What is going on with SETI@home? I have in the past, (like many of the other users of this board I suspect!) run the SETI@home screensaver on my computer. I ran it for about 4 years and then uninstalled it. Not because I was fed up with not having an ET directly send to me personally a big "HELLO THERE" message, but rather because I saw little in the way of actual science being done with the SETI results we volunteers were all producing and because there seemed to be no plan for any kind of endpoint of the project in the future.
I recall seeing in a 2000 edition of Scientific American a plot of the already searched parameter space by SETI@home and it looked like most of our galaxy was searched and found empty obviously, of "type I civilizations" and higher. (ah. found it) Now, its been 6 years since then and we've since viewed ~97% of the observable sky from Arecibo at least once since the start of the project (~86% at least twice). Why are there no papers published on this result? It IS a significant result even if its negative one. Were there SETI papers published that I've just not seen? The SETI and SETI@home web sites are of very little help when looking for actual peer reviewed published papers that the projects have produced.
Full Version: Seti And Particularly Seti@home
I think this is an interesting topic, and that it fully deserves its place here as a science/technology concern, if we left besides any childish a priori in the style "life on other planets must/cannot exist" and any mockery about "little green men" or fear about "aliens".
Like many others I ran the SETI@home screensaver, but I abandonned because I have only an old slow computer which took too long to analyse one block.
The diagram deglr6328 found here summarizes the actual result of SETI searches:
-SETI cannot detect the equivalent of Earth at any distance, even very close (Barnard, Sirius)
-there is nobody at least than 100 light-years aiming at us powerfull radio beams. We know for long that the Arecibo radio telescope can communicate with its equivalent at about 5000 light-years. But nothing such was found.
-there are no type I civilization in our part of the galaxy.
-there is no type II civilization in our galaxy and local cluster.
But these results are still very incomplete, and just reflect a lesser blindness that previous studies. There are still plenty of place for many discreete civilizations and some larger ones. We can only rule out a powerful starwars-like galactic civilization sending a tremendous amount of energy in space. But we have still many possible scenarios:
-many civilization using "environmental friendy" radio communication
-they use laser communication instead, which are believed to be more efficient (thanks to a better focusing, or larger transmission rate).
-they use some quatum non-local technology, which cannot be detected. (I evoke this possibility in my fiction novels "The missing planets" and "Dumria")
-the civilizations evolve in a different way that just increasing technology power (I also evoke this possibility in a third novel to come, and many other possibilities can be imagined)
So, I think, we cannot yet say "there is nobody". We just tested a possibility. We are not with SETI as we are now with Mars, grasping to the last hope of finding life in very special places.
The fact that astrophysics predicts that there can be perhaps millions (or billions) of planets suitable for life in our galaxy, and the fact that we did not received any past visit or did not detected any radio communication, this is a riddle that nobody yet can answer.
It is the equivalent of the astronomy paradox of the black sky. The black sky paradox was solved with an element we could not predict (the universe has a finite past time) so I think some elements are missing to fully understand what we know today about SETI. Some possible hints:
-something we do not know makes civilisation much more rare than expected from astrophysics results
-we were very fast compared to others, and thus appeared among the firsts
-the assumptions describing type I or II civilisations are false
-they use other communication means
-they developed other type of behaviours than just colonialism/predation, and left planets evolve in their own way, so far as avoiding any interference, just like we are doing now with the last unspoiled tribes in Amazonia/Papua.
-they evolve in a different way than just increasing technology achievements in an exponential way.
Examining how life can emerge on a given star system is a matter of astrophysics and biology, but examining how civilisations (like ours) can last and evolve in the future is much more speculative and rather a matter of philosophy.
Like many others I ran the SETI@home screensaver, but I abandonned because I have only an old slow computer which took too long to analyse one block.
The diagram deglr6328 found here summarizes the actual result of SETI searches:
-SETI cannot detect the equivalent of Earth at any distance, even very close (Barnard, Sirius)
-there is nobody at least than 100 light-years aiming at us powerfull radio beams. We know for long that the Arecibo radio telescope can communicate with its equivalent at about 5000 light-years. But nothing such was found.
-there are no type I civilization in our part of the galaxy.
-there is no type II civilization in our galaxy and local cluster.
But these results are still very incomplete, and just reflect a lesser blindness that previous studies. There are still plenty of place for many discreete civilizations and some larger ones. We can only rule out a powerful starwars-like galactic civilization sending a tremendous amount of energy in space. But we have still many possible scenarios:
-many civilization using "environmental friendy" radio communication
-they use laser communication instead, which are believed to be more efficient (thanks to a better focusing, or larger transmission rate).
-they use some quatum non-local technology, which cannot be detected. (I evoke this possibility in my fiction novels "The missing planets" and "Dumria")
-the civilizations evolve in a different way that just increasing technology power (I also evoke this possibility in a third novel to come, and many other possibilities can be imagined)
So, I think, we cannot yet say "there is nobody". We just tested a possibility. We are not with SETI as we are now with Mars, grasping to the last hope of finding life in very special places.
The fact that astrophysics predicts that there can be perhaps millions (or billions) of planets suitable for life in our galaxy, and the fact that we did not received any past visit or did not detected any radio communication, this is a riddle that nobody yet can answer.
It is the equivalent of the astronomy paradox of the black sky. The black sky paradox was solved with an element we could not predict (the universe has a finite past time) so I think some elements are missing to fully understand what we know today about SETI. Some possible hints:
-something we do not know makes civilisation much more rare than expected from astrophysics results
-we were very fast compared to others, and thus appeared among the firsts
-the assumptions describing type I or II civilisations are false
-they use other communication means
-they developed other type of behaviours than just colonialism/predation, and left planets evolve in their own way, so far as avoiding any interference, just like we are doing now with the last unspoiled tribes in Amazonia/Papua.
-they evolve in a different way than just increasing technology achievements in an exponential way.
Examining how life can emerge on a given star system is a matter of astrophysics and biology, but examining how civilisations (like ours) can last and evolve in the future is much more speculative and rather a matter of philosophy.
I'm also a lapsed SETI@home participant. I had a bunch of systems running under the name Dennis D. Gnome for the Ars Technica Team Lamb Chop group. I think I pulled the plug on the last one in 2002 after I'd clocked in 4331 work units (about 5 years of total CPU time). I had a chunk of systems in a test environment that weren't doing anything most of the time so SETI seemed like a good use for them.
Richard,
You left out out overt aggression as a possible reason for the silence. Even if intelligent life and space faring civilisations are common then even a tiny percentage that tended towards aggression\predation would create very strong evolutionary pressure that encourages "silent" civilisations that tend not to broadcast their presence. Greg Bear's "The Forge of God" and "Anvil of the Stars" set explores some of the possibilities that might result. This is a very pessimistic idea but one that I think is plausible.
There is also the "Intelligence Singularity" concept that Vernor Vinge explores in "Across Realtime". As the overall intelligence\information density of a civilisation rises the rate at which it increases also expands leading to a singularity effect. Since all bets are off at that point it is quite plausible that the resulting civilisation\intelligence might be unrecognizable and undetectable to us. Charlie Stross deals with similar ideas in Singularity Sky, one of the better Sci Fi books of the last year IMO. I'm not 100% sold on the singularity idea but I certainly think that it has merit as an idea beyond being a useful literary conceit.
Richard,
You left out out overt aggression as a possible reason for the silence. Even if intelligent life and space faring civilisations are common then even a tiny percentage that tended towards aggression\predation would create very strong evolutionary pressure that encourages "silent" civilisations that tend not to broadcast their presence. Greg Bear's "The Forge of God" and "Anvil of the Stars" set explores some of the possibilities that might result. This is a very pessimistic idea but one that I think is plausible.
There is also the "Intelligence Singularity" concept that Vernor Vinge explores in "Across Realtime". As the overall intelligence\information density of a civilisation rises the rate at which it increases also expands leading to a singularity effect. Since all bets are off at that point it is quite plausible that the resulting civilisation\intelligence might be unrecognizable and undetectable to us. Charlie Stross deals with similar ideas in Singularity Sky, one of the better Sci Fi books of the last year IMO. I'm not 100% sold on the singularity idea but I certainly think that it has merit as an idea beyond being a useful literary conceit.
QUOTE (helvick @ Nov 20 2005, 10:54 AM)
Richard,
You left out out overt aggression as a possible reason for the silence. Even if intelligent life and space faring civilisations are common then even a tiny percentage that tended towards aggression\predation would create very strong evolutionary pressure that encourages "silent" civilisations that tend not to broadcast their presence. Greg Bear's "The Forge of God" and "Anvil of the Stars" set explores some of the possibilities that might result. This is a very pessimistic idea but one that I think is plausible.
You left out out overt aggression as a possible reason for the silence. Even if intelligent life and space faring civilisations are common then even a tiny percentage that tended towards aggression\predation would create very strong evolutionary pressure that encourages "silent" civilisations that tend not to broadcast their presence. Greg Bear's "The Forge of God" and "Anvil of the Stars" set explores some of the possibilities that might result. This is a very pessimistic idea but one that I think is plausible.
Of course yes, it is enough of only one civilization practicizing predation/agression to create a strong evolutionary pressure... too strong perhaps, it would likely eliminate every other lifestyle (how could a low tech civilization withstand an attack with spacefaring technology?) or the existence of one agressive civ would make that the other civs need to have allies, and in this case they would actively contact us. This hypothesis leads to a starwars-like situation where war falls on innocent unsuspecting worlds, and both camps contact/exploit all the planets they find. But we were never attacked or contacted by a coalition, and this makes the possibility of an agressive civilisation weaker (Thanks God) without however completelly ruling it out. We are still in the black sky paradox.
QUOTE (helvick @ Nov 20 2005, 10:54 AM)
Richard,
There is also the "Intelligence Singularity" concept that Vernor Vinge explores in "Across Realtime". As the overall intelligence\information density of a civilisation rises the rate at which it increases also expands leading to a singularity effect. Since all bets are off at that point it is quite plausible that the resulting civilisation\intelligence might be unrecognizable and undetectable to us. Charlie Stross deals with similar ideas in Singularity Sky, one of the better Sci Fi books of the last year IMO. I'm not 100% sold on the singularity idea but I certainly think that it has merit as an idea beyond being a useful literary conceit.
There is also the "Intelligence Singularity" concept that Vernor Vinge explores in "Across Realtime". As the overall intelligence\information density of a civilisation rises the rate at which it increases also expands leading to a singularity effect. Since all bets are off at that point it is quite plausible that the resulting civilisation\intelligence might be unrecognizable and undetectable to us. Charlie Stross deals with similar ideas in Singularity Sky, one of the better Sci Fi books of the last year IMO. I'm not 100% sold on the singularity idea but I certainly think that it has merit as an idea beyond being a useful literary conceit.
I also explore this possibility in my novels "The missing planets" (where empty planetary orbits are found where accurate models of planet formation predict Earth-like planets) and "Dumria" and another one to come. But my stance is a bit different: at a certain moment of their evolution (we are close to it) the worlds master paraphychology, and thus need no more technology, and they become "invisible" in nanother state. More mainstream-science explanations of this style are possible, such as a change of quantum state, leading to the same result: civilisations disappear from the physical world, or emit no signals.
Another interesting point is that we do not need sci-fi technologies to colonize the whole galaxy. We are near to discover techs such as fusion, or biotechs, will would allow to send seed ships to close stars. Once this process started, only some tens of million years are required to colonize the whole galaxy, a blinkeye in he history of Earth and of the galaxy. Did this happened in the past? It is likely, say physics and astrophysics. But if this happened, we would have received past visits, or found some control system near Earth. (such speculations are usually made by hoaglandites, but we would gain to make them seriously). Until now we found nothing. Still the dark sky.
Are we searching in the right way?
I'm going to add and consolidate some comments on this topic that I made in another section of unmannedspaceflight, where they were out of place (so I can remove them from there).
