SETI or "Search for Extra Terrestial Intelligence" program has been going for about 16 years probing pockets of space for signals that could indicate extraterrestial intelligence.

Sometimes, though, I wonder if all this is rather pointless. In another thread we're discussing the fastest speeds possible by spacecraft according to known science and technology and faster than light travel seems out of reach. Combine that with the possibility that whatever intelligent life may have evolved out there it's simply too far away even for their most advanced signals to reach us in multiple millenia. Also given huge amounts of time that the universe exists who is to say that all intelligent life that existed still exists or that life which may be evolving as we speak will exist while we're still here..

I might be exaggerating a bit, but on the other hand it's difficult for the human mind to grasp just how huge these distances in time and space are making it easy to fool ourselves into imagining it as far more cozy and crowded than it really is. Now I don't think it's a bad idea to look, if we can, just in case especially if we can find other useful data along the way, but that's the question.. Is there any further point or usability of SETI other than this incredibly hopeful looking towards the stars desperately hoping to catch that signal we keep imagining?

I have to admit, I think SETI is pretty cool. And, now at least the project is privately funded. It's received funds in the past from the U.S. government and the California state government, but now it's clean of government funding.

Even if we can't travel to other worlds, it could still be fantastically useful to communicate with them.

Hopefully we'll find someone to talk to closer than globular star cluster M13, an early target of the project -- which is 25,000 light years from us. 50,000 light years for the turnaround of a message is a bit long.

But what if we found someone to talk to in the Gliese 581 system? That's only 20.5 years away. We could stream each other scientific data non-stop. We could, theoretically, receive hundreds of trillions of dollars worth of useful scientific data for under $100M.

Space is so unimaginably large that I believe the odds of their being life on other planets exceeds 100%. But... the other side of this is that space is so unimaginably large that we may never run into another intelligent species -- even if billions of them do exist. I know that's true as I type it, but I still have trouble wrapping my head around it.

Will.Spencer wrote:
I have to admit, I think SETI is pretty cool. And, now at least the project is privately funded. It's received funds in the past from the U.S. government and the California state government, but now it's clean of government funding.

That's always good to hear. It also proves yet again stuff like this can be funded without taxes.

Will.Spencer wrote:

Even if we can't travel to other worlds, it could still be fantastically useful to communicate with them.

Agreed. That would profoundly shift a lot of our paradigms.

Will.Spencer wrote:

Hopefully we'll find someone to talk to closer than globular star cluster M13, an early target of the project -- which is 25,000 light years from us. 50,000 light years for the turnaround of a message is a bit long.

But what if we found someone to talk to in the Gliese 581 system? That's only 20.5 years away. We could stream each other scientific data non-stop. We could, theoretically, receive hundreds of trillions of dollars worth of useful scientific data for under $100M.

That would be awesome, though 20 years is still quite a lot of time from our perspective. After detecting their signal we would have to wait 20 years before they receive it and then another 20 years for them to send the message back and provided that they agreed to send a constant stream that's where empty waiting periods would stop. So it would take at least 40 years to get to that constant stream.

Ah I wish we figured out a way to at least communicate faster than light if we can't travel. Subspace communication anyone?.

Will.Spencer wrote:

Space is so unimaginably large that I believe the odds of their being life on other planets exceeds 100%. But... the other side of this is that space is so unimaginably large that we may never run into another intelligent species -- even if billions of them do exist. I know that's true as I type it, but I still have trouble wrapping my head around it.

It could be said that size and distances we are talking about defy current human understanding capacity to the point that even these logical assumptions and speculations of ours amount to nothing. We might as well just say we have no freaking idea what we're talking about! But we do have active imagination and a sense of hope and curiosity, and that's all we need to keep exploring and discovering new things.

I guess in that sense SETI is great. If it's privately funded that indicates genuine interest in the market and I'm happy for it. Let's keep probing and see what happens.

I remember when I used to use the SETI@Home screen-saver. I processed like 5 data packages from them because my computer was so slow back then.

Finding life somewhere else in the universe is great and all, but wouldn't the messages/transmissions we receive be way too weak, or if they are much more advanced, on a whole different wavelength than radio waves? And even if we did find life, how would we get to them? How long does it take for our messages to reach them, if even possible (and how would they understand)?

I ask too many questions.

Gavenecko wrote:
I remember when I used to use the SETI@Home screen-saver. I processed like 5 data packages from them because my computer was so slow back then.

