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| Personal background |
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William. K. (Bill) Hemphill
I am an Assistant Professor of Engineering Technology at East Tennessee State University in the Department of Technology.
I teach a number of classes in Manufacturing Engineering Technology including a general education humanities elective called Technology & Society where we discuss the SETI@home project and other forms of space exploration.
Originally from Chattanooga, Tennessee (USA), I have lived in Japan, Pennsylvania, and toured parts of Asia & Europe. I now live in Johnson City, Tennessee. I am married to Jean Croce Hemphill, a nurse practitioner and PhD candidate in Nursing at UT Knoxville, who is also an employee of ETSU in the College of Nursing. We have two boys, two dogs, and one cat.
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| Thoughts about SETI and SETI@home |
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Do I think extraterrestrial life exists? Beats me. Given the vast number of possible sites for life (i.e., Carl's billions and billions of stars), it would be highly unlikely if we few self-replicating life forms on Earth were the only ones in the entire universe. Most forms of life would be pretty “low†and not of the self-aware, radiation producing, space traveling types that we humans have now (quickly) become.
How will humans discover ET life? By keeping our technologically extended eyes and ears open and spending the time and money to bother to look.
What are the possible benefits and dangers of such a discovery? Fundamentally, there will be a real shift in human species’ self-importance and our egocentric view of the universe. And there will be some serious fights with the “ignorance is bliss†crowd.
Should humans transmit a beacon for others to find? Too late to ask this one as “I Love Lucy†broadcasts are already speeding through the cosmos.
Why do you run SETI@home? I run it at work on a couple of machines in and around my office to productively use all of those otherwise wasted machine cycles. SETI@Home is good science and a way for everyday Joes like me to participate in grand scientific programs.
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