Again I disagree...if the species is extinct, then there will be no signal. No matter how long it takes for the signal to get here...if they are dead so is the signal.

This is way out of my expertise but I would have thought that once a signal is sent, it continues to go (forever?) whether or not any more signal is being sent behind it.

The spherical wavefront of a signal travels outward at c, and it will go on indefinitely in empty space, just becoming weaker according to the “inverse-square law”. Suppose the Doggies from Sirius are ‘listening in’ on our TV broadcasts; the programs they’re receiving now are nine years old to us (I guess they’d be watching Cher videos and talking-heads going on about Y2K). If we get wiped out by some catastrophe tomorrow, the Sirians will still have another nine years of viewing pleasure before we ‘go off the air’. So to that extent you’re right: like a circular ripple on a pool, a radio signal doesn’t need to be ‘driven’ by another behind it to keep propagating.

But we have to be careful to specify what we mean by “is extinct” and “now”, because common-sense notions of simultaneity break down where relativity is concerned. AIUI in four-dimensional space-time, if it’s “now” when the broadcasts go out, it’s “now” when they’re received, no matter how far away that might be, because world-lines can’t intersect at any steeper an angle than that determined from the speed of light. According to this relativistic definition of simultaneity, Jason is right: if we’re still in the doomed ETs’ light-cone they’re not extinct yet, in our frame of reference.

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YES most definitely...something is out there and we will eventually find it.

But why? Seems to me that its an awfull lot of resouces spent on somthing that can never offer any real benefit to humanity. Having said that I should add, it sure is fun though, and you cant argue with fact that seti led to boinc and boinc showed the world and the scientific community what distributed volenteer computing is capable of.

m4rtyn

ps I Know, 2 or 3 letters. But that rule has allready been broken. and as the only NO vote(see earlier post[only 2 letters]) I was feeling a bit lonley and intimidated. .... so I'm babbleing, ...... so I'll stop now......

You are saying that aliens or ET will not benefit humanity? I disagree. There would me a lot of technology and stuff that we can exchange etc...

How? You really think you will be able to call them back the minuet the signel is found.I understand this is a common misconception, but unfortunatly comunication of any sort would be impossible due to the fact that any comunication would have a round trip time of many many thousands of years.
not to mention that the species that sent the signel may well be extinct by the time it reaches us and we as a species will probably be long gone by the time any reply we send found its way back. Im afraid this i just one of the many reasons why comunication will never happen.

m4rtyn

Again I disagree...if the species is extinct, then there will be no signal. No matter how long it takes for the signal to get here...if they are dead so is the signal. If they communicate with us they can come here as they will likely be far more advanced than we are. Communication will happen if we find them because a signal does NOT last forever. Once it stops transmitting, we would know it because the signal would NOT be a constant aka doppler drift rate. Not impossible, just would take a long time. Unfortunately, IMO you analogy of communication makes no sense to me as we have thousands of ways to communicate with each other on earth, so its likely they have thousands moreways to communicate with us. If they are advanced enough to send a signal, then they are probably advanced enough to come see us. Ever hear of Light speed?

Sorry jason but evan at the speed of light, 186,000 miles/sec it would take at least 4.2 years to cover the distance from our nearest neighbours(Proxima Centauri,Rigil Kentaurus,Wolf 359),not to long to travel you might think,but if there were anybody(thing) there we would have found out long ago even without seti. Unfortunately what litle hope there is lies with the more distant stars. which of course means a journey time of hundreds maybe thousands of years (Hardley worth it to visit the obscure T shirt producing planet of earth. And I dont care what MPG you get thats gonna cost some in gas)As for a signal ceasing to travel when transmision ends, I think youll find it's not so, marconnis original transmision is probably out there somewhere. (For that matter so is The Benny Hill Show, Eastenders, and god help us David HaselHoff! there gose our rep.) But on a more serious note it's quite possible that an advanced race may choose to activly prevent an inferiour species like ourselves from finding it. And who could blame them.

m4rtyn

You mean to tell me, that as we think space itself never ends and just goes on and on, and we have proof from The Hubble Space Telescope that in that image alone we see what maybe 200 or more galaxies? If at least one planet like earth exists in at least each of those galaxies thats a potential for 200 civilizations. Now take that and multiply it by infinity....We are not as rare as one might think...but it would seem we are far away form theses civilizations yes, but if there are an endless amount then why would we never find anything? In all logic, it really is quite impossible for us NOT to find anything, just not in my lifetime, or yuours most likely...but that's not stopping me...Someone else said if there is a signal, i want my computer to find it ;)

This is also the most logical way to look for ET (the way we are). Who else would look at this data if our computers did not?

