|
| Personal background |
|---|
In response to a question posed to the character played by Jody Foster in the movie "Contact" she replied (paraphrasing)
"Are there little green men ? Well, there's an awful lot of space out there and it sure seems like a waste if there aren't"
So hey, who knows, one day we may actually help to discover something out there that demonstrates we're not alone. We will always be unique but it'd be an interesting milestone for our generation if we could point to the sky and tell our grandchildren "I remember when we thought we were alone in the universe, my oh my, how far we've come"
"I haven't found a thousand things that work, but I have found thousands of things that don't !"
Toronto, Canada |
| Thoughts about SETI and SETI@home |
|---|
Are there other beings out "there" ? It seems it's a question that humanity has been asking for a long time. I think that there has to be something out there besides ourselves. It may not be in any form we expect. So Star Trek's Vulcans, Klingons etc. are likely fiction but you never know.
We may be optimistic in hoping that we'll come across some kind of signal from an extraterrestrial life form but in the end, it's not a waste of time at all. Think about all the discoveries that have been made along the way.
As for the question of whether we should be sending out a beacon for others to find, well, like it or not, we've already been doing that for over a century. Fron the first days of Marconi & his telegraph signals to this very note I'm typing, it all has escaped our planetary confines by radio, microwave etc.
In regards to what we should be sending, that's a foolish question, we've already sent enough signals that it'd be impossible to pull out a galactic eraser and tell extraterrestrials to ignore the noise of the last century and focus on only THIS specific message. Truth be told, they'd likely be as confused by anything we did send intentionally as they'd be by everything we've already sent.
As for why I run SETI@Home, hell, it's only processor time and if my little contribution, along with that of the millions of others can help to further the exploration of our neighborhood, then it's time well spent. Sure, I could have a pretty aquarium as a screen saver but instead I choose to have something that's a bit more productive. Especially considering the fact that when the screen saver is actually running I'm likely away from my computer so I wouldn't even enjoy it in the first place.
That's my $0.02 worth. |
| Your feedback on this profile |
|---|
| Recommend this profile for User of the Day: |
I like this profile |
| Alert administrators to an offensive profile: |
I do not like this profile |
|
| Account data |
View |
| Team |
None |
|
