A question for all those running SETI@Home...

[RyanM]

I got a simple question. It's been bugging me ever since I found out about the SETI project.

Has it occured to anyone that any lifeform advanced enough to fly millions of lightyears, at high speeds, while avoiding collisions with asteroids and debris while at the same time living extremely long lives will be highly technologically advanced? So advanced, that if they didn't want us to know they were here, there'd be NO way for us to find out, because they are so far ahead of us? It'd be just like the goddamned angels in that dumb "City of Angels" movie - We could ONLY see them if they WANTED us to.

So scanning the Universe for erratic radiowave data is not going to get us any closer to finding extraterrestrial life because if it exists, they'd either come out and admit they're there, or hide from us until they decided to emerge from the shadows.

Use your CPU resources for something more beneficial - Protein folding (though IBM's Blue Gene will soon dominate that area), OGR, or RC5 - Anything but SETI. ;-)

 

[Crazee]

First let me say on the TeAm we strive not to critize others choices for projects. When this has happened in the past it has usually resulted in ill will and flame wars so I would advise that if you want people to run a different project you extoll the virtues of that project without knocking another.

Second I run Seti for a few reasons. One we have no way of knowing what is out there and we have to start somewhere. You are making a lot of assumptions that may or may not be wrong. There is only one way to find out.

Also I believe that the space program is severely underfunded so this is one way I can chip in. Besides if you did some reading on the Seti project you would see that they are looking for a lot more than just ET. Black holes, pulsars, quasars, etc. They are using the data to try to prove or disprove different theories on space.

So that is why I run Seti. I believe it is very beneficial to my interests. You may feel differently, but it is my right as it is any member of the TeAm's right to run what interests them the most.

 

[RyanM]

I guess I should clarify; my intent was not to flame, but to hopefully provoke an answer that satisfied my curiosity. You did just that. I wasn't aware they were looking for extrastellar objects and not just little grey men. ;-)

Although I still think we won't stumble upon other beings in this method; the only way we're gonna meet them is if they want to meet us first. Unless, by chance, we ARE the most advanced civilization in the Universe. In which case, that's really sad. lol

 

[Crazee]

I didn't think your intent was to flame, but I have seen threads like this with no intention for flame turn into a barbeque so I thought I would jump in before the coals got too hot

 

[Baldy18]

Who says they will be highly advanced? I'm pretty sure that we are sending light and radio signals out to space incase someone is out there looking for us and we aren't highly advanced enough to do the things that you talked about.

Personally though I don't believe that the project will find anything but hey, to each his own.

 

[MoFunk]

Originally posted by: Crazee
First let me say on the TeAm we strive not to critize others choices for projects. When this has happened in the past it has usually resulted in ill will and flame wars so I would advise that if you want people to run a different project you extoll the virtues of that project without knocking another.

Second I run Seti for a few reasons. One we have no way of knowing what is out there and we have to start somewhere. You are making a lot of assumptions that may or may not be wrong. There is only one way to find out.

Also I believe that the space program is severely underfunded so this is one way I can chip in. Besides if you did some reading on the Seti project you would see that they are looking for a lot more than just ET. Black holes, pulsars, quasars, etc. They are using the data to try to prove or disprove different theories on space.

So that is why I run Seti. I believe it is very beneficial to my interests. You may feel differently, but it is my right as it is any member of the TeAm's right to run what interests them the most.

What he said. ANd I am glad that you jumped in with a cool head, because like you said in the other poast, this could have turned into a big flame war!

 

[RaySun2Be]

Hey, I don't care if we find little green men or not. I'm just in it for the beer, babes, and hot tub!





..............and maybe the stats.

 

[JimMc]

Lifeforms? Aliens?

I thought Seti was about beating the other teams....

 

[cavdraco]

not to mention that by the time another civilizations radio wave reached us they would be more advanced but radio travel at the speed of light so the project is still valid even for finding et

Cav

 

[PraetorianGuards]

MachFive, no offense, but I think that's a little too harsh. Any civilization that advanced HAS to emit some kind of electromagnetic signals. There's no way you can cloak that, this isn't Star Trek and it sure ain't City of Angels. True, Seti may not bring any results in the near future(i.e. 10-20 years) but if we persist then we're bound to find something. It just takes patience. I do believe there are lifeforms out there and SETI could help(at least somewhat) in finding them. But, I guess to each his own. Also, why would you want to work on those cryptography projects, make is so only you can view your pr0n?

I'm sorry if it seems like a flame, please forgive me!

 

[Wiz]

What's the biggest single advancement the Seti@Home project has produced?

IMHO it's showed the raw power of distributed computing.

About 4.5 million of us running untold millions of computers all checking on data so they can go to Arecibo in a few days and take another look at the 150 strongest candidates. Without DC they would not have those strong candidates. We have analyzed data that would have taken them many many years to look at and we have done it quickly and efficiently. This has paved the way for your pet projects, whatever they may be.
The projects that come after Seti 1 will be better, they will do more work and be useful. The longest journey begins but with a single step.