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"By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible". Hebrews 11.3

I wasn't aware of the donations pages, I just spent a few minutes looking for it but couldn't locate it, can someone point me in the right direction, thx.

The Donate link is under “Participate” on the home page.

Aye (Yes)

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AFFIRMATIVE ;)

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YES most definitely...something is out there and we will eventually find it.

But why? Seems to me that its an awfull lot of resouces spent on somthing that can never offer any real benefit to humanity. Having said that I should add, it sure is fun though, and you cant argue with fact that seti led to boinc and boinc showed the world and the scientific community what distributed volenteer computing is capable of.

m4rtyn

ps I Know, 2 or 3 letters. But that rule has allready been broken. and as the only NO vote(see earlier post[only 2 letters]) I was feeling a bit lonley and intimidated. .... so I'm babbleing, ...... so I'll stop now......

You are saying that aliens or ET will not benefit humanity? I disagree. There would me a lot of technology and stuff that we can exchange etc...

How? You really think you will be able to call them back the minuet the signel is found.I understand this is a common misconception, but unfortunatly comunication of any sort would be impossible due to the fact that any comunication would have a round trip time of many many thousands of years.
not to mention that the species that sent the signel may well be extinct by the time it reaches us and we as a species will probably be long gone by the time any reply we send found its way back. Im afraid this i just one of the many reasons why comunication will never happen.

m4rtyn

Again I disagree...if the species is extinct, then there will be no signal. No matter how long it takes for the signal to get here...if they are dead so is the signal. If they communicate with us they can come here as they will likely be far more advanced than we are. Communication will happen if we find them because a signal does NOT last forever. Once it stops transmitting, we would know it because the signal would NOT be a constant aka doppler drift rate. Not impossible, just would take a long time. Unfortunately, IMO you analogy of communication makes no sense to me as we have thousands of ways to communicate with each other on earth, so its likely they have thousands moreways to communicate with us. If they are advanced enough to send a signal, then they are probably advanced enough to come see us. Ever hear of Light speed?

Sorry jason but evan at the speed of light, 186,000 miles/sec it would take at least 4.2 years to cover the distance from our nearest neighbours(Proxima Centauri,Rigil Kentaurus,Wolf 359),not to long to travel you might think,but if there were anybody(thing) there we would have found out long ago even without seti. Unfortunately what litle hope there is lies with the more distant stars. which of course means a journey time of hundreds maybe thousands of years (Hardley worth it to visit the obscure T shirt producing planet of earth. And I dont care what MPG you get thats gonna cost some in gas)As for a signal ceasing to travel when transmision ends, I think youll find it's not so, marconnis original transmision is probably out there somewhere. (For that matter so is The Benny Hill Show, Eastenders, and god help us David HaselHoff! there gose our rep.) But on a more serious note it's quite possible that an advanced race may choose to activly prevent an inferiour species like ourselves from finding it. And who could blame them.

m4rtyn

You mean to tell me, that as we think space itself never ends and just goes on and on, and we have proof from The Hubble Space Telescope that in that image alone we see what maybe 200 or more galaxies? If at least one planet like earth exists in at least each of those galaxies thats a potential for 200 civilizations. Now take that and multiply it by infinity....We are not as rare as one might think...but it would seem we are far away form theses civilizations yes, but if there are an endless amount then why would we never find anything? In all logic, it really is quite impossible for us NOT to find anything, just not in my lifetime, or yuours most likely...but that's not stopping me...Someone else said if there is a signal, i want my computer to find it ;)

This is also the most logical way to look for ET (the way we are). Who else would look at this data if our computers did not?

Hi jason
I'm not suggesting that there is no possibility of life elsewhere in the universe, although you have to admit anything outside our gallaxy for all intents and purposes may just as well be not there. My original point was that there is very little benefit to be gained from the search.

As for technological exchange, I think someone has allready pointed out Other civilisations are not allways going to be more advanced than us. And of course dont forget, humanity after all these thousands of years still has not mastered the art of sharing what it has got with it's self let alone another species.Yes, I agree with you in that other species may well exist elswhere. Unfortunately I do not agree that seti is a worthwhile use of such a large and valuble resouce. As you say "just not in my lifetime", and there are so many other uses all this computing power could be put to that offer real benefits In our lifetime, not to mention leaving a better world for our children.