Nov 14 2005, 05:02 PM
Space is very, very big, and there is a lot of small stuff floating in it. Unless that stuff calls attention to itself in some way, there is no particular reason to investigate it. Even if there were "Vulcans", or some other alien intelligences quite close by, they would have no reason to investigate every tiny asteroid exiting the solar system. Nor would we, in the distant future have any reason to investigate every odd scrap of space debris coming from other systems. I think that any probe leaving our system -- Pioneers, Voyagers, New Horizons -- is permanently lost, to anybody, except in the unlikely event that some future humans decide to track it down and retrieve it.
Any records that we place on these probes therefore have a merely symbolic value. They are the human race's way of saying hello to itself, of patting itself on the shoulder and wishing that it were not so alone. As messages, they are the equivalent of a letter in a bottle, except that bottles set adrift in the sea do occasionally wash ashore. The sea of space is much bigger, and the shorelines are far rarer.
If we intend to communicate to any beings beyond Earth, we need not a message in a bottle but a lighthouse, some sort of beacon that can continuously broadcast the presence of Earth as something extraordinary in the night sky.
Not that, in my opinion, that would do much good. I think the complete failure of SETI to turn up anything thus far tells us one of two things, and probably both: one, that intelligent species, assuming there to be others than humans, are scattered thinly across the universe; there might be no more than one per galaxy. Two, that carrying living beings across interstellar space is very, very difficult, and that optimistic scenarios about colonizing the entire galaxy in a matter of a millennia are untenable.
One thing we can be pretty sure about is that when humans emerge from the solar system, they are not going to find great Star Empires and Space Trading Federations full of busy aliens waiting for them -- or we would have learned of them already. Instead there will be a vast, desolate, and wild sky.
Nov 14 2005, 08:23 PM
I have no problem with putting anything on a probe that doesn't hinder its primary mission, but my understanding is that the odds are not merely slim, they are infinitesimal. That is, we could send out a million such bottle-messages, and the probability that all of them would simply disappear would not be significantly reduced. I think it is truer to say that these messages are poetic expression of human hopes and aspirations, than that they are really meant as messages to alien adventurers. No offense is intended to anyone who has worked on these things and truly believes in them.
I think that any effort to put ourselves in the shoes of a putative extra-terrestrial intelligence, and imagining what they might or might not do to communicate (or willfully fail to communicate with us), before we know that such creatures exist, is absolutely futile. We barely know what intelligence is with respect to Earth animals other than humans. We have no idea what intelligence would look like in non-terrestrial beings. There are no grounds for extrapolating from humans to other intelligent beings that might exist.
The negative results of SETI searches, and our other exploration of nearer space thus far, do not merely provide an "absence of evidence"; they do put definite constraints on what may be out there. One thing we now know is that near space is not packed with beings tending high-powered radio beacons. There could be lots of explanations for that, but the simplest hypothesis is that no intelligent and technologically advanced civiilization exists to do it in this region of space. That may be a disappointing thought; on the other hand, if one simply operates on an unfalsifiable assumption that such beings do exist, and have a bottomless bag of excuses for why they might not be detectable by any any increase in our technological powers, then the hypothesis is no longer strictly scientific.
Nov 14 2005, 05:02 PM
Space is very, very big, and there is a lot of small stuff floating in it. Unless that stuff calls attention to itself in some way, there is no particular reason to investigate it. Even if there were "Vulcans", or some other alien intelligences quite close by, they would have no reason to investigate every tiny asteroid exiting the solar system. Nor would we, in the distant future have any reason to investigate every odd scrap of space debris coming from other systems. I think that any probe leaving our system -- Pioneers, Voyagers, New Horizons -- is permanently lost, to anybody, except in the unlikely event that some future humans decide to track it down and retrieve it.
Any records that we place on these probes therefore have a merely symbolic value. They are the human race's way of saying hello to itself, of patting itself on the shoulder and wishing that it were not so alone. As messages, they are the equivalent of a letter in a bottle, except that bottles set adrift in the sea do occasionally wash ashore. The sea of space is much bigger, and the shorelines are far rarer.
If we intend to communicate to any beings beyond Earth, we need not a message in a bottle but a lighthouse, some sort of beacon that can continuously broadcast the presence of Earth as something extraordinary in the night sky.
Not that, in my opinion, that would do much good. I think the complete failure of SETI to turn up anything thus far tells us one of two things, and probably both: one, that intelligent species, assuming there to be others than humans, are scattered thinly across the universe; there might be no more than one per galaxy. Two, that carrying living beings across interstellar space is very, very difficult, and that optimistic scenarios about colonizing the entire galaxy in a matter of a millennia are untenable.
One thing we can be pretty sure about is that when humans emerge from the solar system, they are not going to find great Star Empires and Space Trading Federations full of busy aliens waiting for them -- or we would have learned of them already. Instead there will be a vast, desolate, and wild sky.
Nov 14 2005, 08:23 PM
I have no problem with putting anything on a probe that doesn't hinder its primary mission, but my understanding is that the odds are not merely slim, they are infinitesimal. That is, we could send out a million such bottle-messages, and the probability that all of them would simply disappear would not be significantly reduced. I think it is truer to say that these messages are poetic expression of human hopes and aspirations, than that they are really meant as messages to alien adventurers. No offense is intended to anyone who has worked on these things and truly believes in them.
I think that any effort to put ourselves in the shoes of a putative extra-terrestrial intelligence, and imagining what they might or might not do to communicate (or willfully fail to communicate with us), before we know that such creatures exist, is absolutely futile. We barely know what intelligence is with respect to Earth animals other than humans. We have no idea what intelligence would look like in non-terrestrial beings. There are no grounds for extrapolating from humans to other intelligent beings that might exist.
The negative results of SETI searches, and our other exploration of nearer space thus far, do not merely provide an "absence of evidence"; they do put definite constraints on what may be out there. One thing we now know is that near space is not packed with beings tending high-powered radio beacons. There could be lots of explanations for that, but the simplest hypothesis is that no intelligent and technologically advanced civiilization exists to do it in this region of space. That may be a disappointing thought; on the other hand, if one simply operates on an unfalsifiable assumption that such beings do exist, and have a bottomless bag of excuses for why they might not be detectable by any any increase in our technological powers, then the hypothesis is no longer strictly scientific.
QUOTE (deglr6328 @ Nov 20 2005, 08:49 AM)
What is going on with SETI@home?
You may find some articles on The Planetary Society website (http://www.planetary.org/home/).
Just browse in the project list :
- SETI Optical Searches
- SETI Radio Searches
- SETI@Home
There was also a recent update at spacedaily.com :
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/seti-05f.html
QUOTE (deglr6328 @ Nov 20 2005, 08:49 AM)
I have in the past, (...) run the SETI@home screensaver on my computer. I ran it for about 4 years and then uninstalled it. (...) because I saw little in the way of actual science being done with the SETI results we volunteers were all producing and because there seemed to be no plan for any kind of endpoint of the project in the future.
If you are not interested in processing SETI data anymore, you could switch to another project (the new processing engine allows also to share the processing capacity among several projects), like climate study or developing cures for human diseases...
- Climateprediction.net: study climate change
- Einstein@home: search for gravitational signals emitted by pulsars
- LHC@home: improve the design of the CERN LHC particle accelerator
- Predictor@home: investigate protein-related diseases
- Rosetta@home: help researchers develop cures for human diseases
- SETI@home: Look for radio evidence of extraterrestrial life
- Cell Computing biomedical research (Japanese; requires nonstandard client software)
- World Community Grid: advance our knowledge of human disease.
More info at : http://boinc.berkeley.edu/
Rakhir
Good comments David.
There are a couple of additional thoughts that I have in relation to the black sky problem.
We assume that Intelligent civilisations will be detectable remotely because they should leak quite a lot of RF signals. Our current communications technology is still relatively crude, we have only been refining it for a little over a century after all. I think it's reasonable to assume that ever increasing communications efficiency will lead to systems that are substantially less wasteful, much more precisely targeted and in general far more power efficient. Improvements in coding\modulation\signalling techniques are very likely to result in RF signals that are indistinguishable from noise for any but the intended recipient.
It seems very likely to me that the current "lighthouse" mode that we operate in will be a relatively short term thing. It wouldn't surprise me at all if changes in telecomm's over the next century led to a "dark earth" from an RF point of view.
If the above is true as a general rule then there could be hundreds of thousands of advanced civilisations in the galaxy. Some could be very close to us and we still wouldn't be able to detect them from their accidental leakage of RF energy.
The question remains as to why they would also choose not to attempt to communicate deliberately. Cosmic Zoos and Galactic Wildlife Parks that are intended to nurture primitive intelligense seem like a whole load of hokum to me. For starters such things would need galactic scale civilisations and unless our current laws of physics are totally rewritten such concepts just cannot happen, at least not over timescales that have any meaning for civilisation as we know it.
There are a couple of additional thoughts that I have in relation to the black sky problem.
We assume that Intelligent civilisations will be detectable remotely because they should leak quite a lot of RF signals. Our current communications technology is still relatively crude, we have only been refining it for a little over a century after all. I think it's reasonable to assume that ever increasing communications efficiency will lead to systems that are substantially less wasteful, much more precisely targeted and in general far more power efficient. Improvements in coding\modulation\signalling techniques are very likely to result in RF signals that are indistinguishable from noise for any but the intended recipient.
It seems very likely to me that the current "lighthouse" mode that we operate in will be a relatively short term thing. It wouldn't surprise me at all if changes in telecomm's over the next century led to a "dark earth" from an RF point of view.
If the above is true as a general rule then there could be hundreds of thousands of advanced civilisations in the galaxy. Some could be very close to us and we still wouldn't be able to detect them from their accidental leakage of RF energy.
The question remains as to why they would also choose not to attempt to communicate deliberately. Cosmic Zoos and Galactic Wildlife Parks that are intended to nurture primitive intelligense seem like a whole load of hokum to me. For starters such things would need galactic scale civilisations and unless our current laws of physics are totally rewritten such concepts just cannot happen, at least not over timescales that have any meaning for civilisation as we know it.
QUOTE (David @ Nov 20 2005, 03:00 PM)
.....The negative results of SETI searches, and our other exploration of nearer space thus far, do not merely provide an "absence of evidence"; they do put definite constraints on what may be out there. One thing we now know is that near space is not packed with beings tending high-powered radio beacons. There could be lots of explanations for that......
YES. That was the main gist of my post. We are now getting the first really scientifically interesting significant constraints on these things and I want to see more coming from the various SETIs than simply "nope not yet"....."nope not yet"....."nope not yet". I want to see these negative results presented rigorously in peer reviewed journals.
It is false to say that the SETI results are negative!! They simply found that scifi-like or starwar-like scenarios are not true: there are no giant technologies and galactic dictature, no Independance Day to fear. That is reassuring in a way.SETI operating from Proxima centauri (the closest star) would not have detected Earth!!!!! Even if Earth-like civilizations are common, SETI still needs an increase in 1000 in sensitivity to have some chance to find a close one.
This result weakens only very little the odds to find intelligent life. But not very much yet, it is not like finding 460°C at the surface of Venus, a simple figure which definitively and dramatically ousted all the dreams of finding luxurient jungles on Venus.
The SETI result still lefts many possibilities open. It just tells us that what we imagined was wrong. If there is life out there, it is just not like we imagined. And it is very interesting to guess what could be their motives, their purposes, their values, even if, of course, this is still untestable in a scientific meaning. This is the process of thinking, and perhaps one day one of these speculations will prove useful or even true.
I do not understand the pessimism of many science-minded people about finding life out there. In the beginning of the 19th century, it was understandable, as the mainstream hypothesis was that the planets formed at time of a close encounter of the Sun with another star, a much rare event which condemned the planet sytems to be only some in a galaxy. But today astrophysics and biology all show that the odds are hight to find life on many planets. So there is many reasons to be optimistic and few to be pessimistic.
I think this pessimism has philosophical reasons more than science reasons. Life elsewhere is felt as threatening, its attitude and even its very existence are felt like a threat to our values, our ego or something of this kind. Or are we so afraid of being considered hoaglandites that we do not consider the possibility of another life form? Be reassured, the SETI institute does not deal with UFOs and abduction...
