Fascinating facts

[R. Richard]

There exists a problem in the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence of which most of you are not aware. It is very well to search for extra-terrestrial intelligence. However, what happens if we find extra-terrestrial intelligence?

Some year back there was a government project started to search for extra-terrestrial intelligence by broadcasting patterns of signals into space. The patterns of signals were mathematically based, not langiage based. That is a sequence of pulses might be sent such as 1, 4, 9, 16, 25 . . . Of course the sequence is the number 2 raised to the Nth power. The sequence is the same for any and all civilizations.

The people who started the project were patting each other on the back and envisioning an inter-galactic communication network; hands across space type of thing. Some grinch then pointed out a slight flaw in the plan (I cannot reveal the name of the grinch, but his initials were R.R.) Various military experts with PhDs reviewed the complaint and came to the inevitable conclusion. They would probably find C civilizations within so many light years. Some fraction of the C civilizations would be capable of inter-stellar travel. A couple of the civilizations would either try to destroy us or enslave us.

The project was shut down ASAP! Not only was the project shut down, a couple of new projects, addressing entiorely different concerns were started with the same name, to hide the fact that the project had ever existed. Probably just as well.

My widely ingnored and scorned humorous story 'Alien Invasion' chronicles a possible outcome of the original project.

 

[Carl East]

i always thoughtSETI was looking for a needle in a hay stack. Not because life is not out there, but simply because the means they have avialable is looking at such a narrow band of time.

This planet has been around for about four and a half billion years. We've been broadcasting for what portion of that? A little over 100 years? Radio waves travel pretty close to the speed of light I believe, that means our transmissions at best could be 100 or so light years out. If another intelligent race had their own seti project, and if they were pointed at us and if there was no significant interference between us and them, they would still have to be within a couple hundred light years at max to find us.

It's a great idea, but I feel with those limiting factors, it isn't going to give a very prepresenative view of the possiblity of intelligent life out there.

There's another point to add to your post Colly, and that is we are assuming they would be broadcasting with the exact same technology. What if they gave up sending messages this way, thousands of years ago and simply can no longer pick up our simplistic signals anymore.

I think it's a realistic bet that we haven't found evidence yet, simply because of the distances involved. Ironically, the distance might be what has enabled us to develope unhindered, by the threat of any alien nation taking a fancy to this little corner of the universe.

As for any sentient being recieving our signals and preparing to invade is doubtful. I mean first of all they'd have no idea how advanced we are, so the first logical course of action would be to check us out. And if they found this site, they'd want to subscribe. lol

Carl

 

[rgraham666]

A couple of things about insects.

They don't breath through surface respiration but through an intricate series of tubes that run through their bodies. I don't think they would be limited in size by oxygen starvation.

What really limits their size, as I understand, is their exoskeletons. Since mass increases by a cube function and area by a square, at some point the skeleton becomes too weak to support their mass. It's why insects are generally so small. The largest one, the Goliath Beetle of New Guinea, is only a foot long.

We don't really know enough of the universe to speculate about the incidence and type of life in the universe. Saying faster than light travel is impossible is like saying heavier than air flight was impossible two centuries ago. I even read an observation by a scientist in the 19th century saying trains couldn't go faster than 30 mph because the passengers would suffocate.

So we are very limited in our guesses.

Doesn't stop it from being fun though.

 

[china-doll]

I've always though the SETI program was a grand idea that faltered under the light of reality. The closest star to us is over 4 light years, or 40 trillion miles. Thats a long way for radio waves to travel and not degrade to the point of background noise. And that is if the other planet is broadcasting radio, which Carl has pointed out, they may not even use. They may have something better, or just different.

To cross the massive distances any signals would need to be very powerful to survive without distortion. Humans have only been broadcasting radio signals of any real power for the last 60 years or so, probablly since WWII. And have only been beaming signals directly into space for the last 30 to 40, since the space race started with the USSR. So the window for some other culture even detecting out signals, never mind sending something back is very short.

And all this assumes that the other culture would be looking or even care. Other cultures may not have the inate curiosity that humans have. They may not feel the need to explore their universe. Or they may be xenophobic and try to avoid all contact out of fear or even some form of religous beliefs.

