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| Personal background |
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| I am a 27 year old computer programmer from the North West of England. Predictably I like computers, and also roleplaying games (of forms similar to - but not quite like - Dungeons and Dragons). |
| Thoughts about SETI and SETI@home |
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I started running SETI@Home in 2002, and have done since then.
I think the late Douglas Adams got it right with his immortal words: "Space is big. Very big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind boggling big it is." I agree with Douglas, and the vastness of space is exactly why I think there has to be other life out in space. There's just too much space out there, too many planets and galaxies for life not to exist. Even if the start of life on a planet turns out to be due to some force of "luck" or some unlikely set of planetary pre-conditions, some planet out there must support life in the same way as our Earth does. There is life out there, we just have to find it. It may not even be life as we might recognise it, but it is out there.
As much as I may like to imagine we might find life out in space within my lifetime, I don't think we will. The same vastness of space that makes me sure there's life somewhere is also why I think we probably won't find alien life any time soon. There's just too much space to search, and we'll probably need bigger and better telescopes to come close to finding it. Any alien life we might find - or which might find us - is also quite possibly at a different stage in their evolutionary biology, technical development or social development. We may simply miss life because it isn't advanced enough to match our preconceptions of their technology, because their technology has outgrown our own, because they aren't listening, or even because they don't want to be found.
As small as the chances of finding life may be, I think the many SETI projects, including SETI@Home, are a worthwhile and necessary beginning in the search, and will continue to be important. One day, thanks to the work of SETI@Home, we may make contact with other life. I hope it will be within my lifetime.
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