It's an interesting topic, but it doesn't belong here.
Do you guys realize the search terms that have been added in just the first 8 posts here?
little green men
UFO's
aliens
galactic civilizations
star wars
Vulcans
missing planets
attack with spacefaring technology
Independence Day
unsuspecting worlds
colonize the whole galaxy
Cosmic Zoos
Galactic Wildlife Parks
galactic scale civilisations
Earth-like civilizations
little green men
UFO's
aliens
galactic civilizations
star wars
Vulcans
missing planets
attack with spacefaring technology
Independence Day
unsuspecting worlds
colonize the whole galaxy
Cosmic Zoos
Galactic Wildlife Parks
galactic scale civilisations
Earth-like civilizations
QUOTE (Richard Trigaux @ Nov 20 2005, 04:51 PM)
I do not understand the pessimism of many science-minded people about finding life out there. [...] But today astrophysics and biology all show that the odds are high to find life on many planets. So there is many reasons to be optimistic and few to be pessimistic.
I think this pessimism has philosophical reasons more than science reasons. Life elsewhere is felt as threatening, its attitude and even its very existence are felt like a threat to our values, our ego or something of this kind.
I think this pessimism has philosophical reasons more than science reasons. Life elsewhere is felt as threatening, its attitude and even its very existence are felt like a threat to our values, our ego or something of this kind.
I'm not (relatively) pessimistic because I want to be; I'd be thrilled if we made contact with other intelligent life forms. My dream job would be working on deciphering extraterrestrial languages. I just have no confidence that I'll ever have that data to work on.
The root of the problem, is, of course, having a data set of one for life, intelligence, and high technology. We therefore have no basis for evaluating probabilities.
We are lucky now to know that a very large number of stars develop planetary systems. That means that there are going to be a lot of platforms on which life could develop. Which is great. Unfortunately, we don't know what the chances of life spontaneously developing on any one of those platforms is. We can't conduct experiments over the requisite timescales in the lab; hence, the search to see if non-terrestrial life has developed on other worlds of the Solar System, Mars or Europa or Titan or maybe Enceladus. If we find them, we have some basis for suggesting that when the conditions are right, life will develop; if we don't, we might suppose that the development of life occurs only under very favorable circumstances, and we still wouldn't know how favorable they need to be.
And then there's a long, long gap between "life" and "multicellular life" and "intelligent life". We can make some guesses at this based on how long it took to develop multicellular life on this planet (over 3 billion years), but that's still a data set of one. And the development of intelligent life a billion years after that seems to have been a completely freak occurrence; there's no special reason for it to have happened when it did, rather than earlier or later or in a different branch of animal life. Indeed, small differences in the history of the planet could have led to a present-day Earth entirely devoid of intelligent animal life. So we have a good idea that intelligence is freakish and improbable. We just have no idea how improbable it is -- because, once again, we have a data set of one.
So if we were able to start testing planets with some unobtainable "tricorder" technology, the odds seem to be that most of them would be heaps of rock, ice, or gas. And those that have life are most likely going to have seas fermenting with invisible monocellular organisms, but nothing else. And the others -- interesting ones, that humans might actually be able to live on -- will be dominated by various kinds of macroscopic, mobile and sessile life -- but nothing intelligent. When you consider these layers of improbabilities, and the possibility that some of them might be very improbable, then the possibility that humans might be the only intelligent species in the Milky Way does not seem so far-fetched, even if life is relatively common. And even if there is intelligent life, we don't know how long it takes to develop a technological civilization. Humans were around for over 90,000 years before they even learned to write. Maybe other intelligent life forms could go for a million years without feeling the need to attain more than very rudimentary technology. But here we have a paradox; the data we need to answer these questions is the very data we're trying to guess at. Our ignorance is that profound.
EG-Dan, while I share your apprehension about using terms which are sometimes associated with kooks and "ufologists" as they may attract those unsavoury characters to the boards here through google searches, I must differ with you on the notion that we should not discuss these things (SETI) here because of that fact. I think we should never have to censor ourselves here merely because of the existence of hoaxers and paranormalists "out there". I think that there is definitely very interesting and worthwhile discussion on the topic of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, which can be had here in a rational and skeptically scientific manner. This place is exceptional in that respect. We should never feel forced to shy away from legitimate levelheaded inquiry on these boards and it looks to me like Doug keeps it safe for that here. 
Richard, with respect to suspicions of pessimism on ETI among the scientific community, I personally don't see it that way. I fully endorse the view outlined by David above. I'm not a pessimist, just a realist.
I would love it so very much if we were to discover ETI in my lifetime and I am hopeful that it is within the realm of (albeit extreme) possibility. But at the same time, I'm not holding my breath. See, the question is of such extremely grave importance and consequence that I want to be 1000% certain that its real when or if we do actually discover it and I think that this kind of stern reservation and insistence on evidence would make such a discovery just that much more wonderful.
Richard, with respect to suspicions of pessimism on ETI among the scientific community, I personally don't see it that way. I fully endorse the view outlined by David above. I'm not a pessimist, just a realist.
I would love it so very much if we were to discover ETI in my lifetime and I am hopeful that it is within the realm of (albeit extreme) possibility. But at the same time, I'm not holding my breath. See, the question is of such extremely grave importance and consequence that I want to be 1000% certain that its real when or if we do actually discover it and I think that this kind of stern reservation and insistence on evidence would make such a discovery just that much more wonderful.
QUOTE (deglr6328 @ Nov 21 2005, 01:21 AM)
EG-Dan, while I share your apprehension about using terms which are sometimes associated with kooks and "ufologists" as they may attract those unsavoury characters to the boards here through google searches, I must differ with you on the notion that we should not discuss these things (SETI) here because of that fact. I think we should never have to censor ourselves here merely because of the existence of hoaxers and paranormalists "out there". I think that there is definitely very interesting and worthwhile discussion on the topic of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, which can be had here in a rational and skeptically scientific manner. This place is exceptional in that respect. We should never feel forced to shy away from legitimate levelheaded inquiry on these boards and it looks to me like Doug keeps it safe for that here.
I can only agree with this. My only remark is that, I think, we can study UFOs and parapsychology in a rational non-belief way (interested people see my site for link pages). But I shall not try to start any discutions on these topics here, unless of course Doug asks me to do so.
deglr6328 and David, thank you for your replies. I must confess I was a bit angry, but I better understand your arguments.
But I still maintain that there are very large uncertainties about the number of intelligent civilizations, between one per galaxy to millions per galaxy. So we have no reason to choose one of these numbers rather than another. Simply we do not know, and no more than you deglr6328 I expect to meet other beings in my lifetime, and I would be as much cautious than you (especially it happens that I have been deceived by so-called "contactees")
What I should say, in summary, is that the Drake equation is too simplistic, as we must keep with time. The appearance of a civilization is an evolution process, with advances by sudden breakthroughs, and which can be stopped by astrophysical conditions (the star dies, a super-nova close by, etc).
To explain my idea, I would make a simple comparizon with something we have at hand, and even, alas, we have too much of it: the growth of a tumour, a cancer. These mechanisms were unveiled recently, and it is a pity we do not speak much of them. A tumour starts at random, when a cell mutates somewhere and begins to escape its growth control mechanisms. But, as such, this baby tumour is harmless, just mechanical. To become a real deadly cancer, it has to undergo several other mutations. But mutations happen at random, anywhere in the cell mass. So how things take place? simply, if we have, for instance, a probability of one billionth to have a mutation, we think it is very unlikely. But when the cell mass reaches ten or hundred billions, thus the mutation becames MANDATORY. So the tumour gets all the "necessary" mutation, in a deterministic-like way, by steps according to is growth. 1 million cell, step one. 1 billion cells, step two. Ten billion cells, step three, etc. So the tumour evolves in a deteministic-like way, with only probabilistic causes. And this process is so constraining, that only a little number of recognizable types of tumours can form (less than 50), and the same precise types of tumours appear on million of different individuals, without any causal relation between them!!
This simplistic model would be useful, I think, to model the evolution of life on a planet. Like tumours, life evolves by breakthroughs: -drops with a membrane -autocatalytic reactions -DNA like mechanism -multicellular -neurones -brain -emotions, intelligence -civilization -after we cannot foresee, perhaps wisdom. So the model applies, except that the life mass on a planet does not grow exponentially like a tumour, so breakthroughs do not happen at a given moment, there are rather steps, with a probability, linear function of time, to pass to the next step at a given moment. (but if this probability if one half every ten million years, we can expect this step will not last one billion years). On Earth, the longest step was multicellular organisms, three billion years. So we can expect similar times on other planets.
Of course, there are environment factors which constrain the evolution of life. First, the life can modify the chemistry of the planet. (if Earth was sterilized today, life could not reappear). This is even a mandadory step, for instance only an oxygen-rich atmosphere could allow the appearance of movement (muscles) and brain. This kind of considerations could be very constraining: intelligence could appear only in animals on a planet with plants and photosynthesis. Like with tumours, only a small number of types of life would be possible. On the other hand a place like Jupiter's moon Europa could be full of worms and bugs, intelligence will never appear here, by lack of a powerfull energy source like oxygen to feed a large brain.
So the modeling of the evolution of a planet is more complex, with interactions between geologic/chemical/climatic conditions and biology.
The second set of environment factors are rather astrophysical, linked to the evolution of stars and planets. Some hints: Venus could have experienced Earth-like conditions in the beginning. So life could have appeared. But the catastrophic climate change which occured here (greenhouse divergence) stopped it. When? two billion years after formation? So we can guess that only monocellular life could exist at this time, and look for microscopic fossils in venusian mountains, but not for large animal fossils. The same is true with stars a bit larger than the Sun: their life time is too short, an Earth around them would have been destroyed at the stage of bacteria or worms. So it is useless, I think, to search radio signals around large stars. Too small stars like the Barnard star are also too red to give an efficient photosynthesis (although we do not know where is the limit)
At last we must account with catastrophic events: orbit changes, impacts, other star encounters, close supernovas, etc. What is the probability of having a supernova destroying life on a planet? At rough guess it varies widely. The diffuse halo of a galaxy and the bulb are good places. The arms are not very good. Center of globular clusters may be uninhabitable infernos. If we have a probability of a half every 100 million years to be destroyed by a supernova close by, so, with our 4500 million years, we are very unlikely survivors, and in this case civilizations would be indeed very rare, less than one per galaxy, even if life starts at once on every new planet system. But I think that probabilities are much better than half every 100 million years: in the halo there are never supernovas.
So I think the best estimate we can do today about the probability to have civs around there should account with all these probabiliies in a time-dependent scenario more complex that the time-independent Drake model. But, despites this, I think this calculus would still left very wide uncertainties, of many orders of magnittude, about the number of civilization in the Galaxy. That still justifies the SETI program. And anyway SETI is supported by who wants, these people have the right to spent their money in this. And the results already acquired are beginning to bite into the error box about the number and size of civilizations: we now know that there are no galactic dictature and starwars-like galactic network. Great.
But I still maintain that there are very large uncertainties about the number of intelligent civilizations, between one per galaxy to millions per galaxy. So we have no reason to choose one of these numbers rather than another. Simply we do not know, and no more than you deglr6328 I expect to meet other beings in my lifetime, and I would be as much cautious than you (especially it happens that I have been deceived by so-called "contactees")
What I should say, in summary, is that the Drake equation is too simplistic, as we must keep with time. The appearance of a civilization is an evolution process, with advances by sudden breakthroughs, and which can be stopped by astrophysical conditions (the star dies, a super-nova close by, etc).
