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Beyond Contact: a Guide to SETI
Some readers may recall what Stephen Hawking said about his book, A Brief History of Time:
"Someone told me that each equation I included in the book would halve the sales. I therefore resolved not to have any equations at all. In the end, however, I did put in one famous equation, E=mc2. I hope that this will not scare off half my potential readers."
Hawking was facing the same challenge as Brian McConnell faces in this book. Both are trying to turn advanced knowledge of their field of endeavour (which requires heavy math, heavy astronomy, heavy physics, heavy programming, and so forth) into a work which can be comprehended by lesser beings. McConnell has taken a different path than Hawking - his book has plenty of advanced equations, diagrams, and concepts. McConnell does a reasonable (and often very good) job at trying to bring readers up to speed when he thinks he's going to go over their heads, but it is still not a book for the faint of heart or mathematically-challenged. There are enough equations in the book to bring its readership down to (.5)n -- oh, roughly zero, give or take.
In any case, it's a good book, but technical. You were warned.
The first couple of chapters cover the history of searching for extraterrestrial life, "are we alone?", the nature of intelligence, and similar areas. Drake's Equation is the famous set of fudge-factors that would tell us whether we were likely to find other life forms, if only we knew what the values of the variables were:
N = R * fs * fp * ne * fl * fi * fc * L
Fill in values for all of those and you'll be famous forever. But what it means, as our knowledge stands now, is that we have no clue at all whether there is likely to be life out there or not. Comforting, isn't it?
The next several chapters cover the technical aspects of communicating over interstellar distances. The electrical engineers in the audience will have a leg up here; everyone else has the opportunity to learn the basics of signal processing and the peculiarities specific to communication across galaxies. Pretty thorough and informative, without being overwhelming.
Finally, the latter half of the book covers the 64,000 lightyear question: what to say? How to communicate with an intelligence where you can't assume even the most basic things in common? Yes, yes, you've probably heard of the idea of starting with the periodic table or basic mathematics and working up. But that's sort of like a dot-com business plan:
- Establish Contact
- Send Periodic Chart
- ....
- Communicate!
McConnell fills in the "...." part, and it's obvious that a great amount of thought has been put into it. Pretty quickly McConnell is describing how to send entire self-executing programs (see Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep).
This book is a bit of an oddity. If we're just talking about entertainment reading, it falls short - too technical. If I was grading it as a scientific work, again it would fall short - not technical enough. :) But as far as I know, this is the only work which tries to explain what SETI really is in terms that educated, reasonably bright laymen can understand, and as such, it does a fine job.
You can purchase this book at Fatbrain. Want to see your review here? Check out the book review submisison guidelines! :)
Say I was only interested in this aspect of the book, is it worth getting? The idea sounds facinating, but there's no details in this review! Can anyone tell me more?
to analyze radio transmissions from space. If there are other lifeforms out there, what are the chances that they would be on the same technological level as us? Considering how briefly we have had RF compared to the "cosmic big picture" I find it doubtful we would be on the same wavelength. (please pardon the pun) Even if we did receive a broadcast, how many years would have passed between the time they sent it and our reply would be received? Their "equipment" would probably be ancient by that time.
Chika Chik-ah... do-e ow ow.
fc is the fraction of intelligent species that develop the ability and desire to communicate with other civilizations : after the aliens realize the voice of the UN secretary general of the time on the Voyager probe recording was a fucking Nazi, probably 0.
Therefore, N=0.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Ok, totally off topic.. but with video cards getting more and more powerful everyday, what sort of SETI/rc5 speed ups could be seen from harvesting the power of a GPU? Ok, sure, I'm sure they're optimized for doing graphics, but in its heart, its still just a number cruncher.
I have the same problem with this author that I have with Gene Roddenberry: why must intelligent species on other planets be anthropomorphic?
The author's assumption is that the intelligent and man-like beings are sending coded messages via radio waves in hopes of finding other intelligent beings. This is fine, but consider that the author is framing his arguments in Mathematics, and more importantly, base-10 numbers. Look at your hands: there should be ten fingers. That is the origin of our numbering system. Our system of mathematics and our discipline of deductive logic is a product of the organization of the human nervous system. Simply put, the author and his compatriots have painted themselves into a corner and assumed away most of the problem.
I propose that intelligent beings in other solar systems are not anthropomorphic, do not have ten fingers, do not count in base ten, and probably do not even share this concept of "numbers" anyway. Keep crunching transforms for SETI, but don't assume you are speaking the same language as THEM.
"What is the sound of one belly slapping?"
"Me Human, You Alien: How to Talk to an Extraterrestrial" by Jonathan Vos Post (c) 1996 by Emerald City Publishing an excerpt from a book entitled MAKING CONTACT: A SERIOUS HANDBOOK FOR LOCATING AND COMMUNICATING WITH EXTRATERRESTRIALS, edited by Bill Fawcett, July 1997, New York: William Morrow & Co. http://www.magicdragon.com/EmeraldCity/extraterres trials/alien.html
This has original ideas on how you, personally, should best prepare to communicate with ETs, including what to carry in your pockets. It also has the best review of Science Fiction approaches to the concept, as well as anthropology and linguistics.