There is also the posibility that some other culture has already picked up out radio signals and has not responded simply because we don't appear to be worth the trouble. We may be so far behind them technologically that we are to them as chimps are to us. Maybe in a few millenia we'll be worth taking to, but not right now.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Radio signals are a form of electromagnetic radiation, just like light, and like light they don't ever peter out or stop. The giant radio telescope at Aracaibo, PR, ca pick up incredibly weak signals, like the original reverberation of the event we know as the Big Bang. Believe me, the engineers and scientists at SETI know what they're doing, and they wouldn't waste their time searching for signals that are too weak to detect.

Our telecopes, both optical and radio, can pick up signals from Quasars at the very edge of the universe--not just our galaxy, but the known universe. They are entirely capable of picking up radio signals from stars thousands of light years distant.

As for the contention that we're inviting invasion from the stars, the fact is that we loudly broadcast into space with intelligible signals 24 hours a day, seven days a week and have been doing so for 80 years. Any civilization listening to our section of the galaxy would know that we're here, and I find the idea that any alien civilization sophisticated enough to have mastered interstellar travel would come all the way to earth looking for slaves or food or because they wanted our gold or oxygen to be pure science fiction of the worst kind.

Another thing about the short time that other civilizations might have in which to broadcast: our solar system is second generation, if not older. In other words, it's made out of debris left over from a previous generation of stars that went nova (that's where all the elements heavier than Iron came from: the interiors of dying stars). So just because our earth is only about 4-5 billion years old, the universe has been around much, much, longer, and there's no reason why we couldn't pick up the signals from eariler civilizations, signals that have been traveling for millions of light years.

--Zoot

 

[R. Richard]

As for the contention that we're inviting invasion from the stars, the fact is that we loudly broadcast into space with intelligible signals 24 hours a day, seven days a week and have been doing so for 80 years. Any civilization listening to our section of the galaxy would know that we're here, and I find the idea that any alien civilization sophisticated enough to have mastered interstellar travel would come all the way to earth looking for slaves or food or because they wanted our gold or oxygen to be pure science fiction of the worst kind.

I must politely disagree. The signals we have been broadcasting since the invention of radio are language based and, in small samples, unintelligible to anyone who does not know the language. In fact, such signals could be randomly generated by natural processes and are further screened by other natural processes.

The specific signals that were broadcast as our 'greeting to the universe' were on very carefully calculated frequencies and in very carefully calculated form. There are reasons for the specific selection, but they are classified.

The military maintains groups of people who 'assume the reasoning' of other, foreign froups of people. In many cases the PhDs who do this sort of thing are ignored (and disaster usually results). However, such groups have assumed the reasoning of peoples such as the Romans during the time of the Roman Empire. Handed the intelligence available to the Roman leaders and field personnel, they have been able to duplicate the decisions that were actually made regarding small scale operations of the ancient Roman Empire. (One of the problems the US has with estimating the effects of military operations, such as Iraq, is that the politicians who controll the military are too smart to need the advice of PhD theoreticians.)

It is not unusual for a warlike people to make war on others simply because the others are different from the warlike people. A wise man, Prince Etil of the Huns (Atilla the Hun), often conducted military compaigns that made no sense financially. He was by no means alone in this type of folly.

Just because it makes no sense is not a reason to assume that we might not be 'invaded' from space. The aliens do not have to actually 'invade.' All they have to do is move a large chunk of rock into an orbit that will eventually impact the Earth. Currently the Earth has no working defense against such an attack.

JMHO.

 

[gauchecritic]

And speaking of simple mathematical concepts, binary would surely be the most easily deciphered mathematical model to use in communications whilst at the same time being the most obscure.

In using maths as a supposed 'universal' constant the signallers, it seems to me, are probably shouting at foreigners (or the deaf).

Perhaps purely chemical thought is the natural research tool by 'others'. Maybe electro magnetic radiation. I'm not saying that these can't all be described mathematically but we're discussing aliens here, they're not likely to speak American.

And as for them being humanoid. feh.

Why do the alien insects have to be giants anyway? Ants have managed for millions of years being ant-sized.

by R.R
All they have to do is move a large chunk of rock into an orbit that will eventually impact the Earth. Currently the Earth has no working defense against such an attack.

Assuming they are moving that chunk from the nearest star, its eventual speed would be an appreciable portion of light and would be virtually indefensible by anything.

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

Bacteria.