To explain my idea, I would make a simple comparizon with something we have at hand, and even, alas, we have too much of it: the growth of a tumour, a cancer. These mechanisms were unveiled recently, and it is a pity we do not speak much of them. A tumour starts at random, when a cell mutates somewhere and begins to escape its growth control mechanisms. But, as such, this baby tumour is harmless, just mechanical. To become a real deadly cancer, it has to undergo several other mutations. But mutations happen at random, anywhere in the cell mass. So how things take place? simply, if we have, for instance, a probability of one billionth to have a mutation, we think it is very unlikely. But when the cell mass reaches ten or hundred billions, thus the mutation becames MANDATORY. So the tumour gets all the "necessary" mutation, in a deterministic-like way, by steps according to is growth. 1 million cell, step one. 1 billion cells, step two. Ten billion cells, step three, etc. So the tumour evolves in a deteministic-like way, with only probabilistic causes. And this process is so constraining, that only a little number of recognizable types of tumours can form (less than 50), and the same precise types of tumours appear on million of different individuals, without any causal relation between them!!
This simplistic model would be useful, I think, to model the evolution of life on a planet. Like tumours, life evolves by breakthroughs: -drops with a membrane -autocatalytic reactions -DNA like mechanism -multicellular -neurones -brain -emotions, intelligence -civilization -after we cannot foresee, perhaps wisdom. So the model applies, except that the life mass on a planet does not grow exponentially like a tumour, so breakthroughs do not happen at a given moment, there are rather steps, with a probability, linear function of time, to pass to the next step at a given moment. (but if this probability if one half every ten million years, we can expect this step will not last one billion years). On Earth, the longest step was multicellular organisms, three billion years. So we can expect similar times on other planets.
Of course, there are environment factors which constrain the evolution of life. First, the life can modify the chemistry of the planet. (if Earth was sterilized today, life could not reappear). This is even a mandadory step, for instance only an oxygen-rich atmosphere could allow the appearance of movement (muscles) and brain. This kind of considerations could be very constraining: intelligence could appear only in animals on a planet with plants and photosynthesis. Like with tumours, only a small number of types of life would be possible. On the other hand a place like Jupiter's moon Europa could be full of worms and bugs, intelligence will never appear here, by lack of a powerfull energy source like oxygen to feed a large brain.
So the modeling of the evolution of a planet is more complex, with interactions between geologic/chemical/climatic conditions and biology.
The second set of environment factors are rather astrophysical, linked to the evolution of stars and planets. Some hints: Venus could have experienced Earth-like conditions in the beginning. So life could have appeared. But the catastrophic climate change which occured here (greenhouse divergence) stopped it. When? two billion years after formation? So we can guess that only monocellular life could exist at this time, and look for microscopic fossils in venusian mountains, but not for large animal fossils. The same is true with stars a bit larger than the Sun: their life time is too short, an Earth around them would have been destroyed at the stage of bacteria or worms. So it is useless, I think, to search radio signals around large stars. Too small stars like the Barnard star are also too red to give an efficient photosynthesis (although we do not know where is the limit)
At last we must account with catastrophic events: orbit changes, impacts, other star encounters, close supernovas, etc. What is the probability of having a supernova destroying life on a planet? At rough guess it varies widely. The diffuse halo of a galaxy and the bulb are good places. The arms are not very good. Center of globular clusters may be uninhabitable infernos. If we have a probability of a half every 100 million years to be destroyed by a supernova close by, so, with our 4500 million years, we are very unlikely survivors, and in this case civilizations would be indeed very rare, less than one per galaxy, even if life starts at once on every new planet system. But I think that probabilities are much better than half every 100 million years: in the halo there are never supernovas.
So I think the best estimate we can do today about the probability to have civs around there should account with all these probabiliies in a time-dependent scenario more complex that the time-independent Drake model. But, despites this, I think this calculus would still left very wide uncertainties, of many orders of magnittude, about the number of civilization in the Galaxy. That still justifies the SETI program. And anyway SETI is supported by who wants, these people have the right to spent their money in this. And the results already acquired are beginning to bite into the error box about the number and size of civilizations: we now know that there are no galactic dictature and starwars-like galactic network. Great.
Richard Trigaux: ".... Too small stars like the Barnard star are also too red to give an efficient photosynthesis...."
Note that there is no problem in general with growing plants under incandescent lamps. The temperature of tungsten filaments is well under the temperature of red dwarf photospheres. The 99.9% bad astronomical art showing crimson red giants and red dwarfs is just that: Bad art.
Evolution on red-dwarf planets may well be pushed to "try" to evolve photosynthetic light absorbing systems that capture light beyond the "red-edge" of chlorophyll, where it's reflectance rises over 10 times from some 5% to some 50%, but that would not be necessary, just helpful.
Note that there is no problem in general with growing plants under incandescent lamps. The temperature of tungsten filaments is well under the temperature of red dwarf photospheres. The 99.9% bad astronomical art showing crimson red giants and red dwarfs is just that: Bad art.
Evolution on red-dwarf planets may well be pushed to "try" to evolve photosynthetic light absorbing systems that capture light beyond the "red-edge" of chlorophyll, where it's reflectance rises over 10 times from some 5% to some 50%, but that would not be necessary, just helpful.
QUOTE (ElkGroveDan @ Nov 20 2005, 12:05 PM)
Do you guys realize the search terms that have been added in just the first 8 posts here?
little green men
UFO's
aliens
galactic civilizations
star wars
Vulcans
missing planets
attack with spacefaring technology
Independence Day
unsuspecting worlds
colonize the whole galaxy
Cosmic Zoos
Galactic Wildlife Parks
galactic scale civilisations
Earth-like civilizations
little green men
UFO's
aliens
galactic civilizations
star wars
Vulcans
missing planets
attack with spacefaring technology
Independence Day
unsuspecting worlds
colonize the whole galaxy
Cosmic Zoos
Galactic Wildlife Parks
galactic scale civilisations
Earth-like civilizations
With that thinking, we better remove the word Mars from this forum, because we all know that will lead to the Mars Face!
On another SETI issue, are elements of art as universal as math?
http://www.jonlomberg.com/articles-Capri_paper.html
QUOTE (edstrick @ Nov 21 2005, 01:18 PM)
Richard Trigaux: ".... Too small stars like the Barnard star are also too red to give an efficient photosynthesis...."
Note that there is no problem in general with growing plants under incandescent lamps. The temperature of tungsten filaments is well under the temperature of red dwarf photospheres. The 99.9% bad astronomical art showing crimson red giants and red dwarfs is just that: Bad art.
Evolution on red-dwarf planets may well be pushed to "try" to evolve photosynthetic light absorbing systems that capture light beyond the "red-edge" of chlorophyll, where it's reflectance rises over 10 times from some 5% to some 50%, but that would not be necessary, just helpful.
Note that there is no problem in general with growing plants under incandescent lamps. The temperature of tungsten filaments is well under the temperature of red dwarf photospheres. The 99.9% bad astronomical art showing crimson red giants and red dwarfs is just that: Bad art.
Evolution on red-dwarf planets may well be pushed to "try" to evolve photosynthetic light absorbing systems that capture light beyond the "red-edge" of chlorophyll, where it's reflectance rises over 10 times from some 5% to some 50%, but that would not be necessary, just helpful.
Thanks for the info, edstrick. If I understand well, stars are not really "red" or "yellow", but astrophysicists name them this way because the maximum radiation is in the red, or yellow, but this does not make the stars red or yellow.
And if the 3000°C tungsten lamps allow for photosynthesis, any star can do it, except some brown dwarves, the only stars below the 3000°C.
Back to my statistical analysis, there are perhaps 10 of 50 more time red dwarves than sun-like stars. This multiplies by the same figure the odds to develop photosynthesis (and further civilization).
The setback is that we are not sure that red dwarves have suitable planets. The most commonly accepted hypothesis is that they have, but we have no evidence, and the planets could be too small, from lesser mass and metallicity of the star. In the most extreme case, only recent high-metal yellow stars would have planets large enough to retain air and water. This mades in fact an uncertainty of 20 to 100 about the number of planets able to develop photosynthesis. With other sources of uncertainties, we easily obtain overal uncertainties of 1 over 1 billion about the total number of civilizations. And IN NO CASE we can state that we are closer from one extreme rather than from the other.
Red dwarves have other interesting features. Many are very old, as much as 12 billion years. And their overal evolution is much slower, so that the life-supporting period could last for 10 billion years, much more than for Earth (due to the slow evolution of the sun). So, if ancient red dwarves have suitable planets, we have the best chances to find something there. From where the interest of an effort to detect eventual Earth-like planets specially around close red dwarves, if possible with low metallicity.
QUOTE (ljk4-1 @ Nov 21 2005, 06:25 PM)
With that thinking, we better remove the word Mars from this forum, because we all know that will lead to the Mars Face!
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The way google and other search engines work when you enter multiple search terms is that they look for frequency of terms on a page, as well as proximity of the terms to each other.
So a search for "Mars Pathfinder" or "Mars Opportunity" will likely turn up this site.
Prior to this thread, a search on "Mars alien civilization attacks by UFO's" would not have resulted in a hit here, it would have taken the kook to OTHER places.
QUOTE (Richard Trigaux @ Nov 21 2005, 02:07 PM)
Thanks for the info, edstrick. If I understand well, stars are not really "red" or "yellow", but astrophysicists name them this way because the maximum radiation is in the red, or yellow, but this does not make the stars red or yellow.
And if the 3000°C tungsten lamps allow for photosynthesis, any star can do it, except some brown dwarves, the only stars below the 3000°C.
Back to my statistical analysis, there are perhaps 10 of 50 more time red dwarves than sun-like stars. This multiplies by the same figure the odds to develop photosynthesis (and further civilization).
The setback is that we are not sure that red dwarves have suitable planets. The most commonly accepted hypothesis is that they have, but we have no evidence, and the planets could be too small, from lesser mass and metallicity of the star. In the most extreme case, only recent high-metal yellow stars would have planets large enough to retain air and water. This mades in fact an uncertainty of 20 to 100 about the number of planets able to develop photosynthesis. With other sources of uncertainties, we easily obtain overal uncertainties of 1 over 1 billion about the total number of civilizations. And IN NO CASE we can state that we are closer to one extreme rather from the other.
Red dwarves have another interesting features. Many are very old, as much as 12 billion years. And their overal evolution is much slower, so that the life-supporting period could last for 10 billion years, much more than for Earth (due to the slow evolution of the sun). So, if ancient red dwarves have suitable planets, we have the best chances to find something there. From where the interest of an effort to detect eventual Earth-like planets specially around close red dwarves, if possible with low metallicity.
And if the 3000°C tungsten lamps allow for photosynthesis, any star can do it, except some brown dwarves, the only stars below the 3000°C.
Back to my statistical analysis, there are perhaps 10 of 50 more time red dwarves than sun-like stars. This multiplies by the same figure the odds to develop photosynthesis (and further civilization).
The setback is that we are not sure that red dwarves have suitable planets. The most commonly accepted hypothesis is that they have, but we have no evidence, and the planets could be too small, from lesser mass and metallicity of the star. In the most extreme case, only recent high-metal yellow stars would have planets large enough to retain air and water. This mades in fact an uncertainty of 20 to 100 about the number of planets able to develop photosynthesis. With other sources of uncertainties, we easily obtain overal uncertainties of 1 over 1 billion about the total number of civilizations. And IN NO CASE we can state that we are closer to one extreme rather from the other.
Red dwarves have another interesting features. Many are very old, as much as 12 billion years. And their overal evolution is much slower, so that the life-supporting period could last for 10 billion years, much more than for Earth (due to the slow evolution of the sun). So, if ancient red dwarves have suitable planets, we have the best chances to find something there. From where the interest of an effort to detect eventual Earth-like planets specially around close red dwarves, if possible with low metallicity.
Have you seen the recent National Geographic Channel special titled Extraterrestrial? Its first hour depicts speculations about life on a planet
circling a red dwarf sun, complete with dealing with the issues of such stars
creating massive flares.
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/chan...traterrestrial/
The Discovery Channel also came out with its own special on an alien world
and its life forms, based on the 1990 book Expedition by Wayne Barlowe, which you can learn more about here:
http://www.discoverychannelasia.com/alienplanet/index.shtml
QUOTE (ljk4-1 @ Nov 21 2005, 06:25 PM)
With that thinking, we better remove the word Mars from this forum, because we all know that will lead to the Mars Face!