People, look around you and know that you cannot always prove
:)
something, but lack of proof doesn't make it not exist or not
have happened. Buy applying a form of deception called neo-
cheating, you can easily deceive without threat of getting caught.
We have many examples of this in society today, Microsoft has
done alot of it but so have many others, including individuals.
Now in the probability of there existing higher intelligent life
than ourselves, don't you think they would be better at such
deception on one hand, while on the other having reason to not
want to make contact, a least until we get over trying to blow
ourselves up?
We really don't know enough about physics, gravity, anti-gravity
or all the things that might be derived in technology from such
knowledge, such as what we call faster than light travel.
The point is, communication is a two way street! And unless all
seti is, is an effort to pick up signals sent so long ago that
the sending party is long gone and/or to send such signals that
we well be long gone to ever know if they were received, then
clearly:
WE ARE NOT WORTHY!
A little proof of that can be found here where anyone can
see that a world that spend three times the cost of solving all
the major problems in the world, on military strength for defense
against "threats" instead, certainly is a world bent on destruction.
I mean damn, here we are spending so much resource in a futile
effort rather than spending those resource (seti, military, etc..)
in a way that might show us as being civilized enough for another
intelligent life form to want consider contacting us.
.
I've been crunching data for SETI@Home since it first began. I've currently got 4 computers going full-time at it. I don't think it'll find anything, but I think it's a worthwhile program.
There was a great piece in Scientific American last year about why there are no ETIs in our galaxy. I found it thoroughly convincing, at least if you think along these lines: If there were an extra-terrestrial intelligence in our galaxy, and they were explorers, like us (and really, that's probably the only kind of race we'll find until we go out, physically, and look for them), then they most likely would have already colonized the entire galaxy by now.
Chances are, we will colonize the entire galaxy before any other species gets a chance.
That doesn't mean there's not life out there. I think that life is probably commonplace in our galaxy, and I'm sure there's intelligent exploring life in others (but most SETI projects aren't looking that far yet). I would imagine most life in our galaxy is single-celled. Of the entire history of life on this planet, 85+% of the time, it was single-celled.
The conditions under which single-celled organisms evolved to multi-celled organisms was a fluke. In fact, many of the important steps that led to our evolution, were a series of flukes. Evolution does not necessarily lead to intelligence. The objective of evolution is to give you the tools necessary to procreate and continue to exist as a species. Once that job is done, evolution is done.
Humans have been around, what 100,000-200,000 years? The dinosaurs were here for 140,000,000 years, or roughly 1000 times as long as we've been here, and they never developed intelligence.
Anyway, until we have the ability to listen to search for ETIs in other galaxies, I don't think we're going to find any.
Danny.
I have written over 900 book reviews
> Where is the common reference point?
:)
Binary.
If you can convery on and off somehow, up or down, in or out, there is a basis for communication. Sure it's not easy, but look at your desktop.. it's created with nothing but ons and off. If we can do that, certainly with enough patience two intelligent beings could develop a method of communication.
For a real world example suggesting that two intelligent beings will always find some way to communicate, consider Helen Keller's story.
Calculate your own values for the drake equation here
The Drake equation worksheet sets the lowest bound of planets per star capable of sustaining life at .33. That's absurd. Given what we know about what a planet needs to support life, it's ridiculous. Here's a small sampling of parameters needed for a planet to support life, and odds that they will be satisfied (from renound astronomer Hugh Ross):
.33.
- planetary distance from star: 0.001
- rate of change of axial tilt: 0.01
- rate of change in planetary rotation period: 0.05
- mass and distance of moon: 0.01
- surface gravity (escape velocity): 0.001
- magnetic field: 0.01
- thickness of crust: 0.01
- mass of body colliding with primordial earth: 0.002
- number & distribution of planets in solar system: 0.01
- atmospheric transparency: 0.01
- atmospheric pressure: 0.01
- carbon dioxide level in atmosphere: 0.01
- oxygen quantity in atmosphere: 0.01
- cobalt quantity in crust 0.1
- arsenic quantity in crust 0.1
- copper quantity in crust 0.1
- boron quantity in crust 0.1
- flourine quantity in crust 0.1
- iodine quantity in crust 0.1
- manganese quantity in crust 0.1
- nickel quantity in crust 0.1
- phosphorus quantity in crust 0.1
- potassium quantity in crust 0.1
- tin quantity in crust 0.1
- zinc quantity in crust 0.1
- molybdenum quantity in crust 0.05
- vanadium quantity in crust 0.1
- chromium quantity in crust 0.1
- selenium quantity in crust 0.1
- iron quantity in oceans 0.1
Multiply all of those probabilities, and you get a number that's *slightly* smaller than
dinner: it's what's for beer
As a professional astronomer, I never cease to be amazed at how freely people will donate their time and resources to a project, that for the immediate future has absolutely no tangible benefits or results. It really demonstrates how science can motivate.
Well, that and the competition aspect of it too...
But anyway, it was probably the best practical idea astronomers have had in a while -- if you can't afford a supercomputer, get everyone else to create your supercomputer for you! As we all know, people hesitate to spend money on hardware -- who among us would have even donated $5 to the SETI project? But when you pass that cost along as the associated cost of running the computer you've already bought, people readily shell out the "bucks" or cpu time. I wonder how much "money" has been "donated" to the SETI project in this way?