Tempting martians

[motherengine]

i remember hearing stephen hawkings mechanistic voice express a concern that the signals sent by 'seti' may have negative repercussions for the human species and that "we should keep our heads low". for me seti seems like a waste of funds more than anything else (especially concidering that fact that even those closely involved believe that actual contact is not a likely result of the project). i don't expect much in the way of response as this is probably a tired question here, but hey...to seti or not to seti?

[pgrmdave]

I'm all for seti...I think that if there is even a slim chance, then we should go for it, because it will be one of the most important discoveries, socially, ever.

[Buffy]

... "we should keep our heads low".

Sure. Most folks in SETI activities though are just into listening. Only a few ego-heads are into trying to torque the Vogons into building an Interspace Bypass through here.

for me seti seems like a waste of funds more than anything else...

Well, don't spend any money on it then! Senator William Proxmire single-handedly killed off any public funding for it years ago with his pejorative "Golden Fleece" award, so its all volunteer now. Proponents low expectations of success actually has more to do with not having the funds for some tools that would really help our ability to hear and decypher signals from "out there."

 

Don't worry, not many of us aspire to be Columbus or Magellan...don't try if you don't feel like it....

 

Cheers,

Buffy

[motherengine]

Well, don't spend any money on it then! Senator William Proxmire single-handedly killed off any public funding for it years ago with his pejorative "Golden Fleece" award, so its all volunteer now. Proponents low expectations of success actually has more to do with not having the funds for some tools that would really help our ability to hear and decypher signals from "out there."

Cheers,

Buffy

 

fair enough: WAS a waste of funds (though there is a petition in the works). as far as expectations of success the issue of distance is concidered as a major factor by those intimately involved so that (worm holes aside) the end result expected is basically the knowledge something else is 'out there'. then the question becomes is this a good enough reason to invest millions of dollars into something.

[motherengine]

Sure. Most folks in SETI activities though are just into listening. Only a few ego-heads are into trying to torque the Vogons into building an Interspace Bypass through here.

 

i think mr. hawkings was suggesting that just sending information could provoke an ugly scenario.

 

"what's that, over there"

"more resources to reep"

"its harvesting time"

 

not that i am afraid of this type of thing. i mean you just can't beat cancer for a good scare.

[Buffy]

fair enough: WAS a waste of funds (though there is a petition in the works). ...the end result expected is basically the knowledge something else is 'out there'. then the question becomes is this a good enough reason to invest millions of dollars into something.

Oddly enough, Bill was a democrat, but it seems that most people who are against spending the money are religious conservatives who are scared to death of proof that we are not "God's Children": proof of aliens would really upset a few theological apple carts! That's why some of us find it useful to keep looking!

 

As a conservative liberal, I'm all for not wasting government funds on this kind of thing though...

 

Cheers,

Buffy

[Buffy]

i think mr. hawkings was suggesting that just sending information could provoke an ugly scenario..

Yah, I know, but Steve was talking about "sending messages": although I'd agree he probably doesn't much care for I Love Lucy reruns, I don't think he'd argue that we should shut down *all* electromagnetic emissions, which would bring our society (and his research grants) to a screeching halt. What the Seti transmission nuts want to do though is actually send out a immensely powerful beacon out into space, and that's definitely "torquing the Vogons"....

 

Cheers,

Buffy

[CraigD]

This sounds like the “babe in the woods” concern. It’s as least as old as H.G. Wells’s 1898 “War of the Worlds”. In addition to concerns about the broadcasting of special radio messages, the 1970s’ Voyager missions fostered much debate on the subject due to special golden records these spacecraft contained, which specifically gave the location of the solar system relative to 14 specific pulsars.

 

It seems very unlikely that an alien intelligence, kind or cruel, will ever discover one of the Voyager space craft, and only slightly less likely that such an intelligence would find Earth from its radio emissions. The debate really seems to be of a philosophical nature, to wit: is the Golden Rule a universal moral principle? If so, contact with a more advanced culture is desirable. If not, we should take pains to avoid detection until we have a reasonable ability to either flee or defend against a hostile invader.

 

It’s interesting to note that “mainstream” thinking about the likely use to which an advanced culture would put our solar system tends to discount the importance of Earth and its inhabitants. "Our" small bodies – asteroids, small moons and kuiper objects are more efficiently exploitable for materials, while a much more advanced civilization would likely seek to exploit the solar systems greatest material asset, the Sun itself. Such cultures would likely ignore us while making use of these resources.

[Qfwfq]

What the Seti transmission nuts want to do though is actually send out a immensely powerful beacon out into space,

How powerful? In which direction? How many steradians?

[Buffy]

How powerful? In which direction? How many steradians?

Not many people want to do this, so it hasn't gotten very far. I've heard the obvious suggestion of using Arecibo (where the current Seti@Home project collects its data), since its big and rentable. That would give you some obvious bounding parameters on direction and breadth of beam, although I think they have to build the transmission equipment and install it which would define how powerful...

