I've decided to quit doing SETI on Oct 24, 2009 which will be my ten year mark.

Its been fun, but I just think there are more practical distributed projects out there for now, such as Rosetta. SET( was a great project because it really ushered in all the distributed projects out there.

My reasoning for quiting next year:

- Projects like Rosetta are much more practical in the short term.

- I've worked in satellite communications. SETI's main enemies are the inverse square law and relativity.

- SETI is a long, long, long dureation project. 100 core CPU's will be out in the relative future and God knows what will be after that except it will continue to be exponential. There will be single CPU's doing the same amount of work as all of the computers crunching SETI right now one day. This may seem astronomical, but just look back at the last few decades. We will look back and laugh at the measly power of computers today.

- Of course there are other civilizations out there. If it happened on our little planet, it seems insane to think it hasn't happened in many, many, other places as well. We just seemed to be incubated from one another in space and time.

- Even though there are likely many, many civiziliations out there, the amount of space and time seperating them is likely enormous. In time, its probably at least hundreds of millions of Earth years. I don't think it goes into more than a few billion though, simply because the universe isn't old enough. Our solar system is four billion years old, but to get where we are right now, it also took a few ancestor star systems to produce our heavy elements.

- If ETI is found, its going to have to be much more advanced than we are. Most likely, they will have to be deliberatly focusing their signal towards Earth. Perhaps they studied the chemical spectrum of the Earth from afar (like are are just starting to do with extrasolar planets) and discovered it had the potential for life millions of years ago. But, it doesn't seem like there is anyone close by that has done this. So far.

- SETI hasn't found anyone out there that is breaking the laws of physics as we understand them. This is a good thing though. It should make us appreciate and conserve our natural resources more. There doesn't seem to be anyone that has found the Holy Grail of free energy.

- Maybe someone out there is so advanced that there are doing some funky modulation with pulars. Maybe.

I just think, in the short term, it is more practical to focus on Earth concerns than Little Green Men.

"Even though there are likely many, many civilizations out there, the amount of space and time separating them is likely enormous"

Very true words.

New science is badly needed to deal with this issue.
The use of Linear propagation of a wave, light or EM,
is very impractical for detection, or in particular, interstellar communication,
due to the time delay.

The ATA might pick something up.
Or Cern, when they get it fixed,
might make a discovery that may help us.

I'll continue crunching WU's though.

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*** Those who know, don't speak,
those who speak, don't know ***

Some true words there indeed.

But my opinion on the issue is and remains, that one has to start somewhere...
I don't think there is a "right time" to start a search, the right time is when there are tools existing that technically allow success.
(basically the reason why the greatest minds and visionaries did not wait for better tools, easier times or improved scientific environments, they worked with the limited tools they had and made the best of them)

Also, I reckon if the project was to be abandoned (likely lack of funding, years after a closure maybe also declining interest and knowledge that such thing even existed), it may happen relatively quick, as it's easy & fast to lose things.

BUT : How long would it take to get the right constellation and combination of determined scientists to come up with an advanced SETI Project, outstanding generous individuals to allow funding and proper access to the needed instruments again ?

My fear is that it may take an extremely long time, hence I analyze that it's important to keep things going without risking a fullstop... the next launch opportunity might be decades away.

It is for that reason that I return after every break and give the support that I can - each time (as Free correctly projected) with far more powerful computing platforms.

So although SETI@Home has become a project among many other worthwile ones, for me personally it will always remain the 'ice-breaker', leading edge frontier research, mother of the widespread Distributed Science breaktrough.

For that reason I would hate to enter http://setiathome.berkeley.edu in a browser one day to see a placeholder Page with a cheap advertising "this Subdomain for Sale" (of course not going to happen on the Domain, but you get the point). If there's anything I can do against such a scenario, I will do so (even if I didn't always share same opinions with the Devs or Staff).

I also agree with Donegal_TDI, who made an excellent point there :
As science in general finally becomes more interdisciplinary and connected, I like to see Science advancing broadband - who knows what we would miss if any part of it gets neglected? Every piece of the giant puzzle helps and missing a crucial part always hurts in the end.

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- Even though there are likely many, many civiziliations out there, the amount of space and time seperating them is likely enormous. In time, its probably at least hundreds of millions of Earth years.