The most likely extraterrestial organism would probably have a bacterial-like structure because unicellular prokaryotes can survive in the most uncommon places on Earth. There are bacteria that actually live on the lava crust of volcanos, there are theories that some life on Earth may have come from bacteria contained in asteroids. Bacteria and other "simple-structures" are much more environmentally resistant as well as long-lived. It's not the same as sentient life, but it is unmistakably life.

Also I read an article a while ago about NASA believing that a planet over in the closest sun contained a planet that likely contained a form of water lifeform. I don't know if anyone else has seen anything similar. Sadly, I have to admit that my knowledge of space and all forms of astronomy or all forms of astrophysics is severely wanting. I'm on the other end of the spectrum.

 

[Huckleman2000]

I read a fascinating book recently by Bill Bryson, called A Short History of Nearly Everything - I highly recommend it if this sort of thing interests you.

Here is a paragraph on the size of the solar system: "On a diagram of the solar system to scale, with Earth reduced to about the diameter of a pea, Jupiter would be over a thousand feet away and Pluto would be a mile and a half distant (and about the size of a bacterium, so you wouldn't be able to see it anyway). On the same scale, Proxima Centauri, our nearest star, would be almost ten thousand miles away. Even if you shrank down everything so that Jupiter was as small as the period at the end of this sentence, and Pluto was no bigger than a molecule, Pluto would still be over thirty-five feet away."

 

[Quiet_Cool]

Hurling giants rocks; alien invasion?

That's funny. They don't look threatening to me...

 

[Carl East]

I can't help wondering what we'll discover in the near future, especially where fuel is concerned.

Did you know that there are drawing board plans of a rocket that can almost reach light speed, it would've run on nuclear energy in the form of explosions coming from the rear end.

Not exactly hopeful is it? lol

With the age of hydrogen upon us though (as a propellant) perhaps great things will come from that.

Did you know that the second satalite that is powered by an ion drive is now orbiting the moon?

I wonder how hard we would find it to actually communicate with aliens if we ever meet them, because their form of speech may be far different from ours. Which reminds me of a STAR TREK NEXT GENERATION episode I saw once, where Picard found himself alone on a planet with an alien they'd found it hard to talk with in the past. I can't remember the episodes title, but it's the sort of problem we might indeed come up against if we ever meet them.

Did you know that on the 13th of December I intend to be fifty thousand feet in the air and heading towards America for Christmas and new year with my sweetie?

Happy holidays everyone.

Carl

 

[rgraham666]

I remember that one Carl. It was, as I recall, called 'Darmok'.

The problem was that the translators could make English out of their language, but these also spoke only in metaphors, which the computers could not translate being based entirely on culture.

Along with the episode where Data made himself a daughter, this was my favourite.

If you ever want to read an interesting take on life at an interstellar level, the Uplift series by David Brin was very good.

In this series, sentience almost never occurs naturally. Most often an already sentient species (called the patron) finds a species (called the client) with 'Potential' and 'Uplifts' them to sentience and starfaring status. In return, the client owes about 100,000 years of service to their patron.

This system goes back 3 billion years. And it's not perfect. The books deal with the problems of this system. Greed, slavish adherence to it, twisting it to meet the needs of the patrons, all the usual shit.

Good books. Highly recommended, especially Startide Rising.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

And speaking of simple mathematical concepts, binary would surely be the most easily deciphered mathematical model to use in communications whilst at the same time being the most obscure.

In using maths as a supposed 'universal' constant the signallers, it seems to me, are probably shouting at foreigners (or the deaf).

...

The signals that Sagan and others were talking about sending would be entirely analog-based. In other words, they might send one beep, then two, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17... sending out a series of prime numbers as analog pulses. It would be hard to think of any sort of natural source that would generate a sequence of prime numbers, and you wouldn't have to worry about them using the same number-based system as we were.

Most astronomical radio sources don't pulse with any sort of regularity. About 15-20 years ago there was a lot of excitement when they started hearing pulses that seemed to be too fast to come from a natural source. They think now that these signals come from very tiny, rapidly-spinning neutron stars, but for a while there was talk of having found artificial 'lighthouses' in space.

---dr.M.

 

[CharleyH]

However, what happens if we find extra-terrestrial intelligence?

Guess we'll find out what happens in the states over the next four years.

