| Personal background |
|---|
| Student of climate and 30 years old. Rabid science fiction reader in my spare time. |
| Thoughts about SETI and SETI@home |
|---|
1. I have no idea about the existence of ET life, except that it is currently quite impossible to prove or disprove. Science is finding more and more examples of life in extreme habitats on Earth, so it is becoming more and more possible that we are not alone. Life with any level of technology we can detect emissions from is another matter. That's why I find the SETI@home interesting: It may not prove anything about ETs, but any openminded filtering of data might bring useful and even unexpected results. Call it openmindedness; I call it dreaming about hearing from advanced ETs one day. I am a bit curious as to whether or not we will be able to recognize a ET-originating signal, though.
2. We are already shining a big beacon at the stars, with all the radiosignals leaving the Earth. It may degrade to noise before anybody able to intercept it at light-years distance, but if ET astronomers are capable of finding planets, they should be able to see that the solar system really is not a tight binary. Any pulse of more 'hello'-like character should not be fired before we know where to shoot. And how do we know how to say 'hello'? A simple signal, mathematical or just exotic noise should be enough. SETI@home might be able to show us where to aim. I lean towards the suggestion from Arthur C. Clarke, that we may burn away our nuclear arsenal on the opposite side of the sun, and use the radiation reflections to map the Solar System. A bang that big may also trigger a response from ETs in decades or centuries.
3. I run SETI@home because it is an interesting exercise in signal processing, and it tickles my curiosity to indiscriminatingly filter through radiowaves to find distant objects. |
| Your feedback on this profile |
|---|
| Recommend this profile for User of the Day: |
I like this profile |
| Alert administrators to an offensive profile: |
I do not like this profile |
|
|
