| Personal background |
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Home: Valencia, California //
Gender: Male //
Age: 64 //
Occupation: Retired astronomer [Jet Propulsion Laboratory] ////
I have SETI@home running on two platforms: (A) Mac 1 GHz dual-processor G4; System: Mac OS X; 6 hr 45 min per unit // (B) Dell 2.4 GHz dual processor Xeon; System: Windows 2000 Pro; 3 hr 51 min per unit
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| Thoughts about SETI and SETI@home |
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1. Extraterrestrial LIFE in some form probably exists somewhere in our galaxy, but INTELLIGENT life most likely does not. The odds against its happening spontaneously are enormous. On the slim chance that it does exist, humans will probably not discover it for at least a century or more, and perhaps not for millennia. The interstellar distances are simply too great. /////
If we manage to discover intelligent life elsewhere, it will almost certainly be by the detection of a radio signal. There would be initial immense worldwide excitement, but when the distance to the star became determined [say 500 or 1000 light years or more] the novelty would wear off, and people would become blasé about the discovery. /////
The benefits and dangers of discovery are entirely speculative. Conventional wisdom holds that we could receive inconceivable technological and societal benefits, possibly including immortality. However, due to the time and distance scales involved, our own scientific evolution will undoubtedly outpace any possible benefits we might get by simply waiting for hundreds of generations for them to come to us. And the dangers? Of course, there's always the chance of alerting a galactic Hitler to our existence, but it seems unlikely that barbaric behavior would thrive in a civilization advanced enough to have achieved interstellar travel. /////
2. Transmitting a signal wouldn't hurt anything, but it is overwhelmingly unlikely ever to be received. The message content should contain information much like the disc put on the Voyager spacecraft. /////
3. I run SETI@home (1) just to help, and (2) there's always the chance, however small, that someone will hit pay dirt. And why waste valuable CPU minutes that would otherwise be put to use filling a display with screen-saver images? /////
My views: It is a unique, well thought-out, and well-run project. Providing people from all over the world the opportunity to participate in this profound endeavor is perhaps its most significant aspect.
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