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| Personal background |
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I'm currently a student at Queen Mary, University of London studying a physics MSci degree, hoping then to go on and do a PhD somewhere...in what I'm not quite sure...
I was born on the 23/08/83 so I'll let you work out my age from that, apart from being a student I keep myself busy with quite a few other things, I've been treasurer of the rowing club at university for two years and also treasurer and president of the physics and astronomy society (PsiStar) for two years. In 2005 I took over the presidency of PsiStar and I'm currently trying to finish my final year of my MSci and decide what to do with the rest of my life...
When not at University and when I do actually have some spare time I windsurf and mess about with web page design.
My background isn't really one of science, not until the age of ~ 14 did I become really interested in Physics and the wider universe around us. I've been a Sci-Fi fan most of my adult life and have always been interested in what humanity could achieve, be it good or bad. |
| Thoughts about SETI and SETI@home |
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I've actually thought long and hard about this over the past couple of years, especially after starting my degree.
There is very little chance that anything we do actually hear will be of any use to us, mainly because of the time frames involved in sending a radio message across large distances. Also the chance that we will understand any of the message at first will be debatable, namely because they will be using a different language and will most likely be using a method of transmission of that signal that is alien to us. Although in time we will figure out how to understand the signal, what will it actually show us?
Imagine the first couple of signals that would have been strong enough to reach out beyond our solar system, they would have shown a civilisation edging towards the brink of a world war, a war which would kill millions of our own people, not exactly the sort of thing that would impress anyone of our supposed civilised society.
However the same could ultimately be said for any signal we would receive, who's to say that the first evidence we get of another form of life is evidence that they too are at war with themselves.
That is in no way to say the search for signs of life through Seti is a waste of time, or something that we should overly question. I think in fact it is a very worth while effort when one considers the effects on our civilisation of discovering not just life, but other intelligent life in the galaxy.
I'm being a little hopeful in what I expect to happen, I'll freely admit that I have no love of religion in its present forms, it has un-doubt ably been the cause of the most human death's through force in humanities history and its previous exploit's in blocking scientific development have been well documented.
I'd hope that with any discovery of intelligent life out there, people may begin to question their beliefs, to look at the people they have been fighting for the past millennia because of religious reason's and hopefully think to themselves, why? Just to ask a question of one's religion and question its validity would be a step in the right direction, so many people follow the teachings of book's written 1000's of years ago and which today have little or no applicable value, other than to teach some moral values that one should follow.
But all that I have said is just pure hope, I'd rather believe that I was running Seti for simpler reasons, instead of wasting idle cpu cycles my computer could be doing something useful. |
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