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| Personal background |
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In 1959, I was born in Arizona, then raised in the California sun, and educated at UC Davis & Penn State (MS Geophysics). I am currently living in Vancouver, Canada. I've worked in the steamy jungles of Sumatra & the blistering heat of Qatar, but now am enjoying the fruits of all of that labor (I'm retired).
Recent adventures:
* 3,250-mile bike ride across the U.S. (1999) (fund-raiser for the American Lung Association)
* 5-month, 2,650-mile hike from Mexico to Canada in 2002 along the Pacific Crest Trail.
I'm currently running SETI on an old 266-MHz computer. I signed on in Aug 2000 because I was intrigued by the distributed computing aspects of the project and wanted to help search for extraterrestrial life. |
| Thoughts about SETI and SETI@home |
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That extraterrestrial life exists isn't the question. It exists. (Are humans so egocentric as to believe they're the only life in the cosmos?!) HA!!
The question is about time and distance. Earth has been around for approximately 4-5 billion years. Man has only been around for 3 million or so and only sophisticated enough to detect alien life for what, maybe 50 years? 50 years out of 4 or 5 billion is a very tiny window. If other sentient life is sending signals, what are the odds that (1) they're sending signals during that small window (and not earlier or later) and (2) that they're close enough to Earth that their signal reaches us (at ALL or during that very tiny window).
We must listen. The longer we listen, the greater are our odds of detecting life. Let's hope that we're around long enough to hook up to the "Mother of all long distance phone calls".
In the meantime, let's work at not blowing ourselves up, not polluting our environment so much as to not support life, or 'offing' ourselves in some other self-inflicted and ignorant manner. The ultimate fate of all species is extinction. I'm hoping that man can extend his run to exceed the tenure of dinosaurs (who were around for several hundred million years). I'd hate to be beaten by dumb dinosaurs! |
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