Seti

**trash** · 02-08-16, 10:42 AM

I meant to post this last month, but I was on holidays.

This one will keep some of you busy for a few hours.

**gordon_s1942** · 02-08-16, 02:31 PM

I still have a fridge magnet of the Radio Telescope at Parkes when the first S.E.T.I search was conducted some years ago but I think they were broadcasting a message as well as just listening until someone pointed out that it might be a good idea to find out who (if anyone) or what could be listening.

While I dont doubt there must be some form of intelligent life out there ( if your using the Human Race as a measure of Intelligence!!!(Thats a JOKE, Joyce)) what use any messages might be due to the fact its taken more light years than the Human race has existed to arrive here.
Although there might be the formulae to build a better Mouse Trap hidden in there somewhere, you never know do you?

**enf** · 02-08-16, 02:45 PM

Putting my fantasies and personal beliefs aside, SETI seems a waste of money, time and effort to me.

**trash** · 03-08-16, 10:37 PM

Actually enf, there are a couple of things that you benefit from because of SETI. If you use SDR, you can thank SETI for driving development.
And some of this technology has flowed into mobile phone and military technologies, and there just some of the examples that I can think of.
Likewise you've probably heard wifi was a child of Radio Astronomy.

@Gordon, it's not unusual for pretty much everybody to underestimate what can be learned from an alien civilisation.
This is a cut and past from whingepool where I explain a little bit about what kinds of communication are possible and what can be learnt and how.

Actual physical contact may well be almost impossible under these circumstances.

So the general gist of your post I'm guessing is that it's kind of pointless or rather doesn't provide anything useful other than knowing life exists elsewhere ?

And this seems to be the conclusion that the general population comes to.
But when dealing with SETI, I do think there is a rather narrow minded opinion of it even in the scientific community.

It really requires the scenario to be broken down into three types of SETI based upon distance and time much like you've described.

The first kind is what we would all like and people expect of SETI. Direct contact with another population practically close to us. We can ask them a question and get an answer in a reasonable time frame.
How advanced on population is in relation to another does not matter. There is a LOT we can learn generally and from another civilisation even if they are basically idiots.

The most basic example that I can use to describe the kind of information gained is what Star Trek terms "Stellar Cartography." Using simple maths we will have two eyes on the universe. We can improve our mapping and understanding of the galaxy and the universe by a considerable amount. Just by the aliens telling us where they can see stars in their sky.

Of course there is the direct information gained. They can tell us what they know and we can tell them what we know and the sum of the whole will be greater than the parts.

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Then there is the second kind. Where a civilisation is far enough away that asking them questions becomes a matter of tact.
There is no point in asking them questions that by the time we get an answer, we have worked out for ourselves.
Instead immortal questions have to be asked. Information that we know the aliens know and that we cannot derive ourselves.
So, stellar charts are an example. That information can only be obtained from them. Their genetic sequence is another.
By comparing their life forms to ours, we can each work out answers for ourselves based on the common information.

So we might ask their 1950's level of technology for their genome and by the time they get the question they will be able to send it. Meanwhile back here on earth, 200 years have passed, but the information coming down is useful to future generations.

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The final kind of SETI is to assume one way communication.
We accept that we will never get a reply. So we transmit anyway and send out all the information we would like to know about the aliens.

How and where we send such messages becomes important. There is no point in sending this information out to local stars. The chances of an intercept a low. We want the greatest chance of success and the way to do that is to ensure that the signal reaches as many stars as possible at the same time. That means targeting entire galaxies.
The local group galaxies are the ones to target. Andromeda is the best. Our message is a broadcast to everybody in Andromeda. Here's some things we thought you'd like to know. Here's a picture of your galaxy from outside, this is what it looks like. Here's some maps of stars and galaxies etc.

Now we use the Drake equation. If our signal passes perpendicular through the galaxy (for simplicity) and all the stars get the message at the same time. Some civilisations will miss it because they are too early or two late. But for sure even if there are only a couple, they're going to notice a big signal coming from an obvious object like the milky way if that signal duration has enough redundancy in it. Like it is sent continuous for 1000 days.

We gain nothing from this method other than hoping that everybody else does it.
If we do it then it is only for the benefit of aliens that we will never know exist.

What I do find disturbing is if we reverse the Drake equation and apply this logic. If there are only a couple of civilisations in a galaxy at any one time, and assume that all those civilisations send out a signal sooner or later, then we should over a long human period see several such signals from each galaxy. (But we don't).

So even if we assume everybody is like us and we juggle the Drake equation's numbers, it's still a very quiet universe.

**lsemmens** · 04-08-16, 10:22 PM

I have, in the past, listened to a series of lectures by "The Teaching Company" entitled "The Search For Intelligent Life in Space". It does tend to indicate that we may, in fact, be alone.

