Profile: Torkel Lindahl

Personal background
As a child I lived in the countryside where nights are dark. My father often took me
outdoors and taught me the names of the most brilliant stars and their constellations.
Through his small telescope I saw Jupiter's four moons and Saturn's ring. I also learnt
about galaxies such as the one in Andromeda which is so far away that it has taken
light two million years to get here. What we see in the telescope is thus really a two
million years old image. What it looks like in this very moment we don't know - it may
not even exist. At least that's how I thought.
Looking outwards into space also means looking backwards in time. With your naked
eye you can see a few million light years out in space - and back in time. But my young
imagination didn't stop there. What if I directed the telescope beside the galaxy and
looked between the stars, into the dark space, how far away did I see then? Infinitely?
or is there an outer boundary, beyond which there is nothing? And how far back in time
did I see between the stars? Infinitely? or was there a time before which there was
nothing?
My father told me about the Big Bang theory, that the universe is expanding and
therefor must have a beginning in time. My young mind was filled with questions: What
was there before the big bang? Where did it all come from? Why are we here to look at
it? And are we the only living creatures in the universe?
Later I began studying theology and philosophy and found that these questions have
been asked for many centuries, by both philosophers and scientists. I already knew the
most ancient and, by far, the most common answer, that "in the beginning God created
the heavens and the earth" and man to inhabit it.
Still, whenever I go outdoors and its dark (which means in the night from September
through April - yes, I live not far from the Arctic Circle), I turn my eyes upwards.

The SETI@home project adds another dimension to my interest in astronomy.
Thoughts about SETI and SETI@home
I don't really think we'll ever find someone out there.
To my opinion we are probably alone.
And even if not, chances are microscopic that we will ever find them.
We don't even know if the kind of signals SETI@home is listening for
is the kind of signals other civilizations are likely to send out.
But you should never say never...

And it's cool to be part of the world's biggest supercomputer.
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SETI@home and Astropulse are funded by grants from the National Science Foundation, NASA, and donations from SETI@home volunteers. AstroPulse is funded in part by the NSF through grant AST-0307956.