What I would like is that we could speak freely of this poetical trick of nature, and take it as our icon, without being mandatorily associated with kooks.
There are other such tricks on Mars, sometimes really puzzling: the Inca city, the pyramid, the smile, etc. And astronomers refer to them under these names, because it is much more convenient. That kooks would be able to forbid such a language is perhaps the most pervert effect of kookery.
QUOTE (ljk4-1 @ Nov 21 2005, 07:14 PM)
Have you seen the recent National Geographic Channel special titled Extraterrestrial? Its first hour depicts speculations about life on a planet
circling a red dwarf sun, complete with dealing with the issues of such stars
creating massive flares.
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/chan...traterrestrial/
The Discovery Channel also came out with its own special on an alien world
and its life forms, based on the 1990 book Expedition by Wayne Barlowe, which you can learn more about here:
http://www.discoverychannelasia.com/alienplanet/index.shtml
circling a red dwarf sun, complete with dealing with the issues of such stars
creating massive flares.
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/chan...traterrestrial/
The Discovery Channel also came out with its own special on an alien world
and its life forms, based on the 1990 book Expedition by Wayne Barlowe, which you can learn more about here:
http://www.discoverychannelasia.com/alienplanet/index.shtml
Interesting, and well done, I recommend the visit.
about flares, there are some stars which create huge flares, but we don't know why and why only these stars. Maybe the proportion of flare-prone red stars is higher, but really I have no information on this. The only thing sure is that our sun never did, otherwise we should not be here.
QUOTE (ElkGroveDan @ Nov 21 2005, 07:09 PM)
The way google and other search engines work when you enter multiple search terms is that they look for frequency of terms on a page, as well as proximity of the terms to each other.
So a search for "Mars Pathfinder" or "Mars Opportunity" will likely turn up this site.
Prior to this thread, a search on "Mars alien civilization attacks by UFO's" would not have resulted in a hit here, it would have taken the kook to OTHER places.
So a search for "Mars Pathfinder" or "Mars Opportunity" will likely turn up this site.
Prior to this thread, a search on "Mars alien civilization attacks by UFO's" would not have resulted in a hit here, it would have taken the kook to OTHER places.
perhaps that if the people who do searches like "Mars alien civilization attacks by UFO's" find this forum, they will get instruction, and realise that those who spread false theories are kooks.
Each time I was speaking of kooks on this site, it was alway about the spreaders of false theories. That 20% of the population believe them is not because 20% of the population are mad, it is because they are not enough instructed, or they are not confident with a society wich deceived them in a way or another. In such a situation, kooks have an easy play. If, with this forum, we can contribute to revert this situation, it would be of some use, not just a pass time for us.
A wise caution would be to use a language more accessible to common people, avoid "scientific style" and obscure abbreviations, and when we use an uncommon word, give the explanation. I began to do so recently , realizing that more and more people are reading us, not just specialist or enlightened amateurs.
Thas does not forbid to expell real kooks when there are some. Or to answer briefly but accurately to suspicious questions, as Doug used to do in many occasions. He did in this way, I think, to avoid to straightforwardly rebuff people who are just mislead by kooks, but who are not kooks themselves.
We probably should not be so quick to dismiss the possibility of photosynthesis on planets orbiting stars which dominantly radiate in the IR.....
article and the PNAS paper.
article and the PNAS paper.
QUOTE (Richard Trigaux @ Nov 22 2005, 06:49 AM)
perhaps that if the people who do searches like "Mars alien civilization attacks by UFO's" find this forum, they will get instruction, and realise that those who spread false theories are kooks.
Each time I was speaking of kooks on this site, it was alway about the spreaders of false theories. That 20% of the population believe them is not because 20% of the population are mad, it is because they are not enough instructed, or they are not confident with a society wich deceived them in a way or another. In such a situation, kooks have an easy play. If, with this forum, we can contribute to revert this situation, it would be of some use, not just a pass time for us.
A wise caution would be to use a language more accessible to common people, avoid "scientific style" and obscure abbreviations, and when we use an uncommon word, give the explanation. I began to do so recently , realizing that more and more people are reading us, not just specialist or enlightened amateurs.
Thas does not forbid to expell real kooks when there are some. Or to answer briefly but accurately to suspicious questions, as Doug used to do in many occasions. He did in this way, I think, to avoid to straightforwardly rebuff people who are just mislead by kooks, but who are not kooks themselves.
Each time I was speaking of kooks on this site, it was alway about the spreaders of false theories. That 20% of the population believe them is not because 20% of the population are mad, it is because they are not enough instructed, or they are not confident with a society wich deceived them in a way or another. In such a situation, kooks have an easy play. If, with this forum, we can contribute to revert this situation, it would be of some use, not just a pass time for us.
A wise caution would be to use a language more accessible to common people, avoid "scientific style" and obscure abbreviations, and when we use an uncommon word, give the explanation. I began to do so recently , realizing that more and more people are reading us, not just specialist or enlightened amateurs.
Thas does not forbid to expell real kooks when there are some. Or to answer briefly but accurately to suspicious questions, as Doug used to do in many occasions. He did in this way, I think, to avoid to straightforwardly rebuff people who are just mislead by kooks, but who are not kooks themselves.
Well said Richard.
The kooks probably already have there sites and beliefs. It seems more likely to me that most people typing such terms into google are doing so to find out about the subject and are only potential kooks. If they head off to the kook site which tops the search then a new kook may be born; much better that they get directed here where we can persuade them otherwise.
QUOTE (deglr6328 @ Nov 22 2005, 01:35 AM)
We probably should not be so quick to dismiss the possibility of photosynthesis on planets orbiting stars which dominantly radiate in the IR.....
article and the PNAS paper.
article and the PNAS paper.
Wow! this is incredible.
Photosynthesis working with the radiation of nearby red-hot hydrothermal water... No sci-fi writer imagined such a thing!
That makes photosynthesis something much likely to appear. And in a statistic view of the Drake equation*, it increases the odds for civilizations. Not so fast, photosynthesis is just one of the numerous mandatory steps toward the appearance of a civilization. It is not enough for this, especially if it is available only around some very located hydrothermal vents, like in Earth deep oceans, or like in Europa moon. To evolve fast, life requires a lot of opportunities to mutate, and lot of different ecological niches to be able to select these mutations. So a complex environment, that a place like Europa is not likely to provide. On the other hand, Europa provides a stable environment since 4.5 billion years, and the bottom of its ocean may offer varied temperatures, shapes and chemical composition, if it has hydrothermal vents (very likely) or volcanoes (likely). So, if a microbial life appeared on Europa, it had enough time to evolve into complex multicellular beings. But no more brains than with worms or bugs, for the lack of a powerful source of oxygen.
* the Drake equation tries to calculate the number of civilizations in a galaxy, by multiplying various numbers such as the probablility for a star to have planets, the probability for this planet to have water, etc. Most of these numbers are still widely uncertain today.
Paper: astro-ph/0511583
Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2005 21:35:43 GMT (30kb)
Title: Hot Jupiters: Lands of Plenty
Authors: David Charbonneau
Comments: 8 pages, 2 figures, summary of conference "The Tenth Anniversary of
51 Peg b: Status and Prospects for Hot Jupiter Studies", held August 22 - 25,
2005
\\
In late August 2005, 80 researchers from more than 15 countries convened for
a 4-day conference entitled ``The Tenth Anniversary of 51 Peg b: Status and
Prospects for Hot Jupiter Studies''. The meeting was held at l'Observatoire de
Haute-Provence, the location of the 1.93-m telescope and ELODIE spectrograph
used to discover the planetary companion to 51 Peg roughly 10 years ago. I
summarize several dominant themes that emerged from the meeting, including (i)
recent improvements in the precision of radial velocity measurements of nearby,
Sun-like stars, (ii) the continued value of individual, newly-discovered
planets of novel character to expand the parameter space with which the theory
must contend, and (iii) the crucial role of space-based observatories in
efforts to characterize hot Jupiter planets. I also present the returns of an
informal poll of the conference attendees conducted on the last day of the
meeting, which may be amusing to revisit a decade hence.
\\ ( http://arXiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0511583 , 30kb)
Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2005 21:35:43 GMT (30kb)
Title: Hot Jupiters: Lands of Plenty
Authors: David Charbonneau
Comments: 8 pages, 2 figures, summary of conference "The Tenth Anniversary of
51 Peg b: Status and Prospects for Hot Jupiter Studies", held August 22 - 25,
2005
\\
In late August 2005, 80 researchers from more than 15 countries convened for
a 4-day conference entitled ``The Tenth Anniversary of 51 Peg b: Status and
Prospects for Hot Jupiter Studies''. The meeting was held at l'Observatoire de
Haute-Provence, the location of the 1.93-m telescope and ELODIE spectrograph
used to discover the planetary companion to 51 Peg roughly 10 years ago. I
summarize several dominant themes that emerged from the meeting, including (i)
recent improvements in the precision of radial velocity measurements of nearby,
Sun-like stars, (ii) the continued value of individual, newly-discovered
planets of novel character to expand the parameter space with which the theory
must contend, and (iii) the crucial role of space-based observatories in
efforts to characterize hot Jupiter planets. I also present the returns of an
informal poll of the conference attendees conducted on the last day of the
meeting, which may be amusing to revisit a decade hence.
\\ ( http://arXiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0511583 , 30kb)
I have been wondering whatever became of The Planetary Society's Project BETA Radio SETI program, begun ten years ago, ever since the 84-foot Harvard radio dish broke and fell during a windstorm in March of 1999.
The TPS Web site has an article from 2000 describing and showing a repair job undeway:
http://seti.planetary.org/BETA/default.html
But when I went to Harvard University's Oak Ridge Observatory site, I found out that the BETA dish has since been "retired":
http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/oir/OakRidge/oak.ridge.html
I also learned from there, to my surprise, that the 61-inch telescope that had conducted their Optical SETI program since 1998 has also been retired - retired in this case meaning dismantled!
Why didn't the TPS or Harvard or someone inform us about this?
A few years back, TPS began a new Optical SETI project with much fanfare. I looked on their Web site but could find no new updates on it since 2002 (with lots of broken links here), when it was supposed to have its "first light":
http://seti.planetary.org/OsetiConstruction2.htm
The latest version of their Optical SETI page also reveals no recent news on this project:
http://planetary.org/programs/projects/set...tical_searches/
So what is happening with what is supposed to be the "largest Optical SETI project east of the Mississippi"? Is it still being built? Is it up and running? Has it too been abandonded? Has the TPS been slipping away from SETI ever since Carl Sagan's passing, as I suspect?
I and many other have supported this project financially as well as verbally, so I would hope to at least know what progress is being made - and why BETA was abandonded. Why didn't TPS at least transfer it to another radio telescope?
The TPS Web site has an article from 2000 describing and showing a repair job undeway:
http://seti.planetary.org/BETA/default.html
But when I went to Harvard University's Oak Ridge Observatory site, I found out that the BETA dish has since been "retired":
http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/oir/OakRidge/oak.ridge.html
I also learned from there, to my surprise, that the 61-inch telescope that had conducted their Optical SETI program since 1998 has also been retired - retired in this case meaning dismantled!
Why didn't the TPS or Harvard or someone inform us about this?
A few years back, TPS began a new Optical SETI project with much fanfare. I looked on their Web site but could find no new updates on it since 2002 (with lots of broken links here), when it was supposed to have its "first light":
http://seti.planetary.org/OsetiConstruction2.htm
The latest version of their Optical SETI page also reveals no recent news on this project:
http://planetary.org/programs/projects/set...tical_searches/
So what is happening with what is supposed to be the "largest Optical SETI project east of the Mississippi"? Is it still being built? Is it up and running? Has it too been abandonded? Has the TPS been slipping away from SETI ever since Carl Sagan's passing, as I suspect?
I and many other have supported this project financially as well as verbally, so I would hope to at least know what progress is being made - and why BETA was abandonded. Why didn't TPS at least transfer it to another radio telescope?
