won't most stellar bodies block laser light , whereas Radio signals will tend to 'bend' around them?
Yep, I never spell check.
More incorrect spellings can be found he
Harvard University, said: "Using only Earth 2001 technology, we could now generate a beamed laser pulse that appears 5,000 times brighter than our sun, as seen by a distant civilisation in the direction of its slender beam.
What will it say? Make Money Fast? Send back a green flash if you want to be removed from our beam-list?
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
[by Terry Bisson; originally appearing in OMNI Magazine]
Imagine if you will... the leader of the fifth invader force speaking to
the commander in chief...
"They're made out of meat."
"Meat?"
"Meat. They're made out of meat."
"Meat?"
"There's no doubt about it. We picked several from different parts of
the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, probed them all the way
through. They're completely meat."
"That's impossible. What about the radio signals? The messages to the
stars."
"They use the radio waves to talk, but the signals don't come from them.
The signals come from machines."
"So who made the machines? That's who we want to contact."
"They made the machines. That's what I'm trying to tell you. Meat made
the machines."
"That's ridiculous. How can meat make a machine? You're asking me to
believe in sentient meat."
"I'm not asking you, I'm telling you. These creatures are the only
sentient race in the sector and they're made out of meat."
"Maybe they're like the Orfolei. You know, a carbon-based intelligence
that goes through a meat stage."
"Nope. They're born meat and they die meat. We studied them for several
of their life spans, which didn't take too long. Do you have any idea
the life span of meat?"
"Spare me. Okay, maybe they're only part meat. You know, like the
Weddilei. A meat head with an electron plasma brain inside."
"Nope. We thought of that, since they do have meat heads like the
Weddilei. But I told you, we probed them. They're meat all the way
through."
"No brain?"
"Oh, there is a brain all right. It's just that the brain is made out of
meat!"
"So... what does the thinking?"
"You're not understanding, are you? The brain does the thinking. The
meat."
"Thinking meat! You're asking me to believe in thinking meat!"
"Yes, thinking meat! Conscious meat! Loving meat. Dreaming meat. The
meat is the whole deal! Are you getting the picture?"
"Omigod. You're serious then. They're made out of meat."
"Finally, Yes. They are indeed made out meat. And they've been trying to
get in touch with us for almost a hundred of their years."
"So what does the meat have in mind?"
"First it wants to talk to us. Then I imagine it wants to explore the
universe, contact other sentients, swap ideas and information. The
usual."
"We're supposed to talk to meat?"
"That's the idea. That's the message they're sending out by radio.
'Hello. Anyone out there? Anyone home?' That sort of thing."
"They actually do talk, then. They use words, ideas, concepts?"
"Oh, yes. Except they do it with meat."
"I thought you just told me they used radio."
"They do, but what do you think is on the radio? Meat sounds. You know
how when you slap or flap meat it makes a noise? They talk by flapping
their meat at each other. They can even sing by squirting air through
their meat."
"Omigod. Singing meat. This is altogether too much. So what do you
advise?"
"Officially or unofficially?"
"Both."
"Officially, we are required to contact, welcome, and log in any and all
sentient races or multibeings in the quadrant, without prejudice, fear,
or favor. Unofficially, I advise that we erase the records and forget
the whole thing."
"I was hoping you would say that."
"It seems harsh, but there is a limit. Do we really want to make contact
with meat?"
"I agree one hundred percent. What's there to say?" `Hello, meat. How's
it going?' But will this work? How many planets are we dealing with
here?"
"Just one. They can travel to other planets in special meat containers,
but they can't live on them. And being meat, they only travel through C
space. Which limits them to the speed of light and makes the possibility
of their ever making contact pretty slim. Infinitesimal, in fact."
"So we just pretend there's no one home in the universe."
"That's it."
"Cruel. But you said it yourself, who wants to meet meat? And the ones
who have been aboard our vessels, the ones you have probed? You're sure
they won't remember?"
"They'll be considered crackpots if they do. We went into their heads
and smoothed out their meat so that we're just a dream to them."
"A dream to meat! How strangely appropriate, that we should be meat's
dream."
"And we can mark this sector unoccupied."
"Good. Agreed, officially and unofficially. Case closed. Any others?
Anyone interesting on that side of the galaxy?"
"Yes, a rather shy but sweet hydrogen core cluster intelligence in a
class nine star in G445 zone. Was in contact two galactic rotations ago,
wants to be friendly again."
"They always come around."
"And why not? Imagine how unbearably, how unutterably cold the universe
would be if one were all alone."
10 years later: What alien would use light? Use quantum particles.
10 years after that: What alien would use quantum particles? Use antimatter.
10 years after that: What alien would use antimatter? Use quark synthesis.
Eventually we're just going to find we should have been searching for bacteria on fallen meteorites.
-
-Be a man. Insult me without using an AC.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
I think it is obvious that Hemos is an alien and is trying to throw us off the trail...
Sashdotters, I say install SETI@Home on every system you get near, someone write a nasty little email virus that installs the software... lets track those aliens down and EXPOSE HEMOS!
I am become Troll, destroyer of threads