| Personal background |
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Astronomy/physics major from the University of Nebraska, so naturally went to the oilfield for gainful employment and to avoid inevitable starvation faced by the majority of Astrognomes...
Retired September 30, 2005 from the oilpatch after 27 1/6 years. |
| Thoughts about SETI and SETI@home |
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1. Extraterrestrial life probably exists (I 'want' it to exist) but will be exceedingly rare; intelligent (by our standards) mobile life will likely be even rarer. The chances that we will encounter it are very slim. The science since the 70's consistently leads to the likelihood that earth's circumstances are very rare indeed; the type of star we are circling (the luck at not being a 'double' like the majority), it's age and long life, our planet's distance from Sol and earth's 'stability', temperature range and liquid water, 'luck' with having a twin planet (moon), our relatively 'clean' solar system (not all that many devastating rocks floating around to kill us), etc. etc. may likely mean that we ARE ALL THERE IS. And I don't even want to get into the highly improbable, unlikely statistics that would allow 'evolution' to cause us to be here after only a couple billion years...and that such could happen elsewhere. (I am simultaneously amused by those who believe 'seeding' by aliens is more probable than intervention by God... Science does tend to be a little closed minded when it comes to matters of faith for some reason...)
2. A transmission beacon for others to find is a cute idea but probably a waste of time; our RF noise, first generated in the last century, should be enough for anyone silly enough to want to find us. And then there's the chance (50/50?) that the cute little aliens will want to exterminate us rather than be friends and models for plush toys...
3. I used to ran SETI@home (and at work on a total of 3 computers, including a new 2.6 GHz machine at home) because it's a fun way to use all this excess computing capacity. Retiring 9/30/05 to Florida, will probably bring it down to two home machines.
The thought of all those machines out there actually working toward a single, improbable, goal "rocks"! And, yes, I dream of being the one that finds E.T.; I'm more likely to win the PowerBall drawing but at some point, one must be irrational about something... This project is something that should be tried as long as the GNP has enough slop to allow it! |
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