**allover** · 05-08-16, 10:36 AM

An article on Einstein said neither he or his associates were in favor of interstellar communication, their reasoning being that who ever received messages from earth would be in their opinion technically superior to humans, if they visited earth and as happened on earth, would tend to dominate humans, eg British over aboriginals
But back to topic, I would not have a clue to work the code out, i have enough problems with the cross word

**gordon_s1942** · 06-08-16, 04:02 PM

When you think that Radio Astronomy started as the result of a Telephone Linesman trying to eliminate 'Noise' on the lines to what it is today is amazing.

As in most endevourers, those involved kept experimenting to improve what they were using and like many R&D projects, this has lead to other avenues of interest.

**Uncle Fester** · 06-08-16, 09:07 PM

Originally Posted by allover

An article on Einstein said neither he or his associates were in favor of interstellar communication, their reasoning being that who ever received messages from earth would be in their opinion technically superior to humans, if they visited earth and as happened on earth, would tend to dominate humans, eg British over aboriginals
But back to topic, I would not have a clue to work the code out, i have enough problems with the cross word

Kind of disappointed that Einstein thought so narrow minded about that.
He was simply assuming that all superior developed alien life forms would behave just like us rogue underdeveloped humans.
That would not make them superior.
A superior life form can not know anything about greed, wars, poverty and corruption, only about progress.

... although I wouldn't mind being dominated by such a life form should it exist.

Right now I think the life forms in my beer fermenter are doing a better job than those dominating us right now, both world wide and local.

**trash** · 07-08-16, 06:47 PM

It's kind of irrelevant who says it. But it is something that does have to be considered.
Why would aliens want to come here?
We can flip that logic and ask why we would want to visit them.

Science and Education is our main priority. That may be beneficial or detrimental to either group.
Stealing resources would appear to be a low priority because we can find those resources in places in plenty of other places and closer to home.
However, theft of territory might be a concern. Alien refugees might be a concern. A homeless species moves in and wants to share, or even wants to take over.
That scenario we're not handing too well with Muslims. Europe is a good model. Europe's Muslim population increased by 1% from 4% to 5% in the last year.
Europe's general population is increasing by about 0.1%pa It means that Europe's population is almost stable but Muslims are replacing non Muslim Europeans.
It's an excellent analogue to see human's are able to live together either way.

There are however some sinister examples to consider. The spread of ideology. We've seen how benign missionaries have spread the good will into other civilizations effectively poisoning them. Again, it's a two way street. We might corrupt the aliens or they might corrupt us. We have no shortage of crazies who would love to pick up and be the leader of a new religion, or political cause. You can imagine if the aliens are communists, nationalists or theocrats.

And those ideas don't require people to travel, those ideas can spread at the speed of light.
You know the raelians are going to be all over this shit .

So the real threat is the theft of commodities which are universally rare.
Territory does not appear to be rare. There appears to be plenty of planets to live on that don't have technological beings.
That means there might be lots of natives for us to exploit, we might be the bad guys

Information itself is the real hazard and how the mentally ill here on Earth decide to abuse it.

**enf** · 30-08-16, 04:27 PM

Yoohoo!!

**Uncle Fester** · 30-08-16, 08:13 PM

Tell the military to shut down their stuff for 10 minutes and then see.

**trash** · 31-08-16, 10:42 PM

Well that is an interesting one. 100 light years away would put them slightly ahead of us.
Assuming it's LGM, a large signal is more likely to be some kind of radar.
Definitely worth a closer look. Though I'm not getting my hopes up on this one.

If it is confirmed, then that gives us a first good guess at galactic population density.
One civilisation every 100 light years. That's about 200 million technological civilisations.
Even at half that rate, one every 200 light years is 100 million.

But we need some proof first.

**Learjet** · 02-09-16, 12:23 PM

It's the Russian Woodpecker.

As far as finding that first signal, what does SETI do that radio astronomy in general doesn't? It's like having a group of optical astronomers specifically looking for UFO's when there's already a vast network of "regular" astronomers in place.

Earlier this year I was reading an article in the ATFN (Australia Telescope) news from the CSIRO on fast radio bursts or "FRB's". Some of these signals turned out to be a microwave oven, but some did seem like they were originating "out there". I think some people are of the opinion that if there are alien signals to be found, they will likely be found during the course of research when looking for something else, hence the waste of time and money for a separate group.

**gordon_s1942** · 02-09-16, 03:14 PM

Let's see how this works.
Its taken 90 to a 100 years traveling at the speed of light to get here and even if we had the vaguest idea of what message it may contain, it will take anther 90~100 years for a reply to be received by the 'sender'....

I do hope its nothing as mundane as reminding us to turn off the Gas before going out..............