Why are we just listening? Not transmitting? |
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Message boards : SETI@home Science : Why are we just listening? Not transmitting?
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We will all be dead by the time we get a response, if we even use radio waves by the time their message reaches us. The pyramids still inspire wonder, yet none of the people who built them are still alive. Our signals that we should send, are a cosmic rolling of the dice our time upon this earth may end up to be a triumph or a disaster. Either way its a good idea to hedge our bets and send a few signals anyways. Where should we send the signals? Well in many directions as possible and as frequently as we can. | |
| ID: 1228579 · | |
now assume you are dialing a phone here on earth and want to call a specific person but you don't know their phone number. You also don't know when they aren't home to answer the phone. You also don't know if they want to actually talk to you. Oh and any reply that this other person might want to make to you would take at least 12 years for a response. Now start dialing We are not dialling a specific person..we are dialling all life forms, that's everyone in the gawd damn phone book. Yes we don't know when they are home, we are phishing for life. We just want to know if there is life out there, if they don't want to talk we will never know, if they are intelligent they will understand our need to know we are not alone. 12 years is nothing, to find out that there is life in the universe with radio signals.. that's worth waiting thousands of years for. | |
| ID: 1228581 · | |
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The proposition is simple Blue Alien, | |
| ID: 1228973 · | |
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Des, | |
| ID: 1229027 · | |
now assume you are dialing a phone here on earth and want to call a specific person but you don't know their phone number. You also don't know when they aren't home to answer the phone. You also don't know if they want to actually talk to you. Oh and any reply that this other person might want to make to you would take at least 12 years for a response. Now start dialing OK you got me its not dialing but if you look at what it takes to predict where a star will be when the signal gets to it you'll see its a bit of dialing in the coordinates. Remember we aren't sitting still in the galaxy and neither are other stars in the Galaxy. Pointing a device at a star and shouting at it means you are shouting at a star where it was when the light it emitted left the star. That star is no longer in that position in the sky. ____________ Proud member of TSWB. End terrorism by building a school | |
| ID: 1229083 · | |
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In principal I have no problem with "shouting" at star systems but I believe both shouting and listening will become more targeted as the decades pass. If we are going to shout lets shout at something like the Gliese 581 system which apprently may contain an earth like planet (Gliese 581g) , possibley abundant in water and apprently in the "habitable zone." Plus it s only 20 or so light years away. | |
| ID: 1229138 · | |
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The song track to go with our thread here, but wishes can come true. | |
| ID: 1229253 · | |
Message boards : SETI@home Science : Why are we just listening? Not transmitting?
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