QUOTE (ljk4-1 @ Nov 22 2005, 09:23 AM)
I have been wondering whatever became of The Planetary Society's Project BETA Radio SETI program, begun ten years ago, ever since the 84-foot Harvard radio dish broke and fell during a windstorm in March of 1999.
Hi ljk4-1, all of these older projects that you mention unfortunately predate my joining the staff at The Planetary Society, and they're out of my usual purview, so I'm afraid I don't know any information to give you. I have forwarded your comments to the people here who particpate in the SETI projects.
I do know, however, that we continue to support SETI projects financially thanks to member dues and donations, and that we currently have active projects in optical and radio SETI, along with our other projects in technology development, Mars exploration, Near Earth Objecs searches, extralsolar planets, and others. The stuff on our website is a little thin right now because we just completed our redesign and have only filled out the barest skeleton of necessary content. I know that filling in more depth in the SETI section (as well as all the rest of the projects) is one of the priorities. Here's the most recent update from our Director of Projects, Bruce Betts, about our SETI work, which was published in the September/October 2004 issue of The Planetary Report:
QUOTE
We Make It Happen!
by Bruce Betts
The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) has been actively pursued by the human species for more than 40 years . . . so why have we not found ET? In early August, The Planetary Society gathered major players in SETI, such as Frank Drake, Paul Horowitz, and Dan Werthimer, to address this question. In a scientific workshop titled “The Significance of Negative SETI Results,” SETI experts, astrobiologists, and planet hunters discussed what’s currently happening in SETI and what the future might hold. Here I review some of the broad conclusions, assumptions, and implications of the meeting.
Where Are We With the Search?
Rarely does the small SETI community get an opportunity to come together as a focused group. The first step of the workshop was to review what everyone there had done, was doing, and planned to do—and the accomplishments were impressive. When SETI started looking at radio wavelengths, people looked in only a few “channels” (think of different radio station channels). Now groups analyze billions of radio channels. Surveys of the whole sky have been completed around a few key wavelengths, and other searches have focused on a smaller number of stars with greater observing frequency or radio channel resolution. In addition, a whole new field of SETI has arisen in recent years: optical SETI. Whereas original searches focused only on radio frequencies, the invention of extremely high power lasers made several of the groups realize that laser communication across the cosmos could be very efficient.
I could spend an entire issue of The Planetary Report reviewing even just the Planetary Society–funded searches. Lacking that space right now, we will be putting both summaries of the talks, written by the speakers themselves, and their PowerPoint presentations on our website. I encourage you to keep checking seti.planetary.org for updates.
The Cosmic Haystack
The workshop discussed how far we’ve come in SETI and how much computing power is now being brought to bear on all the SETI searches. But what are we to make of the fact that 40 years have yielded exactly nothing in terms of finding ET?
What became clear was that despite all the advances in SETI, we’ve only just begun to search. As it turns out, the cosmic haystack in which we are searching for the ET needle is enormous. First, you need to choose a wavelength—even if you concentrate only on looking in the electromagnetic spectrum (all forms of “light” including gamma rays, visible light, and radio waves), you still have to make a choice what you’re looking for. Then there’s space—you can process and search only so many places in a certain amount of time, and there is a lot of sky up there. Then, there is time—even if you are searching the whole sky, you are searching only a piece at a time, so what if you’re not looking when ET is broadcasting? Finally, there have been hypothetical discussions of communication that, instead of using electromagnetic waves, uses something else such as gravity waves or particles or objects.
To be frank, we would have to have been really lucky to have found ET by now, even if there are lots of ETs out there broadcasting. And what if we’re missing the boat entirely in the approaches we’ve taken? If ET is broadcasting at infrared or millimeter wavelengths, we haven’t even been looking there, or not much. Why? Because a lot of this part of the electromagnetic spectrum is absorbed by our atmosphere. These wavelengths turn out to be efficient means to communicate across the cosmos, however, so perhaps using these wavelengths is very common for other civilizations. Space-based SETI, looking for signals from above the atmosphere, is an intriguing idea—one The Planetary Society plans to investigate further.
Humanity Is Quieting Down
There are interesting implications of the fact that our species has been quieting down in the electromagnetic spectrum. When SETI was starting out, there was quite a lot of “leakage” from Earth. Our TV and radio transmitters, and even defense radars, were putting out tens of kilowatts each, a good portion of which was spewed into space. But things are quieting down. Cable TV and satellite TV (which uses much less power) are starting to replace on-air broadcasting; defense radars have gone to “digital spread spectrum” technologies that, even if they do leak, are hard to discern from the noise of the universe. Even cell phone and other wireless technologies are focusing more on low power and on digital technology that uses lower power and requires clever work to decode.
If other civilizations follow a similar pattern—quieting down within decades after their invention of electromagnetic communication technologies—then leakage may be utterly impossible to detect as we search for ET. There was more optimism of leakage detection in the past. Now, most researchers think that detectable signals would be intentional beacons: ET sending out signals intentionally to let others know they are there.
Where Are We Going?
Although we’ve barely picked the surface of the haystack, we’ve come a long way in our capabilities in the last 40 years, and our capabilities are expected to expand massively in the coming decades, allowing us to churn through the hay faster and faster. Computing power is improving rapidly, telescopes are being built, and strategies are improving: life is good.
There’s even more good news—extrasolar planets. The meeting included discussions of planet finding around other stars, led by Geoff Marcy, whose planet-hunting team has discovered the majority of extrasolar planets found so far. Their searches have many interesting implications and have taught us much about how normal or anomalous our solar system may be (see planetary.org/extrasolar/ for more information). Estimates of the number of planets within our galaxy alone are at least in the tens of billions. That’s a lot of places where one might tuck away some advanced ET who wants to broadcast its version of Planetary Radio to the universe.
The searches continue, and they continue to improve. We’ll have lots more in The Planetary Report and on planetary.org about SETI searches and extrasolar planets. In addition to sponsoring SETI research, something that NASA still cannot legally do, The Planetary Society can put together special workshops like this one to facilitate advances in SETI. Searching for ET truly is looking for a needle in a haystack, but if we succeed, it arguably will be the most significant discovery in the history of our species. That’s a very big prize. With your help, we’ll continue the search. Will we find a signal from ET? I remain patiently but firmly optimistic.
by Bruce Betts
The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) has been actively pursued by the human species for more than 40 years . . . so why have we not found ET? In early August, The Planetary Society gathered major players in SETI, such as Frank Drake, Paul Horowitz, and Dan Werthimer, to address this question. In a scientific workshop titled “The Significance of Negative SETI Results,” SETI experts, astrobiologists, and planet hunters discussed what’s currently happening in SETI and what the future might hold. Here I review some of the broad conclusions, assumptions, and implications of the meeting.
Where Are We With the Search?
Rarely does the small SETI community get an opportunity to come together as a focused group. The first step of the workshop was to review what everyone there had done, was doing, and planned to do—and the accomplishments were impressive. When SETI started looking at radio wavelengths, people looked in only a few “channels” (think of different radio station channels). Now groups analyze billions of radio channels. Surveys of the whole sky have been completed around a few key wavelengths, and other searches have focused on a smaller number of stars with greater observing frequency or radio channel resolution. In addition, a whole new field of SETI has arisen in recent years: optical SETI. Whereas original searches focused only on radio frequencies, the invention of extremely high power lasers made several of the groups realize that laser communication across the cosmos could be very efficient.
I could spend an entire issue of The Planetary Report reviewing even just the Planetary Society–funded searches. Lacking that space right now, we will be putting both summaries of the talks, written by the speakers themselves, and their PowerPoint presentations on our website. I encourage you to keep checking seti.planetary.org for updates.
The Cosmic Haystack
The workshop discussed how far we’ve come in SETI and how much computing power is now being brought to bear on all the SETI searches. But what are we to make of the fact that 40 years have yielded exactly nothing in terms of finding ET?
What became clear was that despite all the advances in SETI, we’ve only just begun to search. As it turns out, the cosmic haystack in which we are searching for the ET needle is enormous. First, you need to choose a wavelength—even if you concentrate only on looking in the electromagnetic spectrum (all forms of “light” including gamma rays, visible light, and radio waves), you still have to make a choice what you’re looking for. Then there’s space—you can process and search only so many places in a certain amount of time, and there is a lot of sky up there. Then, there is time—even if you are searching the whole sky, you are searching only a piece at a time, so what if you’re not looking when ET is broadcasting? Finally, there have been hypothetical discussions of communication that, instead of using electromagnetic waves, uses something else such as gravity waves or particles or objects.
To be frank, we would have to have been really lucky to have found ET by now, even if there are lots of ETs out there broadcasting. And what if we’re missing the boat entirely in the approaches we’ve taken? If ET is broadcasting at infrared or millimeter wavelengths, we haven’t even been looking there, or not much. Why? Because a lot of this part of the electromagnetic spectrum is absorbed by our atmosphere. These wavelengths turn out to be efficient means to communicate across the cosmos, however, so perhaps using these wavelengths is very common for other civilizations. Space-based SETI, looking for signals from above the atmosphere, is an intriguing idea—one The Planetary Society plans to investigate further.
Humanity Is Quieting Down
There are interesting implications of the fact that our species has been quieting down in the electromagnetic spectrum. When SETI was starting out, there was quite a lot of “leakage” from Earth. Our TV and radio transmitters, and even defense radars, were putting out tens of kilowatts each, a good portion of which was spewed into space. But things are quieting down. Cable TV and satellite TV (which uses much less power) are starting to replace on-air broadcasting; defense radars have gone to “digital spread spectrum” technologies that, even if they do leak, are hard to discern from the noise of the universe. Even cell phone and other wireless technologies are focusing more on low power and on digital technology that uses lower power and requires clever work to decode.
If other civilizations follow a similar pattern—quieting down within decades after their invention of electromagnetic communication technologies—then leakage may be utterly impossible to detect as we search for ET. There was more optimism of leakage detection in the past. Now, most researchers think that detectable signals would be intentional beacons: ET sending out signals intentionally to let others know they are there.
Where Are We Going?
Although we’ve barely picked the surface of the haystack, we’ve come a long way in our capabilities in the last 40 years, and our capabilities are expected to expand massively in the coming decades, allowing us to churn through the hay faster and faster. Computing power is improving rapidly, telescopes are being built, and strategies are improving: life is good.
There’s even more good news—extrasolar planets. The meeting included discussions of planet finding around other stars, led by Geoff Marcy, whose planet-hunting team has discovered the majority of extrasolar planets found so far. Their searches have many interesting implications and have taught us much about how normal or anomalous our solar system may be (see planetary.org/extrasolar/ for more information). Estimates of the number of planets within our galaxy alone are at least in the tens of billions. That’s a lot of places where one might tuck away some advanced ET who wants to broadcast its version of Planetary Radio to the universe.
The searches continue, and they continue to improve. We’ll have lots more in The Planetary Report and on planetary.org about SETI searches and extrasolar planets. In addition to sponsoring SETI research, something that NASA still cannot legally do, The Planetary Society can put together special workshops like this one to facilitate advances in SETI. Searching for ET truly is looking for a needle in a haystack, but if we succeed, it arguably will be the most significant discovery in the history of our species. That’s a very big prize. With your help, we’ll continue the search. Will we find a signal from ET? I remain patiently but firmly optimistic.
QUOTE (ElkGroveDan @ Nov 21 2005, 08:09 PM)
The way google and other search engines work when you enter multiple search terms is that they look for frequency of terms on a page, as well as proximity of the terms to each other.
So a search for "Mars Pathfinder" or "Mars Opportunity" will likely turn up this site.
Prior to this thread, a search on "Mar5 a1ien c1vilization a77acks by U70's" would not have resulted in a hit here, it would have taken the kook to OTHER places.
So a search for "Mars Pathfinder" or "Mars Opportunity" will likely turn up this site.
Prior to this thread, a search on "Mar5 a1ien c1vilization a77acks by U70's" would not have resulted in a hit here, it would have taken the kook to OTHER places.