Also if we did find an extraterestial civilisation you just Know old Dubya will find an excuse for regime change.

m4rtyn

I wasn't aware of the donations pages, I just spent a few minutes looking for it but couldn't locate it, can someone point me in the right direction, thx.

The Donate link is under “Participate” on the home page.

Thanks for the link, appreciated.

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Yes

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Yes.

Yes.

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Donate to SETI@Home via PayPal!

Optimized SETI@Home apps + Information

Yes

Yes

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This is a YES or NO question!!!

If you add anything other that YES or NO, bad for you. 2 or 3 letters. 3 for YES, 2 for NO. Here it is.

If SETI didn't give "credits" would you still do it???

Remember YES, or NO only, not justification either way. 2 or 3 letters, YES or NO.

(EDIT) A lot of folks have visited this post without a vote, please vote either way, no hard feelings either way.

YES

NO

[SPAM]
Why ?

because who say's that an alien lifeform would send out some broadcasts to us on the frequency we're listening on ? (i think it was hydrogen, please correct me if i'm wrong)

What if they decide to broadcast on an other frequency ? In the past time there has been a lot of talking about the right frequency and from what i heard a lot of scientists are questioning exactly that.

[/SPAM]

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Join BOINC United now!

What if they [ET] decide to broadcast on an other frequency ? In the past time there has been a lot of talking about the right frequency and from what i heard a lot of scientists are questioning exactly that.

To be scientific is to question...

A very big assumption for the search for ET is that ET deliberately intends itself to be found. We then make the best guesses as to what will be the most likely way to get found.

We are also limited by the resources available to make the search.


With the very limited resources available, this is all one very big guess!

And IMMHO, all very worthwhile for reasons far beyond just searching for ET.


Happy crunchin',
Martin

(And I should be out of EDF sometime in the next two months! :-( )

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See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

A very big assumption for the search for ET is that ET deliberately intends itself to be found. We then make the best guesses as to what will be the most likely way to get found.

That's true.

We are also limited by the resources available to make the search.

The thing is who limits our resources and why...
Sure there's the money thing involved but why do a lot of sientists agree that seti is searching for/on the wrong places ???

With the very limited resources available, this is all one very big guess!

Sure it is. However ... there's still the part on why most sientist disagree with the way seti is doing it's "work".

And IMMHO, all very worthwhile for reasons far beyond just searching for ET.

I agree, at least with astropulse seti is doing some "funded" work. Although that part IS allready covered by other projects....

However .....

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Join BOINC United now!

... The thing is who limits our resources and why...
Sure there's the money thing involved but why do a lot of sientists agree that seti is searching for/on the wrong places ???

The nature of Science and scientists is that there must always be a lot of disagreement.

The proof of a hypothesis is that noone can argue it to be wrong or argue for anything 'better'!

Do you have a better hypothesis?

(That's an honest question. Everything is open for discussion.)

Keep searchin',
Martin

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See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Keep searchin',

To read to all the different points of views always raises more questions (and answers), which is a good thing.

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This is a YES or NO question!!!

If you add anything other that YES or NO, bad for you. 2 or 3 letters. 3 for YES, 2 for NO. Here it is.

If SETI didn't give "credits" would you still do it???

Remember YES, or NO only, not justification either way. 2 or 3 letters, YES or NO.

(EDIT) A lot of folks have visited this post without a vote, please vote either way, no hard feelings either way.

Since I was the starter of the thread, I want to say why I started it "without" stopping the discussions that are going on - they are very thought provoking. PLEASE keep them going.

I started it as a result of comming home at night (after night) to see what's going on and it seems like the vast majority of the postings/threads are about, one way or the other, however you want to get there - credits I didn't get.

I can certainly appreciate that, from my personal perspective - I just bought and paid (actually paying) $1,200 for a 'puter "mostly" [I play Oblivion when I get a chance] for SETI.

To me (boy am I going to get beat up on this one) most are posted like the kid who didn't get his allowance, very attackive (is that a word???) WHERE ARE MY CREDITS!!!

I'll be more than happy to give those folks whatever credits they got shorted from mine.

Now, back to what I said earlier: I'm impressed with the discussions that have resulted from YES or NO :) -- KEEP THEM GOING! (Hope I didn't piss too many people off)

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erm...NO