Hmm that gives me the idea for trying that now on my comp and see how much it can do while I sleep.

Gavenecko wrote:

Finding life somewhere else in the universe is great and all, but wouldn't the messages/transmissions we receive be way too weak, or if they are much more advanced, on a whole different wavelength than radio waves?

That's quite possible which would just emphasize how much of a gamble SETI project is. We're basically looking just in case even if the chances are so small. But you can never know before you look and if there are people willing to put money into that then why not.

People involved in the project probably thought about those kinds of questions as well though I'm not sure (or don't remember) what their answer was..

Gavenecko wrote:

And even if we did find life, how would we get to them? How long does it take for our messages to reach them, if even possible (and how would they understand)?

Radio waves apparently travel at the speed of light so the light year distance between us and them would determine how long it takes to reach them. In case if Gliese 581 mentioned by Will above it would then be 20.5 years. Quite a long time still.

I think we wouldn't really try to communicate with our own language with the first message. It would probably be enough to just be able to convey that we're intelligent life forms and that the message isn't just some random cosmic noise but rather something crafted and deliberately sent by an intelligent race. We'd have to worry about more advanced communication later..

But I'm talking from the top of my head. There are quite a few documentaries about SETI featuring Seth Shostak explaining things and they're usually fun to watch.

Gavenecko wrote:

I ask too many questions.

There's no such thing as too many questions!

And btw, welcome to TopBits!

Space is so unimaginably large that I believe the odds of their being life on other planets exceeds 100%. But... the other side of this is that space is so unimaginably large that we may never run into another intelligent species -- even if billions of them do exist. I know that's true as I type it, but I still have trouble wrapping my head around it.

In 1961, radio astronomer Frank Drake created what came to be known as the Drake Equation. The Drake Equation is a mathematical formula for determining the odds of life existing elsewhere in the Universe. The formula is:

N = R* f_p n_e f_l f_i f_c L

N = The number of communicative civilizations
R* = The rate of formation of suitable stars (stars such as our Sun)
f_p = The fraction of those stars with planets. (Current evidence indicates that planetary systems may be common for stars like the Sun.)
n_e = The number of Earth-like worlds per planetary system
f_l = The fraction of those Earth-like planets where life actually develops
f_i = The fraction of life sites where intelligence develops
f_c = The fraction of communicative planets (those on which electromagnetic communications technology develops)
L = The "lifetime" of communicating civilizations

Of course, the most important thing to remember is that we don't even have good estimations for the value of several of those variables.

I think we wouldn't really try to communicate with our own language with the first message. It would probably be enough to just be able to convey that we're intelligent life forms and that the message isn't just some random cosmic noise but rather something crafted and deliberately sent by an intelligent race. We'd have to worry about more advanced communication later..

I think we'd start by transmitting the prime number series in some sort of analog waveform. It should be easy to notice, Universal, recognized by any intelligent life form, and not easily confused with background noise like pulsars.

Tom wrote:

In 1961, radio astronomer Frank Drake created what came to be known as the Drake Equation. The Drake Equation is a mathematical formula for determining the odds of life existing elsewhere in the Universe. The formula is:

N = R* f_p n_e f_l f_i f_c L

N = The number of communicative civilizations
R* = The rate of formation of suitable stars (stars such as our Sun)
f_p = The fraction of those stars with planets. (Current evidence indicates that planetary systems may be common for stars like the Sun.)
n_e = The number of Earth-like worlds per planetary system
f_l = The fraction of those Earth-like planets where life actually develops
f_i = The fraction of life sites where intelligence develops
f_c = The fraction of communicative planets (those on which electromagnetic communications technology develops)
L = The "lifetime" of communicating civilizations

Of course, the most important thing to remember is that we don't even have good estimations for the value of several of those variables.

I'm familiar with the Drake equation (never memorized it though ) and it's a good concept, but as you say we need to know more about the variables. That said, who is to say that intelligent life that may have developed elsewhere necessarily requires the same or similar conditions to those on Earth.

Will.Spencer wrote:

I think we'd start by transmitting the prime number series in some sort of analog waveform. It should be easy to notice, Universal, recognized by any intelligent life form, and not easily confused with background noise like pulsars.

Taking some assumptions about said intelligence life, that makes sense. And we can't act without making assumptions in this case.