All very true, and (hint!) perhaps a good reason *not* to quote the phrase directly!
Perhaps Doug can install the new Invision CensorBot ™ (if it exists) so that it can reject certain, er, words. Not thoughts, not deeds, just words - the very ones which feed the k00ks! There *are* such nanny-programs out there, and (famously) they have denied access to sensible sites about breast cancer, and (it has been alleged) the official website of Scunthorpe Town Council!
(Tongue slightly in cheek)
Bob Shaw
QUOTE (ElkGroveDan @ Nov 21 2005, 07:09 PM)
The way google and other search engines work when you enter multiple search terms is that they look for frequency of terms on a page, as well as proximity of the terms to each other.
If you wished to avoid this, grouping all the suspect phrases together in a single post, as you did, was certainly not the best way to do so.
However, I tried searching for your questionable long phrase on Google, just to see whether unmannedspaceflight would turn up; if it does, it is buried very deeply. I tried using several terms from your list in combination, to narrow the list, and turned up nothing. So at the moment, there is nothing immediate to fear.
And on reconsidering your list, you seem to want to ban any word with a "science fiction" connotation. However, I have noticed that on this forum, simply due to the subject matter and the personalities involved, every tenth or twentieth message has some sort of science fiction allusion; I've seen discussions of science fiction novels, and of course repeated jokes about "Marvin the Martian", possible fossils and so on. I don't think you can practically hope to wipe those sorts of allusions out.
Moreover, banning such phrases as "unsuspecting worlds" or "missing planets" seems like overkill, as there are legitimate uses for such phrases even quite outside any discussion of ETIs, and they are hardly likely to be high upon any anomalist's list of search terms. Perhaps what bothers you is not so much the phrases, or the possibility of them being detected by a web-searching anomalist, as their context? --that is, the sense that a scientific forum such as this is degraded by the discussion of anything so "science fictional" as SETI?
QUOTE (elakdawalla @ Nov 22 2005, 01:41 PM)
Hi ljk4-1, all of these older projects that you mention unfortunately predate my joining the staff at The Planetary Society, and they're out of my usual purview, so I'm afraid I don't know any information to give you. I have forwarded your comments to the people here who particpate in the SETI projects.
I do know, however, that we continue to support SETI projects financially thanks to member dues and donations, and that we currently have active projects in optical and radio SETI, along with our other projects in technology development, Mars exploration, Near Earth Objecs searches, extralsolar planets, and others. The stuff on our website is a little thin right now because we just completed our redesign and have only filled out the barest skeleton of necessary content. I know that filling in more depth in the SETI section (as well as all the rest of the projects) is one of the priorities. Here's the most recent update from our Director of Projects, Bruce Betts, about our SETI work, which was published in the September/October 2004 issue of The Planetary Report:
I do know, however, that we continue to support SETI projects financially thanks to member dues and donations, and that we currently have active projects in optical and radio SETI, along with our other projects in technology development, Mars exploration, Near Earth Objecs searches, extralsolar planets, and others. The stuff on our website is a little thin right now because we just completed our redesign and have only filled out the barest skeleton of necessary content. I know that filling in more depth in the SETI section (as well as all the rest of the projects) is one of the priorities. Here's the most recent update from our Director of Projects, Bruce Betts, about our SETI work, which was published in the September/October 2004 issue of The Planetary Report:
Thank you, Emily. I hope to receive a detailed reply soon from the SETI portion of TPS, especially on the Optical SETI project at Harvard. Three years with no substantial news, positive or negative, on the project is a bit surprising. The telescope being used is no department-store model, thus my wondering.
QUOTE (ljk4-1 @ Nov 22 2005, 12:48 PM)
Three years with no substantial news, positive or negative, on the project is a bit surprising.
Chalk it up to having only one full-time and two part-time people here who develop the entire Society website...so much to do, so little time.
Seriously, we've heard you and will try to get more information up there... --Emily
QUOTE (David @ Nov 22 2005, 12:40 PM)
Perhaps what bothers you is not so much the phrases, or the possibility of them being detected by a web-searching anomalist, as their context? --that is, the sense that a scientific forum such as this is degraded by the discussion of anything so "science fictional" as SETI?
I'm finding this conversation interesting because SETI is probably the one thing we do that gets our members most fired up -- both for and against. I'd say (based upon a completely unscientific survey of letters to the editor published in our magazine) that probably 10% of our members think that SETI is the most important activity we should be supporting, bar none, and 10% just as strongly feel that it is a monstrous waste of resources. I think the only other thing that gets people fired up in the same way is the question of human vs. robotic spaceflight -- again, some feel that there's no point to the space program at all unless its goal is to send humans out into the universe, while some feel that the point is science and that human spaceflight is a monstrous waste of resources. We -- not to mention the world's space agencies -- represent all these people with all these different opinions, and it's not always easy to walk a course among all the competing interests.
--Emily
QUOTE (elakdawalla @ Nov 22 2005, 08:11 PM)
Chalk it up to having only one full-time and two part-time people here who develop the entire Society website...so much to do, so little time. Seriously, we've heard you and will try to get more information up there... --Emily
Seriously, we've heard you and will try to get more information up there... --EmilyEmily have you thought about an overt effort to recruit qualified staff volunteers? I know that Southern California is full of brilliant retired and semi-retired people with vast engineering and science backgrounds.
I recall that when the Rutans were building the Voyager aircraft I used to drive up to Mojave from the Valley to chat with them about it. There were several old retired engineers who were there as volunteers for the intellectual challenge alone. It was a thrill for me as an ME student at the time to meet these guys. I remember thinking what a vast pool of talent must be in So. Cal. alone just waiting to be tapped into.
QUOTE (ElkGroveDan @ Nov 22 2005, 01:28 PM)
Emily have you thought about an overt effort to recruit qualified staff volunteers? I know that Southern California is full of brilliant retired and semi-retired people with vast engineering and science backgrounds.
We have certainly done this in the past -- in fact you can look at all the articles written for The Planetary Report as experts volunteering their time and expertise to us (we don't pay for articles in TPR). And in fact I'm working right now with a guy who spent a bajillion years working in the various incarnations of JPL's image processing laboratory to develop some new stuff for the site. But expertise doesn't translate directly into good Web content. In fact, the more expert somebody is, the more work it usually takes to turn what they write into something that's suitable for our audience. I'm not talking about "dumbing down" content, which is what many scientists contemptuously (and contemptibly) call the process of writing for the public. But you do have to do some work to explain certain terms, and also to explain the significance and context of achievements, which may be obvious or go without saying to the expert but which are not so obvious to the layperson.
In addition to that, it takes a lot of work to punch up the writing, and allow it to reflect the human emotions that all of us on this forum feel in response to space exploration. It's funny because these people are really interesting to talk to, but when they sit down and write they often produce stuff that is both extremely informative and extremely dull. There are a few notable exceptions, like Steve Squyres, people who are capable of writing great stories that also contain great quantities of science. But most don't have his gift. I think it's because when you learn to write for scientific journals you learn to remove all emotion from your writing, because scientific research must be based on objective fact and devoid of emotion, which is by its nature subjective. Speaking for myself, it took at least two years after grad school before I was able to expunge that horrible, passive, dull writing style from my brain and begin to write stuff that I found interesting to read (nevermind anybody else). I still write long, convoluted sentences that my copy editor always has to hack into shorter, more active pieces. So experts are certainly helpful and they provide us with a lot of material but it still takes a lot of writing work to bring their material to publication in a way that our visitors will enjoy it and respond to it.
--Emily
What you say about science writing is very true, emily.
With the only paper I have ever published (in economy) I had to expurge any emotion and most of philosophy/society implications (however there are much in economy). It is a bit sad, and on my site I rather presented the results in the form of a game, of novels, while summarizing up in some sentences, which are enough to explain it to the layperson.
In physics it is the same, and in space exploration there is also a high emotional content. I remember when I was a child, Mars was stil represented with the Schiaparelly maps (with the "channels") and Titan or Venus were just names, about which we knew exactly zero. Now we are getting out of our Earth craddle and exploring the wold!
Beyond the ordinary appearances such as a peaceful sun bathed afternoon among meadows and trees, there is this fantastic cosmos, baffling distances, incredible temperatures, other strange worlds, astounding time at the source of our lives, and we can abruptly feel the difference when suddenly the Sun hides behind the Moon (I whatched the 1998 eclipse). Then the day disappears as if a lamp was switched off, there are no more peaceful meadows but incredible masses of stone moving into the cosmos at unconceivable speeds, there is no more friendly sushine but a thermonuclear furnace which its red flames around the moon... And the guies who came with expensive telescopes and cameras just left them down, and gaze at this unforgettable view.
And then, as quickly as it came, it is over, the abyss door closes, the sky becomes blue again, the birds resume singing, only a chill remains of the strange vision.
Wow
With the only paper I have ever published (in economy) I had to expurge any emotion and most of philosophy/society implications (however there are much in economy). It is a bit sad, and on my site I rather presented the results in the form of a game, of novels, while summarizing up in some sentences, which are enough to explain it to the layperson.
In physics it is the same, and in space exploration there is also a high emotional content. I remember when I was a child, Mars was stil represented with the Schiaparelly maps (with the "channels") and Titan or Venus were just names, about which we knew exactly zero. Now we are getting out of our Earth craddle and exploring the wold!
Beyond the ordinary appearances such as a peaceful sun bathed afternoon among meadows and trees, there is this fantastic cosmos, baffling distances, incredible temperatures, other strange worlds, astounding time at the source of our lives, and we can abruptly feel the difference when suddenly the Sun hides behind the Moon (I whatched the 1998 eclipse). Then the day disappears as if a lamp was switched off, there are no more peaceful meadows but incredible masses of stone moving into the cosmos at unconceivable speeds, there is no more friendly sushine but a thermonuclear furnace which its red flames around the moon... And the guies who came with expensive telescopes and cameras just left them down, and gaze at this unforgettable view.
And then, as quickly as it came, it is over, the abyss door closes, the sky becomes blue again, the birds resume singing, only a chill remains of the strange vision.
Wow
I can also really relate to Emily's discussion of writing technique. My natural writing style is rather like Emily describes hers -- long sentences with conversational-tone punctuation. And sentence fragments. For effect.
At least, in my case, there is some sort of switch I can throw in my brain, and I can just start cutting the sentences down as I write them. And I can go through what I just wrote, give it a short once-over, et voila, short, action-verb sentences.
My first drafts are usuallly in final draft or next-to-final-draft shape. I just have this little problem with typos -- in specific, with hitting the space bar just a fraction of a millisecond early. One of the worst examples of this is when I write the short connecting phrase "to the"... it tends to come out "tot he."
Ever tried to use a spell checker to find something like that? When the words "tot" and "he" are both perfectly valid English words? Considering the subject matter I'm usually dealing with, though, I can just do a word search on "tot" and find every instance...
-the other Doug
At least, in my case, there is some sort of switch I can throw in my brain, and I can just start cutting the sentences down as I write them. And I can go through what I just wrote, give it a short once-over, et voila, short, action-verb sentences.
My first drafts are usuallly in final draft or next-to-final-draft shape. I just have this little problem with typos -- in specific, with hitting the space bar just a fraction of a millisecond early. One of the worst examples of this is when I write the short connecting phrase "to the"... it tends to come out "tot he."
Ever tried to use a spell checker to find something like that? When the words "tot" and "he" are both perfectly valid English words? Considering the subject matter I'm usually dealing with, though, I can just do a word search on "tot" and find every instance...
-the other Doug
SETI@home killed off ?
Placed in sarcophagus rises again
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=27885
By: Nick Farrell
Wednesday 23 November 2005, 07:18
DISTRIBUTED computing experiment SETI@home will be switched off on
December 15 as it becomes part of the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for
Network Computing (BOINC).
BOINC has been developed at UC Berkeley as a framework for volunteer
computing projects like SETI@home.
According to a press release, those who are currently using SETI@home are
being asked to visit here for instructions.
