Profile: Andrew M

Personal background
I am a 38 year (bugger it makes you feel old just typing it!) old civil servant from Townsville, Australia. I am into astronomy, SF, guitar playing, computers and woodworking and am married to a blonde bombshell who is only just getting into astronomy after 15 years of cajoling from myself! Living where we do we spend all year doing 'outdoors' type things (camping etc) as the temp rarely gets below 15 degrees celcius at any time of the year. Maybe that's why I got so excited when I saw the snow in Scotland (see pic)?
Thoughts about SETI and SETI@home
I think that with the millions of galaxies and the billions of stars in each one, that no matter how improbable life is there is definately life somewhere out there. The big question for me is "Is it intelligent life?", and will we be able to recognise it if / when we find it. Also, although sf is a big part of my life, at the moment (and for ever maybe?) faster than light travel and communication seems out of the question, and this makes me wonder how we can have any meaningful contact with life elsewhere. How do we establish contact once we find life? Although the search for life is and has been a huge challenge, what comes after the success will be even greater and more interesting. When (and I do mean when) we discover life I am sure several of the major religions will need to do a bit of rearranging to maintain any credibility, and I think that there will be a negative impact on environemntal awareness (ie, some might think "if there is life out there then there are habitable planets, therefore we can pollutet his one and then just move out!"). Although my wife and I have differing viewpoints on wether or not life exists out there, we both think that if we do hear it does then apart from a healthy boost to our awareness and horizons, the impact on our day to day lives will be minimal. We will staill have to pay the mortgage, I will still have to mow the grass, and I will still need to put in the hours at work (albeit with a big grin on my face and an "I told you life was out there" Tshirt on my back!). As for a beacon, yeah, i think it is a good idea. As to what info to send, I think that the answer is right here - dont send any info, just send out the sort of signals at the sort of wavelengths we are looking for. Since we dont know what ET is or thinks, we can only assume he/she/it is like us, and if they are looking for us wouldn't they be looking for the things we are?

I run SETI@home because I belive there is life out there.
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