| Personal background |
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As a child I inhaled science fiction! I could not imagine not going into space, feeling mass and inertia but not weight, living what I had read.
I didn't make it into space, of course, but I have seen many things which were once science fiction become reality. I've seen people on the surface of the moon, hand-held computers and just recently, some policemen aboard Segways, looking like characters from a science fiction movie. It's been interesting but I'm rather disappointed in our pace and very disappointed in our behavior, as a species.
This is supposed to be about me, though. Okay. I was born in 1953, married in 1974, diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1976. That last bit has me writing this with speech recognition software, a little bit of that science-fiction-become-reality. I'm still very much in the game.
My working life was not terribly interesting but perhaps this will tell you something of why I would write, here... A friend once asked what I would most want, if I could have anything. I responded, "I just want to know everything, understand how it all works!". I still feel that way. So, I suppose I need some measure of immortality and I certainly need the intelligence of folks like Stephen Hawking, Carl Sagan, Isaac Asimov. I don't have either but I'm still having fun.
I was first online perhaps 16 years ago (thanks, Tom Jennings) at 300 bps. My first online discussion involved the Coriolis force in spinning space stations. Now I find myself about to use a rather more powerful computer, a broadband connection and other toys to offer my views on SETI. It's been an interesting ride but I still feel too close to the wrong end. Things are just starting to get really interesting as I approach 50!
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| Thoughts about SETI and SETI@home |
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Since reading my first books by Robert Heinlein I have pondered the possibility of intelligent life beyond earth. If we aren't alone...
My short answer to whether I think intelligent life must exist elsewhere is, "Yes.". I'm not absolutely certain that the development of a high technology society ever survives its own technology but I very much hope so and I will guess the odds favor that. In our case, though, on our planet, of all the many civilizations which have been, ours is the only one to achieve high technology. Nevertheless, we made it this far and others in our galaxy may have done the same and been less self-destructive.
Do I think we should operate a beacon? Absolutely. A friend suggested that even detecting a signal from another intelligent species would be very frightening. My friend, like most folks, had no idea of the vastness, the time for just radio signals to propagate, never mind physically travel. So, we are looking. We should be transmitting! But, transmitting what?
Which brings us back to Drake and Optical SETI. Optical SETI, with Drake involved after all these years, will look for laser communication targeted specifically at us. I like that idea and it makes very good sense to use lasers instead of radio.
Nevertheless, I certainly see the logic in looking at 1420 MHz. Another species might not assume that others capable of listening have developed lasers or expect the sort of concerted effort involved in directly targeting large numbers of distant stars with lasers. I'm not certain. I'm just glad to see both approaches.
So, in this at least I can participate. Perhaps the odds are against receiving a signal in my lifetime but whatever the odds the reward of actually knowing is so great, the change that discovery would make, I hope, to our thinking and behavior sufficient, that the effort must be made. SETI@home is worth every CPU cycle!
... if we are not alone, though, I would wonder if all the prime real estate is taken. I would like to know. Wouldn't you? |
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