 

Cheers,

Buffy

[CraigD]

What the Seti transmission nuts want to do though is actually send out a immensely powerful beacon out into space

Depending on your definition of “immensely”, I’m certain that many SETI and proto-SETI nuts have already sent purposefully artificial signals into space.

 

Around 1975, I visited at the Haystack radio observatory. In those days, they were just finishing a program of radar mapping the surface of Venus. Between mapping runs, they tried such impromptu experiments as cooking a chicken by tossing it repeatedly across the beam of a test stand-mounted radar transmitter, and – you guessed it – sending long bit modulated sequences of primes and other recommended signals for ETs in various whimsical directions.

 

Haystack is just one of the better known and best-affiliated former defense-related radio telescope facilities in the US. As these radar dishes became obsolete, it was fashionable for the Air Force to turn them over to practically any college that could reasonable demonstrate the competence to use them. At least one such facility was operated by a high school for several years.

 

These are a far cry from a super transmitter firing from the focus of Arecibo, and not in the recommended “water hole” frequency range, but much more powerful and well-focused than communication transmitters. More importantly, they transmitted a fairly long time ago, so their signals have already reached several nearby star systems.

[motherengine]

Oddly enough, Bill was a democrat, but it seems that most people who are against spending the money are religious conservatives who are scared to death of proof that we are not "God's Children": proof of aliens would really upset a few theological apple carts! That's why some of us find it useful to keep looking!Cheers,

Buffy

 

of course alien contact via interstellar messaging would proove no such thing. you can't topple a metaphysical apple cart.

[Buffy]

of course alien contact via interstellar messaging would proove no such thing. you can't topple a metaphysical apple cart.

That depends on what the messages said! Lemme tell ya, I've heard these people quietly but very nervously discussing how they'll "keep their flock"...like they own 'em...sheesh...

 

You are more generally right though, mother: its clear that the most successful religions are the ones that are open enough to say "we're all gods chillun', even those Grays that abduct humans and mutilate cattle!" That doesn't include many of the more absolutist ones that claim perfect knowledge through their book or prophets...

 

Cheers,

Buffy

[paultrr]

SETI has only once since its conception sent any signal out. And that was during its initial opening as an organization.(see note below) SETI listens only. As for signals going out this planet has been sending them out for a long time now. Almost every radio and TV signal we have ever generated has traveled out across space since the birth of radio.

 

Note: In 1974, a largely symbolic attempt was made to send a message to other worlds. To celebrate a substantial upgrading of the 305 metre Arecibo Radio Telescope in Puerto Rico, a coded message of 1,679 bits was transmitted towards the Globular Cluster M13, some 25,000 light years away.

 

The pattern of 0s and 1s contained in the message defined a 23 × 73 grid which when plotted revealed some data about our location in the Solar System, a stylised figure of a human being, chemical formulae and an outline of the radio telescope itself. The 23 by 73 grid was chosen because both 23 and 73 are prime numbers and it was thought that this could aid any hypothetical alien listener to recognize the grid representation.

 

Given the limitations of the speed of light, no reply would be possible for 50,000 years and hence has been dismissed by some as a publicity stunt.

 

Also See: http://65.108.189.168/Docs/The%20Seti%20WOW%20Signal.pdf

[paultrr]

By the way, a bit of radio knowledge:

 

VHF and UHF signals never bounce back to earth except under ducting effects, and a few other cases. HF(High frequency), MW(medium wave frequencies), and LW(long wave freqencies) are the ones that tend to bounce back at certain periods of time. But they too travel out into space as well. So going back in history with the first spark type morse code signals and one can see how long ago we've been sending signals out. Spark type systems sent out very wide band signals up into the VHF and UHF range with no specific frequency control at all. If anyone is out there at least since Marconi's first radio transmissions, in 1896, about 109 LY's out they have heard us. I might add that the SOS from the Titanic is well out into space by now itself along with all those shows about Aliens attacking earth, those about Aliens visting earth and us blowing them up, etc. Wonder how they like I love Lucy?

[Buffy]

Wonder how they like I love Lucy?

Or Star Trek. My kid's favorite movie these days is GalaxyQuest (rent it if you haven't seen it, its a hoot...). When you think about it, our TV transmissions would provide a *great* guide to aliens who wanted to freak us out and take over without much muss or fuss...pretty easy to learn how we react to just about everything...

 

Cheers,

Buffy

[alxian]

i think it would be impossible for an alien race to decode our transmissions per se. instead they'd note the complexity and come to investigate.

 

 

should they decode our signals, and be fairly close, how would they know that most of it is fictitions dipictions of our fancy? catch a glimpse of xena and moments later andromeda, and they'd scrattch their heads call us nuts and keep right on going.

 

lastly, broadcasting the internet looped with as simple as we can make it instructions to understand the ridiculous amount of information we've generated so far. also we need to digitize books, since arguably our best work isn't available on the net.