Human electrical transmission & detecting aliens

Michael(sirzerp),

Hi Johnney,

Well, your heart is in the right place but science isn’t based on intuition alone. We need hard numbers. For example, the three phase transmission scheme does self cancel quit a bit of noise, that’s the reason we use it.

Another person made an argument about AM radio being reflected by our atmosphere which is a good argument. Thought I’m not sure it applies. Most of the time AM radio is broadcasted vertically but our power grid is aligned horizontally. Meaning any leakage would be in the normal direction to the atmosphere ‘up’ and I would guess it would escape.

The third issue is the size of wavelength itself. It is in the 60,000,000 meter range. I don’t think anyone knows the propagation characteristics of a wavelength this large. It isn’t like anyone has went to space to measure it. We assume it propagates like AM radio but the wavelength is larger than our planet.

I’ll show you an example why we can’t assume things. We know black holes eat photons. That’s simple to understand, but what if the black hole has a 1000 km radius and the photon has a 60000 km wavelength? Can a black hole capture a photon much larger than its light consuming radius?

I’m just pointing out there’s lots of things here we don’t know.

Very low frequencies have been used for communications by our Nations submarines. These are propagated in water and basically are sound waves.

Hmmmm, sirzerp made a very good point there. sirzerp i read the shorter of the two papers, the other one was 50 pages long.

If we want to "see" pictures of exoplanets around other stars, its real difficult with telescopes operating in the optical or IR wavelengths. But, as suggested in those science papers, if different planets with different magnetic field's emit different radio wave patterns, then that could be the future for exoplanet hunting!! And searching for ET!!

Pretend for one moment that an earth size planet with a similar magnetic field as our own might emit radio waves at, lets say 5,580Hz. Well then as suggested by sirzerp, maybe a radio antenna array like the new LOFAR in Holland might be able to take a radio image of the sky without any stars, just the exoplanets in the 5,580Hz range for instance.

Now that would be a massive break through for exoplanet hunters!!

John.
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Does SETI reports any potential ETI signals?

... To be honest, i think they stopped looking about a year and a half ago.

C Olival,
Don't be put off, i'm just being sarcastic. This SETI@home project is not a completely fruitless venture even if the project isn't currently detecting any ET signals!

Let me tell you why!!

By the very nature of science itself, SCIENCE CHANGES when new research is published!! Thats critical!! What does that mean?? It means that you never know what new scientific research will come onto the scene that changes the whole ball game. Tomorrow, next week, next year or whenever, some scientists somewhere could find a new way to detect ET. Maybe at a different radio frequency or something that the SETI@home scientists are not currently aware of!

So for that reason alone, NEVER give up hope. Science does, and always will change. New science is just around the corner! You just need to be patient. And we can chat and discuss our hopes and dreams right here in this SETI science forum!

I will never loose faith that new science is on its way! I'm really glad the SETI scientists who run this project allow us to participate in the science and chat here on this forum! We are very lucky to be part of this. We just need to allow the scientists to do their job. Maybe they read the messages, maybe not, i really don't know :) Sometimes i post smart comments and hope one of the scientists does read the message. You never know.

John.
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Does SETI and Paul Allen Array ever points their radio dishes to the stars that currently Kepler is observing?

Does SETI reports any potential ETI signals?

No, they tell us nothing!

I've been posting messags in this forum for about 5 years now and i've never heard a peep out of the SETI scientists. If they have ET signals, i didn't hear anything about it! To be honest, i think they stopped looking about a year and a half ago.

John.

I also interviewed a scientist with this program in an article I wrote. It can be seen here: Searching for asteroids, extraterrestrial life a little more rocky: Budget cuts threaten to close Arecibo, world's largest radio telescope.

I also interviewed a scientist with this program in an article I wrote. It can be seen here: Searching for asteroids, extraterrestrial life a little more rocky: Budget cuts threaten to close Arecibo, world's largest radio telescope.

Jason,
Nice article, well written :)

John.