The workunit totals of users and teams will be frozen at that point, and
the final totals will be available on the web.
The BOINC site will allow boffins to build other volunteer computing
projects in areas like molecular biology, high-energy physics, and climate
change study.
A spokesSeti said that those who want to keep looking for aliens can do
so, but they will also be able to donate computer time studying climate
change or other BOINC projects.
Placed in sarcophagus rises again
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=27885
By: Nick Farrell
Wednesday 23 November 2005, 07:18
DISTRIBUTED computing experiment SETI@home will be switched off on
December 15 as it becomes part of the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for
Network Computing (BOINC).
BOINC has been developed at UC Berkeley as a framework for volunteer
computing projects like SETI@home.
According to a press release, those who are currently using SETI@home are
being asked to visit here for instructions.
The workunit totals of users and teams will be frozen at that point, and
the final totals will be available on the web.
The BOINC site will allow boffins to build other volunteer computing
projects in areas like molecular biology, high-energy physics, and climate
change study.
A spokesSeti said that those who want to keep looking for aliens can do
so, but they will also be able to donate computer time studying climate
change or other BOINC projects.
Hmmm... upon reading this thread last week, I went ahead and started running SETI processing again. I've got a much better system now than I did back when I ran it a few years ago, and I figured it would be more useful now.
When I went out to the SETI@Home site to download the software again, I got the BOINC client. It's been running fine for me over the past week and a half or so.
So, a lot of people are already using the BOINC client, it would seem. It's sort of a nice name, too...
-the other Doug
When I went out to the SETI@Home site to download the software again, I got the BOINC client. It's been running fine for me over the past week and a half or so.
So, a lot of people are already using the BOINC client, it would seem. It's sort of a nice name, too...
-the other Doug
What does this means?
If I understand well, the work will continue, but in place of processing only SETI we will have to compute any other data from other experiments, without being given the choice.
Historically, as far as I know, what is now the BOINC was first developped for SETI, and after used by other experiments.
Is this just a technical/commercial move, or another tortuous mean to twart SETI? If someone has more precise info, please tell, at least to dissipate any doubt.
If I understand well, the work will continue, but in place of processing only SETI we will have to compute any other data from other experiments, without being given the choice.
Historically, as far as I know, what is now the BOINC was first developped for SETI, and after used by other experiments.
Is this just a technical/commercial move, or another tortuous mean to twart SETI? If someone has more precise info, please tell, at least to dissipate any doubt.
QUOTE (Richard Trigaux @ Nov 29 2005, 07:51 AM)
What does this means?
If I understand well, the work will continue, but in place of processing only SETI we will have to compute any other data from other experiments, without being given the choice.
If I understand well, the work will continue, but in place of processing only SETI we will have to compute any other data from other experiments, without being given the choice.
It's okay,
, the whole process of distributed computing projects has been streamlined I guess you could say. The BOINC client now supports processing data from other projects, some of which are mentioned above.A user simply picks which project they want to work on, or multiple projects and allocate processor time as they want. If you do 2 projects you can allocate time 80% to one and only 20% to the other if you want.
It's really quite good I think, makes everything much better rather than having a client for each number crunching application you want to join.
QUOTE (jaredGalen @ Nov 29 2005, 09:52 AM)
It's okay, , the whole process of distributed computing projects has been streamlined I guess you could say. The BOINC client now supports processing data from other projects, some of which are mentioned above.
A user simply picks which project they want to work on, or multiple projects and allocate processor time as they want. If you do 2 projects you can allocate time 80% to one and only 20% to the other if you want.
It's really quite good I think, makes everything much better rather than having a client for each number crunching application you want to join.
, the whole process of distributed computing projects has been streamlined I guess you could say. The BOINC client now supports processing data from other projects, some of which are mentioned above.A user simply picks which project they want to work on, or multiple projects and allocate processor time as they want. If you do 2 projects you can allocate time 80% to one and only 20% to the other if you want.
It's really quite good I think, makes everything much better rather than having a client for each number crunching application you want to join.
So it's OK, not something bad for SETI. Anyway I heard that there are many other interesting experiments going on in other fields.
I was a bit alarmed, because there was in the past some unfair attempts to halt SETI. I hope this is really in the PAST now.
Alas I cannot join, my old computer is too slow for this. It took 1 month to process one SETI block... when they are considered lost after only some days and reprocessed elsewhere. (For reliability reasons they process several times the same blocks, but it is useless to send results months after)
Scientists, be on guard ... ET might be a malicious hacker
The Guardian November 25, 2005
*************************
Richard Carrigan, a particle
physicist at the US Fermi National
Accelerator Laboratory, believes the
SETI@home project is putting Earth's
security at risk by distributing the
signals they receive to computers
all over the...
http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/newsRedire...sID=5064&m=7610
The Guardian November 25, 2005
*************************
Richard Carrigan, a particle
physicist at the US Fermi National
Accelerator Laboratory, believes the
SETI@home project is putting Earth's
security at risk by distributing the
signals they receive to computers
all over the...
http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/newsRedire...sID=5064&m=7610
QUOTE (ljk4-1 @ Nov 29 2005, 03:35 PM)
Scientists, be on guard ... ET might be a malicious hacker
The Guardian November 25, 2005
*************************
Richard Carrigan, a particle
physicist at the US Fermi National
Accelerator Laboratory, believes the
SETI@home project is putting Earth's
security at risk by distributing the
signals they receive to computers
all over the...
http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/newsRedire...sID=5064&m=7610
The Guardian November 25, 2005
*************************
Richard Carrigan, a particle
physicist at the US Fermi National
Accelerator Laboratory, believes the
SETI@home project is putting Earth's
security at risk by distributing the
signals they receive to computers
all over the...
http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/newsRedire...sID=5064&m=7610
There is at least one scientist who believes in extra-terrestrial intelligence!
Seriously, for an ET signal becoming an internet virus, need that the ETs know how our computers work. And anyway eventual ET signals (into the blocks the SETI@home program sends all over internet) are coded as analog signals, not available as digital codes. Even known internet viruses, coded this way, would be completelly inoffensive.
A more serious risk is that some intentionally modify many blocks. For this reason the SETI@home system sends every block to several computers, to detect any tempering of a block.
The only real risk is about an intelligible ET signal being spead over the internet. What would happen depends of "their" moral values or statement of intention. Many people will consider ETs as "superior" and thus accept their moral code as "better", whatever it is. (I am very affirmative, just look at what happens with the so-called "contactees"). If it is really better, it is a good thing. But if it is worse than ours... or only more subtle, many misinterpretations can occur.
After all, we tend to consider that ETs are more evolved, and thus better than us. But the only thing sure is that they avoided to destroy their planet with war and polution (a thing we are not yet sure to be able to do) so that they can last for long, and we have much better chances to encounter such a stable civilization than a civilization at the stage we are now.
At least one SETI group is working under the assumption that ETI are using the Internet to understand humanity:
http://www.ieti.org/index.html
As anthropologists like to say, you learn a lot more about a culture by sifting through their junk than through their official records.
No wonder they haven't bothered to contact us.
http://www.ieti.org/index.html
As anthropologists like to say, you learn a lot more about a culture by sifting through their junk than through their official records.
No wonder they haven't bothered to contact us.
QUOTE
At least one SETI group is working under the assumption that ETI are using the Internet to understand humanity
Darn, you blew my cover !!!
In order to prove my willingness to cooperate with the human race and avoid prosecution, here is a list of traitors that should be executed for high treason
WE can seriously consider that, in the assumption some extra-terrestrial civilization is actually observing us, that they will try to connect to the Internet. After all, it is the best way to have a complete view of our anatomy that they will not find on TV
The most easy to observe from outer space are military radars and large power analog TV broadcasts. They could learn much about our technology level, and anamog TV is easy to decode into sounds and images. This could be done from 100 light years and more with the extra-terrestrial equivalent of the Arecibo telescope used for our SETI. But they will have to wait still some more tens of years for receiving us...
Receiving the internet signals is another story. These signals often travel by cables, and when they go in space, they are undecipherable and mixed altogether into packets, so what they could see only a randon mixture of millions of different pages, if even they manage to decode texts and simple gif images.
So to observe the Internet, an extra-terrestrial civilization would need to INTERACT with it: to receive and to SEND signals to it. For this, they will need a probe near Earth to achieve a connexion: the probe would have to simulate a cell-phone, Wi-Fi aparatus or something like that. This is possible only if the probe is near Earth, in order to reply in no more than some seconds: on a far orbit, on the Moon, at worse on the L1 Lagrange point. And it will have to use a narrow beam, and be itself radar-stealth and black. Or they may have somebody on Earth working for them...
Once on the Internet, they can observe all our pages (shame for many) and use Google for any search and study about our customs, languages or thinking. (It would be very easy to learn most languages using Google, I even use it as an orthography corrector)
Once I had in the stats of my UFO page "unknown origin"...
But it they do so, while keeping unoticed, they will simply have to connect using a free account with an ISP which do not check for identities: Yahoo, free.fr, etc... In this case, it will be very difficult to spot them. Only a large monitoring of the activity of all the accounts could allow to detect them.
So perhaps there is actually extraterrestrial agents studying this page...
But there are however so many large "if", that this idea is rather a scifi prospect than an actual concern.
The most easy to observe from outer space are military radars and large power analog TV broadcasts. They could learn much about our technology level, and anamog TV is easy to decode into sounds and images. This could be done from 100 light years and more with the extra-terrestrial equivalent of the Arecibo telescope used for our SETI. But they will have to wait still some more tens of years for receiving us...
Receiving the internet signals is another story. These signals often travel by cables, and when they go in space, they are undecipherable and mixed altogether into packets, so what they could see only a randon mixture of millions of different pages, if even they manage to decode texts and simple gif images.
So to observe the Internet, an extra-terrestrial civilization would need to INTERACT with it: to receive and to SEND signals to it. For this, they will need a probe near Earth to achieve a connexion: the probe would have to simulate a cell-phone, Wi-Fi aparatus or something like that. This is possible only if the probe is near Earth, in order to reply in no more than some seconds: on a far orbit, on the Moon, at worse on the L1 Lagrange point. And it will have to use a narrow beam, and be itself radar-stealth and black. Or they may have somebody on Earth working for them...
Once on the Internet, they can observe all our pages (shame for many) and use Google for any search and study about our customs, languages or thinking. (It would be very easy to learn most languages using Google, I even use it as an orthography corrector)
Once I had in the stats of my UFO page "unknown origin"...
But it they do so, while keeping unoticed, they will simply have to connect using a free account with an ISP which do not check for identities: Yahoo, free.fr, etc... In this case, it will be very difficult to spot them. Only a large monitoring of the activity of all the accounts could allow to detect them.
So perhaps there is actually extraterrestrial agents studying this page...
But there are however so many large "if", that this idea is rather a scifi prospect than an actual concern.
Of course, they would need a compatible operating system... would ET be Mac or PC or
&$(#*$@nix or what?
http://www.billhusler.com/public/commercials/powerid4.mov
Not to mention the translation issues... just ask " It is quick the ?"
&$(#*$@nix or what?
http://www.billhusler.com/public/commercials/powerid4.mov
Not to mention the translation issues... just ask " It is quick the ?"
QUOTE (lyford @ Nov 30 2005, 06:54 PM)
Of course, they would need a compatible operating system... would ET be Mac or PC or
&$(#*$@nix or what?
http://www.billhusler.com/public/commercials/powerid4.mov
Not to mention the translation issues... just ask " It is quick the ?"
&$(#*$@nix or what?
http://www.billhusler.com/public/commercials/powerid4.mov
Not to mention the translation issues... just ask " It is quick the ?"
The strength of Internet since its very beginning is that it is OS-independent. They just need to get TCP-IP to make it work. So we could arrive one day to a galactic net with completelly mixed lists of links such as http:// for Earth, vegttp:// for vega, etc...
But we are not really yet here today, please wait still a while.
I do not tell you the download time if your page is located at the other end of the galaxy. With my opinion we need something faster than light.
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