Profile: Ian Gurney

Personal background
My name is Ian and I'm from the United Kingdom. I work as a software engineer at Bookham Technology (formally Nortel Networks) in Paignton. I'm in the top 250 of SETI@home members in the UK, and number one in Bookham.
Thoughts about SETI and SETI@home
Extraterrestial life must exist on other planets, simply on the basis of probability. Even within our own solar system there may have been life on Mars and there could also be life on Europa or other moons on the outer planets. However this life may take different forms, and most terran forms of life are not intelligent or sentiant. You could even argue that for some humans.

There must also be a substantial number of Earth like planets in the universe, which may produce similar forms of life.

Our main problem is the distance between the planets, and the limitation of the speed of light. Even if we found intelligent life on a planet a hundred light years away (relatively close) then you can't really communicate with them as your message would take 100 years to get there, and assumimng they got your message it would take another 100 years for the reply.
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