Politics aside, fascinating thread. I will have to read thoroughly before commenting.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Dark Energy

While we're talking about fascinating cosmological facts, I haven't seen any mention about the discovery of "dark energy", which must be the biggest thing in astronomy in the last ten years.

Dark energy is hypothesized to explain the fact that not only is the universe expanding, but that the expansion is accelerating. Dark energy is thought to act as a kind of anti-gravity, pushing the galaxies away from each other.

Physics recognizes only 4 fundamental forces: the elctromagnetic force, gravity, the weak force (that rules the decay of certain subatomic particles) and the strong force (that holds protons and neutrons together in atomic nuclei). Dark energy would represent a fifth fundamental force, and is giving the unified field people fits.

---dr.M.

 

[ABSTRUSE]

Re: Dark Energy

While we're talking about fascinating cosmological facts, I haven't seen any mention about the discovery of "dark energy", which must be the biggest thing in astronomy in the last ten years.

Dark energy is hypothesized to explain the fact that not only is the universe expanding, but that the expansion is accelerating. Dark energy is thought to act as a kind of anti-gravity, pushing the galaxies away from each other.

Physics recognizes only 4 fundamental forces: the elctromagnetic force, gravity, the weak force (that rules the decay of certain subatomic particles) and the strong force (that holds protons and neutrons together in atomic nuclei). Dark energy would represent a fifth fundamental force, and is giving the unified field people fits.

---dr.M.

Thanks Zoot, I've never heard of that before...I'll have to explore that now.

 

[gauchecritic]

dark things

Ok, we've heard about white and red dwarfs and black holes (sometimes called collapsars). There's the theory about The Big Bang which expands and then cools and contracts via entropy only to gather itself together to become another Big Bang.

Violent gravity wells, dark matter, event horizons; all associated with collapsed stars. Vacuums of the universe attracting and consuming all about them. (yes I know that everything about them is also attracting it.)

Well I've just now found a book in Forster's series concerning humanx kind, in particular Flinx and his pet Pip. (Orphan Star, the one where he finds the ursinoid race with the vast mental powers) In this story Forster mentions a Collaxar. A black hole created by a collapsed a galaxy.

This beauty doesn't just sweep up solar debris, it sweeps up suns. Worth pondering, however fanciful.

 

[gauchecritic]

Re: Dark Energy

<> giving the unified field people fits.

---dr.M.

So how close are they to unifying? Anyone?

If achieveable, I should imagine that this is the area where a star drive will come from.

Why don't these unified field people ask that professor from First Man On The Moon (?) about his anti-gravity paint?

 

[woodnymph_O]

ok not spacey, but enjoyed these facts

If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days you would have produced
>enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee.
>
> (Hardly seems worth it.)
>
> If you farted consistently for 6 years and 9 months, enough gas is
>produced to create the energy of an atomic bomb.
>
>(Now that's more like it!)
>
>
> The human heart creates enough pressure when it pumps out to the
body to
>squirt blood 30 feet.
>
>(O.M.G.!)
>
> A pig's orgasm lasts 30 minutes.
>
> (In my next life, I want to be a pig.)
>
>
>A cockroach will live nine days without its head before it starves to
>death. (Creepy.)
>
>
>(I'm still not over the pig.)
>
>Banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories a hour
>
>(Don't try this at home,maybe at work)
>
>The male praying mantis cannot copulate while its head is attached to
its
>body. The female initiates sex by ripping the male's head off.
>
>("Honey, I'm home. What the....?!")
>
>The flea can jump 350 times its body length. It's like a human jumping
the
>length of a football field.
>
>
>(30 minutes..lucky pig! Can you imagine?)
>
>
>The catfish has over 27,000 taste buds.
>
>
>(What could be so tasty on the bottom of a pond?)
>
>
>Some lions mate over 50 times a day.
>
>
>(I still want to be a pig in my next life...quality over quantity)
>
>
>Butterflies taste with their feet.
>
>(Something I always wanted to know.)
>
>The strongest muscle in the body is the tongue.
>
>(Hmmmmmm......)
>
>Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than
left-handed
people.
>
>
>(If you're ambidextrous, do you split the difference?)
>
>Elephants are the only animals that cannot jump.
>
>
>(okay, so that would be a good thing)
>
>
>A cat's urine glows under a black light.
>
>
>(I wonder who was paid to figure that out?)
>
>An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
>
>
> (I know some people like that.)
>
>Starfish have no brains.
>
>(I know some people like that too.)
>
>Polar bears are left-handed.
>
>(If they switch, they'! ll live a lot longer)
>
>Humans and dolphins are the only species that have sex for pleasure.
>
>(What about that pig??)
Hope you all enjoy , and i think i wanna come back as the pig too !

