I teach and play Brazilian style carnival rhythms to a variety of people in my home town (Manchester, England) and take an avid interest in science both true and fictional. Web Site
Thoughts about SETI and SETI@home
I'm one of those people who fall into the, "how could we possibly be alone when there are so many other planets and systems in the universe that could bring forth life as WE know it" camp. As soon as I heard I could help in some way I wanted to.
By definition we don't know what to expect when we encounter other forms of life so there are bound to be potential dangers as well as benefits - look at what has happened after the meeting of civilisations here on Earth!
We don't need to transmit any special beacon since we are very obviously here! As for first contact protocols there are others out there far better qualified than me to address that one!
I run SETI@home because I think the project could play a useful part in eliminating those signal candidates that aren't likely alien transmissions and I would like to think that any contact made would be on behalf of humanity as a whole and all information would be shared - so why not start as we mean to continue - in a spirit of scientific co-operation.
SETI@home and Astropulse are funded by grants from the National Science Foundation, NASA, and donations from SETI@home volunteers. AstroPulse is funded in part by the NSF through grant AST-0307956.
