h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Is that right? Well blow me down.
Knew I should have paid more attention to science in school

Takes a deep breath... Whoooooo

Hi there. I've got a problem. I'm on Ntl and it won't let me into this thread before posting 21,even though I initiated it in the first place. Can you tell me what caused the gasps of amazement? I'd be very grateful.

Cheers!

TORG - try this, http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/F78887?thread=165344&skip=0&show=40 Strange, that.

When I said light I meant visible light(And UV and IR). I usually refer to the whole spectrum of EM-waves as light too. But in this case I simply meant light. There is of course some EM-waves down there. But they wouldn't be able to use them for sight, since they don't bounce off things in the same way as light does.

Thanks for the link, however I've tried it several times now and I still can't get in.
Thanks for trying.

F78887?thread=165344

Try clicking that.....

*fingers crossed*

But no body listening from more than about 75 light years away would have heard a thing

That's if we were sending messages to them and they were listening in. (Mind you, for the preceeding 100 years there would have still been some strange signals coming from Earth).

SETI focuses on the other way around, ie. it is about *us* listening to *them*. It is searching for signals from advanced civilisations, possibly millions of years ago. Even if we did hear the messages the originators of the messages might be long gone.

Woodpigeon

ok, first thing, any civilization capable of crossing or even communicating over interstellar distance is unlikly to find anything on our planet very threatening.
However there is hope, or at least a better than fifty-fifty chance 'they' (who or whatever they may be) will be quite pleasent, provided we can convince them WE are intelligent life.
I forget where I heard this, but it can be assumed that on any world where sentient life should arise (yes I am aware of the Drake Equation, but assuming all those criteria up to say, the detectable EM emmisions have been met) that it must progress as a society in some fashion in order to achieve the needed level of technology to attempt contact. Now, take humanity for instance (for lack of a more convinent example) you ask your average guy on the street their opinion of war in general and you'll most likely get something to the tune of 'well, sometimes we need to, but it generally sucks' (a gross oversimplification I realize, but apt nonetheless).
People listen close now, this is where it gets good...
Average guy=peaceful, right?
therefore, Average nation (made of Average guys)=peaceful, right?
yup, you guessed it, this is where the math breaks down.
Practical application shows us that (at least on our planet) Some nations Fight. For whatever reason, the reasons are irrelivant, war, after all, is what it is, regardless of its motivation.
Our planet is once again poised for large scale combat (thank you, Mr. Bush) and we as a species have already skated far too close to nuclear conflict to ignore the idea that many species that do develop intelligence and culture and all that must slip past that moment in their history into oblivion, thus further reducing the odds that a potentialy dangerous species is released into the galaxy.
Furthermore any number of potential spacefaring cultures might be removed from the galactic stage purely by cosmic accident, a big enough stray asteroid or comet just wanders by a bit to close, then as always, gravity wins.
The truth is, my fine friends, we won't make contact until we're capable as a species of going out and looking for it, period.
Any species not capable of getting up off its own collective ass and finding its own way to the stars probably isn't worth talking to.
But I'm just an opinionated, inebreated, loudmouth Okie puttin' in his two cents, and I could be wrong & we might get the first transmission from some distant star tommorrow, it's a big damn universe, after all, and anything's possible.

Just something to ponder.
till the next one,
-Locke