Profile: Gary McCall

Personal background
I believe there is other intelligent life in the universe (they're out there), and although the chances of our finding any evidence may be slim, the possiblity and our own curiosity must be satisfied.

To the detractors of the SETI Project, I look at this this way: The chances of winning the Power Ball Lottery are nearly 250 Million to 1, Publishers Clearing House may be a Billion to 1, and yet they consistently give away a jackpot prize to a few lucky winners every year. Your chances of being struck by lightening are perhaps far better than of winning the lottery, but your chances of winning are also "absolute zero" if you never buy a ticket!

So, as for finding evidence of intelligent life elsewhere in our universe, we'll certainly never know unless we look, so I am happy to contribute the spare cycles on my CPUs to help with the search and I hope you will join me.
Thoughts about SETI and SETI@home
I'm a huge fan of the late Carl Sagan and Charles Drake (author of the "Drake Equation"), and I'm therefore a huge fan of the SETI project. I simply cannot fathom how anyone could believe that with so many stars in our universe, that "we" should be the only form of intelligent life out there.

N=R* x fp x ne x fl x fi x fc x L (visual!)

N, the number of observable civilizations in our galaxy can be found by multiplying some very specific factors.
R sub * (star) is the rate of star formation in the galaxy.
F sub p is the fraction of those stars that have planets.
N sub e is the number of Earth-like planets in the average solar system.
F sub l is the fraction of those planets with life.
F sub i is the fraction of those planets with intelligent life.
F sub c is the fraction of those planets with intelligent life that becomes capable of communicating, and
L is the average lifetime of such a civilization.

I don't know if evidence of intelligent life elsewhere will ever be found, and even if it is, I feel quite certain that the vast distances of space will prevent any direct contact, and this may be as intended by the creator, but whether we will ever establish contact or not, the KNOWING will inevitably alter the perceptions of mankind forever, and will I believe, make us better.

To this end, I gladly share my spare CPU cycles to futher the SETI project, and establish the Astrochannels SETI@Home Team, and I hope others will be inspired to join me.

http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/team_display.php?teamid=128714
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