S E T I : Closing the Gap in ET quest.
It appears that researchers working with SETI have sieved all those millions of hours of computer time and come up with as many as "150 candidate signals" that deserve "second look".
Chances are still 10,000 to 1 against any of the targetted signals pointing to actual life.
Results will be posted over the next few months.
http:www.astrobio.net/news/article403.html
And if none of the candidates turn up trumps....the next generation of software to plug into your computer is on its way...( BOINC )
Chances are still 10,000 to 1 against any of the targetted signals pointing to actual life.
Results will be posted over the next few months.
http:www.astrobio.net/news/article403.html
And if none of the candidates turn up trumps....the next generation of software to plug into your computer is on its way...( BOINC )
Comments
Originally posted by Aquafire
It appears that researchers working with SETI have sieved all those millions of hours of computer time and come up with as many as "150 candidate signals" that deserve "second look".
Chances are still 10,000 to 1 against any of the targetted signals pointing to actual life.
Results will be posted over the next few months.
http:www.astrobio.net/news/article403.html
And if none of the candidates turn up trumps....the next generation of software to plug into your computer is on its way...( BOINC )
SETI is sponsored by an union of electrical provider companies
Originally posted by Aquafire
...
Chances are still 10,000 to 1 against any of the targetted signals pointing to actual life.
...
10,000 to 1? Those odds sound too good to be real.
You can calculate probabilities about the chances of winning at the loto, but you can't calculate probabilities of an unknow event. That's totally weird.
Originally posted by Powerdoc
I am interested to know how they calculate this 10 000 to 1 ratio. In order to make such statement you have to know some data, or make some probabilities.
You can calculate probabilities about the chances of winning at the loto, but you can't calculate probabilities of an unknow event. That's totally weird.
I was just thinking the same thing.
Here's my probability peeve: if your number in the deli line is 222, people will say that the chance of that happening as rare, yet getting that number was exactly as probable as picking 273.
Originally posted by Powerdoc
I am interested to know how they calculate this 10 000 to 1 ratio. In order to make such statement you have to know some data, or make some probabilities.
You can calculate probabilities about the chances of winning at the loto, but you can't calculate probabilities of an unknow event. That's totally weird.
Shhh don't question things...
hehehe I agree with you Powerdoc
Fellows
Originally posted by FellowshipChurch iBook
Shhh don't question things...
hehehe I agree with you Powerdoc
Fellows
D'ja reckon there's life out there Fellows?
Originally posted by Harald
D'ja reckon there's life out there Fellows?
It's not the question. It's the question to make a probability out of nowhere.
Why 1/10 000 and not 1/100 000 or 1 / 32465478 ...
There is even a choice that Super Intelligent ET existed and choose to hide any emissions at our hears to protect our little egocentric vision of the world ...
The odds are very much in favor of this happening at some point ( one might say overwhelming )
It will happen someday.
You can count on it.
No pun intended.
PS. If said alien culture evolved from a more primative one they might have used radio signals at some point in the past. In which case they couldn't hide those from our little ears as radio emissions tend to go on forever. We'd just be picking up there version of " I Love Lucy ".
Originally posted by jimmac
Yes, I imagine discovery of intelligent life elsewhere would shake up some people's picture of how they want the world to be.
The odds are very much in favor of this happening at some point ( one might say overwhelming )
It will happen someday.
You can count on it.
why are they in favor?
just curious as to the reasoning behind that statement
Pehaps on the up side, it might cause us as a species, to think about how we treat each other as well as the planet.
A little bit of global house cleaning before the "visitors" drop by for a cup of tea..wouldn't do any harm...now would it ?
Sooner or later, someone out there will be hearing the first scratchy sounds of Marconi, followed by Hitler, followed by Rock & Roll, then Heavy Metal Goth Trans Hip hop....
Err .....on second thought we definitely need outside help.....
Spock...are you listening....?
Originally posted by Aquafire
Spock...are you listening....?
Sure is. And he's scared shitless.
Originally posted by applenut
why are they in favor?
just curious as to the reasoning behind that statement
Because from what we already know of the makeup of the universe and the way life arose. The basic elements of those conditions exist everywhere. Space is vast and there are many stars. Many of which we already know habour planets. Also the universe has been around for a long time ( some 18 billion years I believe by the last estimate ) so there has been plenty of time for many civilizations to rise and fall.
Someone a few years back did the math on this and found that the chances of earth like planets with intelligent inhabitants was overwhelmingly on the positive side.
At some point they will come to us or we will meet them out there.
Originally posted by Aquafire
Life as we know it won't change ( much ) if those apparent artificial radio / x-ray sources are confirmed.
Pehaps on the up side, it might cause us as a species, to think about how we treat each other as well as the planet.
A little bit of global house cleaning before the "visitors" drop by for a cup of tea..wouldn't do any harm...now would it ?
Sounds like just the thing! However I do think that there are people out there who have such a small world view they couldn't handle it.
Originally posted by jimmac
At some point they will come to us or we will meet them out there.
Watching " Contact " with Jodi Foster always tugs at my heart strings...especially where Jodi's father says
.
" If there isn't any life out there..then it's an awful waste of space "
Besides which when you look at the universe from a God / casuality perspective, it seems like an awful lot of trouble to go to just to put life in one tiny speck.
"They're" measuring the 150 signals as mean square errors against all known forms of radio communication/modulation, and based on these errors (most likely over spectral densities or power/energy characteristics) they are approximating the chances that one of these signals can be filtered into an actual message signal using known techniques.
like, duh.
Originally posted by Aquafire
It really doesn't matter that we are looking because whether we like it or not, our radio signals are travelling through space like ripples on an ocean...
Sooner or later, someone out there will be hearing the first scratchy sounds of Marconi, followed by Hitler, followed by Rock & Roll, then Heavy Metal Goth Trans Hip hop....
Err .....on second thought we definitely need outside help.....
Spock...are you listening....?
Actually, I don't think marconi's original transmission made it very far, but that involves another fun story about signal modulation techniques. And don't dump on heavy metal. In Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure (and Bogus Journey, I might add) Heavy metal is SHOWN to bring peace on Earth and make the stars align.
Originally posted by Splinemodel
Actually, I don't think marconi's original transmission made it very far, but that involves another fun story about signal modulation techniques. And don't dump on heavy metal. In Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure (and Bogus Journey, I might add) Heavy metal is SHOWN to bring peace on Earth and make the stars align.
Marconis' transmitter got its power from a high speed electro~mechanical generator. If my understanding is correct, frequency was determined by the speed of the alternator. The signals produced were in the order of 12 Kilohertz ( 12,000 cycles ) & given the right conditions, such signals may have transmitted out into space.
But I am not sure on this matter, so I shall leave it to other more learn'ed council.