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| Personal background |
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I grew up interested in Astronomy. I read a bunch of space books during that time, including a range of fact/fiction... from "The Red Shift" to "Red Planet".
While at the JC in Santa Rosa, I took a few GREAT Astronomy classes to fill out my units. They were fantastic, but didn't get too into the math, which I also enjoyed. So I transfered to UC Berkeley (not "Cal"... funny how they're the same... but different...) and majored in Astrophysics. I had some AMAZING classes:
"Classical Dynamics" taught by Wohl using the book by Marion... wow!
A lecture on Relativity taught by Khan... also a mind blower!
And a class on planetary structure and atmospheres by dePater... a great example of how good a class can be when a professor is excited about the subject.
I was a little burned out by the time I got my Bachelor's, and was done with school. (The fact that professor King, who was a big wig in the Astro dept, was an egomaniacal wanker who talked about himself in the 3rd person didn't help.) So then I was a bartender for a few years. (That was fun, I got to settle many bar room space-debates! And my friends LOVED that job!)
Now I'm a part time Mechanical Engineer at the Berkeley Labs, and a pert time sculptor. My friend Kevin and I make solar powered sculptures: copper plants with handblown glass flowers. We build solar panels into the leaves. During the day, the plants charge in the sun, at night the flowers glow, fade, and change color.
Sunbrothers: solar powered sculptures
www.sunbrothers.com
Anyway... that's pretty much my story.
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| Thoughts about SETI and SETI@home |
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I think SETI is great!
I believe that the discovery of life away from Earth won't make us feel less significant, but would be a testament to the mind-boggling tenacity and adaptability of life in general. I think that it's just a matter of time before we find something "out there", even if it isn't in my lifetime. (Although I really hope that it is.) I'm an agnostic... I don't know anything for certain. I don't believe or disbelieve anything 100%. Maybe we are alone in the universe... but maybe we aren't! I don't have enough information to "know" yet. It just feels far more likely that we aren't. That can be scary or humbling, but it's also inspiring and magical!
I think SETI@home is an extension of the saying "think globally act locally", except for it's like "search universally, act locally". We can't all devote our entire lives to SETI. (It's great that a few people can!!) But I can spare some computing power for the search. (Why not? It's my work's computer anyway!)
8)
But seriously... when I come back from lunch or in the morning... and the SETI@home graphs are ticking away happily... I can stop and wonder, if just for that moment, what else is out there? What would it be like to know something else is alive out there? I can only hope it would make us better citizens here on Earth.
We can certainly use all the help we can get with that.
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