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| Personal background |
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| I'm from Sweden, born in 1964 and living in the city of Karlstad. I have been interested in astronomy and science as long as I can remember. At five years age I got my parents to buy me an Astronomy book, they were quite surprised - I couldn't even read at that time. At first I just looked at the pictures but when I learned to read I just dived into the most unbelievable facts about stars and planets, galaxies and quasars and just got captivated. As I grow up I kept my interest in astronomy and science but one cannot live on an interest only – so I’ve started working with computers in different forms and for the ten last years, computer and Internet security. During the last years I have been working as a senior security engineer at ISS (Internet Security Systems), mainly helping our customers managing their firewalls and Internet security. So the combination distributed computing and searches for extraterrestrial life is just a perfect combination for me - and I will continue to support SETI as long as the project exists. |
| Thoughts about SETI and SETI@home |
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| Of course life exists out there; the number of stars, trillions and billions, makes it likely for life to exist somewhere among all these alien solar systems. Planet Earth is the best proof we can get, no matter how small the chance is for life to develop, if its just greater than zero, multiplied to an infinite number also the result will be infinite. However, to discover it will become hard; the distances are enormous and the time factor is also significant. The chance for any life form to discover radio waves at the same time we’re listening is quite low. E.g. the first life forms on earth appeared about 3 billion years ago, and we have only used radio waves the last hundred years. That’s only 1/30000000 of the time life has existed on this planet. I think that if we, despite all odds, discover life on another planet it will have a great impact in how we look at ourselves – suddenly a part of something much greater. The drawback is that we will not be able to communicate; the time to transmit and reply is just to long. We have to realize that it will only be a one-way communication. Therefore, sending out a beacon to communicate have to be considered as waste of time. Sending out a beacon only to make us known is a better idea. Also, by sending all the knowledge we have discovered so far, we may help other creatures to a better life? The problem is just in what direction to send; we don’t know where in the sky extraterrestrial life may exist. Even if the SETI project discovers life, will they still be there at the time our beacon reaches them? |
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