 

[Carl East]

Re: Re: Dark Energy

So how close are they to unifying? Anyone?


Why don't these unified field people ask that professor from First Man On The Moon (?) about his anti-gravity paint?

Anti-gravity, now that's the holy grail of space exploration. I mean imagine not being confined to small spaces, but actually being able to walk normally around your ship. I wonder if any theories have ever come about concerning anti-gravity?

It would change life on Earth as we know it as well, because you could break free of the forces that hold us down. One day maybe, but not in the foreseeable future.

Edited to add: I just found this whilst checking out Anti-Gravity, it's pretty cool stuff.

http://www.americanantigravity.com/index.shtml

Carl

ps Woodnymph_O, that was funny.

 

[Carl East]

Can you imagine what it must all look like out there, I mean we love training our telescopes onto our own local planets and we think they're beautiful. Yet there are events happening in this universe that are simply mind blowing, like the stellar nursery that gives birth to the stars themselves.

Or the planets such as Saturn that has eight moons orbiting it, can you imagine what it must look like from the planets surface.

Incidentally here are Saturns moons:
Mimas
Enceladus
Tethys
Dione
Rhea
Titan
Hyperion
Iapetus

There are also canyons out there that make the Grand Canyon look like a termite mound. Did you know that Venus has a Canyon so big that if you fell from the top you'd take half an hour to reach the ground? Big MOTHER. lol

I think our next big step will be to mine the many asteroids that regularly orbit our system. They are rich in materials we will one day need, the only obstacle at the moment is the expense of extracting the ores. It would cost more than they'd make, and as we all know humans do nothing without a profit being involved, at least nothing of any significance.

I don't know about anyone else here, but I'm disappointed with their progress on the space station and the lack of any moon base. I suppose its because I wanted to see these things long before I pass this mortal coil. I do get to use my imagination in my stories though, and as far as Anti-Gravity is concerned I have it licked. lol

Carl

 

[Guest]

As a member of SETI At Home, I can tell you that the project is worse than looking for a needle in a haystack.

The SETI At Home project is basicly people all over the world downloading Work Units that are processed on their home computers looking for radio signals that are NOT naturally produced. Each work unit is a a couple of seconds of what was recorded from one radiotelescope pointed at one VERY small area of space. All of the WUs now come from the Arecibo Observitory in Puerto Rico. The observatory has a somwhat limited effective field of view and SETI does not get exclusive use of the observitory. Even with the million or so members sifting through the WU's it would take forever just to process what Arecibo sees in one day.

Seti is not looking for a needle in a haystack. It's much worse. SETI is looking for a planet in the universe.

EDIT: Forgot to mention those Work Units are also from a specific frequency band during those few seconds aimed at that tiny spec of space

 

[Guest]

Just to give you an idea of what SETI is looking at, the red dots on the map below represent the areas SETI has recorded "noise" from.

 

[Carl East]

Just to give you an idea of what SETI is looking at, the red dots on the map below represent the areas SETI has recorded "noise" from.

To be honest Dranoel, SETI has never impressed me. Like you said, a needle in a haystack, which I think is an understatement. We're simply not going to confirm life or Earth type planets from the surface of our own, we have to get out there and explore.

First though, we need to conquer our own little back yard. We need space stations, Moon/Mars bases. We need to find water as a matter of urgency at these bases, so that fuel will no longer be a factor of stopping us progressing.

With the advent of the public ventures or race into space, we're a little closer to these goals. I mean within a few short years we'll be travelling around the world in orbit every day of the week. Taking an hour or two to get from Europe to America, but it's all too slow for me. lol

I hate the fact that I'm going to miss all these things, I want to stand on Mars, and I want to freefall from the thirteenth floor of Lunn Pollies Moon Hotel. These things will happen, and if anyone doubts it you've got your head in the clouds.

Carl

 

[ABSTRUSE]

Found a link to dark matter/dark energy is anyone is interested. In fact the site itself is pretty cool.

http://sciencematters.berkeley.edu/archives/volume1/issue1/story3.php