It is much more likely that should we discover aliens and if we are at all able to communicate with them it will be as though it were over a great cosmic walkie talkie. We will share info about us and send. 100 (or however many) years later they will receive and maybe send their info back to us.
Two hundred years after we send out a greeting we might get one in return. It makes choosing the content of your message a very important process.


Besides all that it's given us some competition, some great teams to join like TA Seti and lots and lots of stats

 

[Nemesis77]

Originally posted by: MachFive
Use your CPU resources for something more beneficial - Protein folding (though IBM's Blue Gene will soon dominate that area), OGR, or RC5 - Anything but SETI. ;-)

I just hate the people who constantly whine "my DC-project is better than your DC-project!". Here's a suggestion for you: why don't you run whatever DC-project you prefer, and we run whatever we prefer. Sounds reasonable? Good.

As to your question... S@H CAN find aliens. Sure, they (the aliens) might choose to not to be seen/heard. but prior to that decisions, they would have sent artificial radio-waves to space for a LONG time. And even then, they couldn't mask ALL their radio-transmissions. We have braodcasted radio-waves to space for over a hunder years, if the aliens are more advanced, they might have done so for THOUSANDS of years!

 

[Robor]

Originally posted by: Nemesis77

Originally posted by: MachFive
Use your CPU resources for something more beneficial - Protein folding (though IBM's Blue Gene will soon dominate that area), OGR, or RC5 - Anything but SETI. ;-)

I just hate the people who constantly whine "my DC-project is better than your DC-project!". Here's a suggestion for you: why don't you run whatever DC-project you prefer, and we run whatever we prefer. Sounds reasonable? Good.

Ditto!

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: MachFive
Has it occured to anyone that any lifeform advanced enough to fly millions of lightyears, at high speeds, while avoiding collisions with asteroids and debris while at the same time living extremely long lives will be highly technologically advanced? So advanced, that if they didn't want us to know they were here, there'd be NO way for us to find out, because they are so far ahead of us? It'd be just like the goddamned angels in that dumb "City of Angels" movie - We could ONLY see them if they WANTED us to.

Stephen Hawking expressed similar thoughts - he said that any life out there would likely be in one of two stages:
a) Incredibly far advanced beyond us, such that we would be to them as insects are to us. We would simply be of no concern at all.
b) Incredibly primitive, possibly like bacteria or even simple insects - we'd be the far advanced species then.

But it is still cool that we're looking, trying to find other life out there, that may have existed at some time.
I'd like to see another space-oriented project - one that would somehow allow home PC's to monitor asteroids and spacial debris for anything that could pose a threat to us. We would definitely need new observational tools, as current methods and calculations are often off by hundreds of thousands of miles; and too often, we notice near-hits after the object has passed by us.

 

[networkman]

From a Michigander who disagrees..

Even if you happen to be of the belief that the "maybe-existent-aliens" are deliberately hiding from us, there is still the possibility of detection; we may pick up some of their "garbage" signals produced as by-products of some other technology. Heck, some alien kid may have played with a piece of ancient technology he/she/it found in the grandparent's attic that might have sent signals our way.

And heck, just because we can't see some planets around other stars by telescope doesn't mean they can't be detected by the gravitation anomalies in the area of the star. What's this got to do with that? Oftentimes it takes an entirely different technology or idea to make use of the data collected by the first, such as the folks looking back through the collected SETI signals to find or confirm the existence of black holes (yeah, it's really happening).

The point is without people who are willing to try to collect data there's no way we're going to find anything at all and that would be really sad.

 

[ShotgunSteven]

You do realize that any advanced civilization would have had to develop technologically over time to get there, and what errant broadcast waves of theirs that escaped into space will be picked up eventually. Sure, by the time we get those signals they may have evolved to a stage such as you describe, or nuked themselves out of existence. We would still have confirmation of other intelligent life out there, though.

 

[Assimilator1]

Has it occured to anyone that any lifeform advanced enough to fly millions of lightyears, .........

Who said they were? ,if their not then they might use similar technology to us
As for the rest ,Crazee said it perfectly for me

Use your CPU resources for something more beneficial
That is your opinion & I think your wrong! ,they are all beneficial in some way (except maybe RC5 72!)so don't go recruiting from another project!

Jeff7
I'd like to see another space-oriented project - one that would somehow allow home PC's to monitor asteroids and spacial debris for anything that could pose a threat to us.

Me too ,I'd split my fleet to run that a bit if it existed! (I've only ever run SETI........well ok I did a tiny bit of RC5 64 & GF)
Btw have you read the book about Mars by Robert Bauval? (thinks its by him) ,as well as talking about the 'Mars face' ,which you'll have to take with a pinch of salt ,it also has some very interesting & scary points about asteroids etc!.