If you believe this is the case, then you must also believe that we are the only civilization in the entire Milky Way Galaxy.

Our galaxy is roughly 100,000 light years across. With propulsion systems capable of even a fraction of the speed of light, it would be possible to travel from one end of the galaxy to the other in less than one million Earth years.

I don't think it goes into more than a few billion though, simply because the universe isn't old enough. Our solar system is four billion years old, but to get where we are right now, it also took a few ancestor star systems to produce our heavy elements.

Are you saying you don't think there are more than a few billion civilizations in the universe? ...or that you don't think there are civilizations older than a few billion years?

There are an estimated 80+ billion galaxies in the observable universe, and it is generally accepted that the observable universe is only a small fraction of the total size of the universe.

As far as the heavy elements required for terrestrial planets in star systems like our own, you're right about that; those heavy elements haven't been around forever. In fact, scientists have recently undertaken major research to find out how long ago metal-rich star systems (and terrestrial worlds like the Earth) could begin to exist. They found that our star is relatively young when it comes to metalicity; there was enough metal for star systems like ours to come into existence 7-8 billion years ago.

They found that the average age of every "Earth" (terrestrial rocky planet) in the universe is roughly 1.8 billion years older than our own.

Now, it did take almost 4 billion years for complex animal organisms to evolve on Earth, but the potential for large organisms to exist is related to the saturation of oxygen waste in Earth's atmosphere over time. Astrobiologists believe that on a larger planet, oxygen might build up in the atmosphere much more quickly, and thus complex organisms might evolve after only a matter of hundreds of millions of years rather than a few billion years.

- But, it doesn't seem like there is anyone close by that has done this. So far.

How do you know?

- SETI hasn't found anyone out there that is breaking the laws of physics as we understand them. This is a good thing though. It should make us appreciate and conserve our natural resources more. There doesn't seem to be anyone that has found the Holy Grail of free energy.

Since SETI's search is confined narrowly to recognizably artificial radio transmissions, I don't think any SETI efforts have the capacity to detect phenomena that defy the laws of physics.

The rest of humanity's collective astronomical observation technology, however, would have that capacity.

I tend to think that IF ETI exists, and IF they're doing stellar-scale engineering on some level that we can detect, then it would seem inevitable that our astronomy tools will stumble onto it some day just because our ability to observe the universe is continually improving. That's my hope, anyway.

However, there's a problem with this. A big problem.
If they *are* breaking the laws of physics as we know them or possess a level of technology which allows them to alter the fabric of the universe in some inconceivable way, then they may essentially be invisible. If there is some way to harness power and expend energy without any waste, thermal radiation, any visible sign, etc, then we may never be able to see them.

There may also be an inevitable universal end-point which *ALL* technologically advanced civilizations reach. If Ray Kurzweil is right, then it may be the destiny of every civilization to reach a technological "Singularity" at which point a civilization will no longer consist of societies of individual biological organisms, but a single artificial super-organism. If this is the inevitable destiny of every ETI, then they may not exist as "civilizations" the way we think of them, and they may transmit no signals nor be detectable at all.

- Maybe someone out there is so advanced that there are doing some funky modulation with pulars. Maybe.

I'm still hoping that Sagan was right on this one.

I just think, in the short term, it is more practical to focus on Earth concerns than Little Green Men.

"Little Green Men"? You've been doing this for almost 10 years and you're starting to sound like the congressmen who shut SETI down.... :(

I agree, Earth concerns are technically more practical than any exploration science; digging little holes on Mars has little practical short-term benefit to the people of Earth.


...but I look at it like this:
When Copernicus and Galileo used their telescopes to determine the heliocentric nature of the solar system and the orbits of the planets, it quite literally had NO practical value OF ANY KIND whatsoever to people on Earth. Epicycles and mathematical gymnastics had enough predictive value to give society an accurate calendar.

There was quite literally no practical reason to know that the Earth orbited the Sun and not the other way around. Society worked just fine without that knowledge.

But knowing the truth changed our fundamental perception of the universe and our place in it. When the heliocentric model was scientifically proven, the world (as a construction in our minds) actually literally changed.

I think the detection of ETI would be a similar moment for humanity; I think our fundamental perception of ourselves will change.