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| Personal background |
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My "real" name is David and I am a 41 year old native Texan. I picked up Cochise as a nick somewhere I don't remember, but it's been with me a long time. I have been an amateur astronomer for 31 years and have always had science, physics and astronomy as a hobby since I was a kid. I was constantly mixing chemicals up to see what I could create or staying in the woods late at night looking at the sky through a telescope convinced that I would go to the moon someday. When I grew up to be a bigger kid I studied economics and engineering and decided I wanted to work in the computer technology biz. Well, many years later I've decided that I really miss astronomy and economics so I decided to go back to school and get a masters in economics, and along the way, study some more astronomy. So I'm an older student at The University of Texas at Austin right now doing just that. U.T. has an excellent astronomy department with some really wonderful professors and it's great to be able to learn from some of these people. One of the classes I am actually taking right now, "The Search for Extraterrestrial Life" reminded me of SETI and so I decided to start SETI again after being away for many years. My main interest in astronomy now has moved from observational astronomy to organic chemistry and physics and how these relate to the Drake equation. SETI fits right into this. From a statistical perspective, I do not think we will detect a signal in my lifetime but it is very important that we look and continue to advance our capabilities in this area.
I think SETI needs to broaden its scope. Whether it is searching more of the sky or covering more frequencies or searching for organic compounds in the galaxy or some other areas that parallel the existance of extra terrestrial life in the universe I think that SETI should broaden its science to perhaps broaden its appeal or enhance its effectiveness. Is this a criticism? absolutely not. It is a wonderful project the way that it is and the future will only bring more good things to SETI.
I am happy to be a part of the search for extraterretrial life in some small way and hundreds or even thousands of years from now be part of a group that will be viewed as pioneers that decided to be part of a project and use their desktop PC's to look for life elsewhere in the universe. Now how cool is that?!
Happy Crunching! |
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