

With Help From Jodie Foster, SETI Resumes Search for Alien Life - spiffae
http://www.betabeat.com/2011/08/16/jodie-foster-funds-seti-2011-08-16/

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broot
I think Jodie Foster's character in Contact (who is based on Jill Tarter, the
real-life director of SETI research) says it best.

"Look, all I'm asking, is for you to just have the tiniest bit of vision. You
know, to just sit back for one minute and look at the big picture. To take a
chance on something that just might end up being the most profoundly impactful
moment for humanity, for the history... of history."

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NatW
It's a nice gesture by Foster, for sure, but she'd have better used her money
on other space projects.

The Alan Array of the Seti Institute will only be of much use if they can
build out to 350 Arrays from the current 42. Supporting just $200,000 to keep
the 42 operational isn't going to do anything but keep the pretty useless
current array working!

Also just so you know SETI @ home doesn't rely on the Allan Array - they're
separate.

The SETI Institute was pretty much a boondoggle: Alan gave them money to build
an array of 350 telescopes, but they screwed up and only built 42, essentially
wasting the funds. Here's other info:
<http://www.skyandtelescope.com/resources/seti/3304581.html>

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johngalt
We have all those radio telescopes built already. Seems silly for humans to
let them sit idle. Even if we don't find aliens I'm sure there is something
interesting to see with all that gear.

~~~
dboyd
True. 'Looking' at otherwise empty space can sometimes yield some incredible
results: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Deep_Field>

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wtvanhest
Someone posted the following on the article:

"This's never made sense to me. When you consider the inverse square law for
electromagnetic transmission in light of the distances we're talking about,
any signal big enough for us to receive would have completely cooked anything
at the point of origin."

A quick Wikipedia search says that the inverse square law does apply to radio
waves. Can someone that understands this better than I explain why this may or
may not apply?

It seems like a total deal killer for the project.

~~~
blhack
Here: <http://www.seti.org/page.aspx?pid=225>

They address this under "No More TV for Aliens". CTRL-F for it.

Also: yes the inverse square law _does_ apply to radio waves.

~~~
AgentConundrum
Direct link, courtesy of Firebug:
[http://www.seti.org/page.aspx?pid=225#PC754_dgStories_ctl18_...](http://www.seti.org/page.aspx?pid=225#PC754_dgStories_ctl18_tableStory)

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mrleinad
Jodie was already one of my most beloved actresses. Now with this, she climbed
to the top of the list.

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shin_lao
I have a question: is SETI actually useful?

There's a couple of agencies on Earth that spend their time capturing human
communications. It's a very difficult task and they need more than $ 200,000
to operate.

Now I understand we just want to detect with a good degree of certitude that a
transmission is intelligent but not human. We don't care about descrambling
it.

Yet, I think it's an almost impossible task because those communications will
most likely be compressed and ciphered and therefore look like noise.

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bprater
The article indicated that they didn't raise enough money to actually switch
the telescope on. Worth noting.

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urbanjunkie
Fermi Paradox: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox>

It's even more relevant if what we're searching for are civilisations that are
'similar' to ours, ie use radio/electro-magnetism for communication at a
distance

~~~
Tomis
I don't see how the Fermi paradox is relevant or helpful in any way. What you
fail to understand is how large our galaxy (never mind the Universe) is and
what time frames we are talking about. Grasp this:

1) The Milky Way Galaxy contains an estimated 200–400 billion stars. Let's
assume that humans build a machine that can check if a star has life around it
in only one second.

Now, to check one billion stars for life you would have to wait 31 years,
which would be reasonable, but to check 200 billion stars you would need
roughly 6000 years.

The observable Universe contains 3 to 100 × 10^22 stars (about 80 billion
galaxies). You do the math how long it would take to check just a tiny, tiny
fraction of that number, assuming you would have such a machine, capable of
giving an answer per second.

2) The Universe is about 13 billion years old. Life on Earth is an estimated 3
billion years old. Humans, as they look today, appeared about 200000 years
ago. Humans developed means of communication with other civilizations only
50-100 years ago.

What exactly do you hope to discover in a timespan that can't even qualify as
a bleep on the Universe's radar? The evolution of humans is not synchronized
to the evolution of other forms of life. Humans (or any other form of life in
the Universe, for that matter) can go extinct without warning. It would take a
long time for our radio waves to reach another civilization and the other way
around, and by the time they reach their destination the intended receivers
may be long gone.

TL/DR - the Universe is huge, and very, very old. Don't underestimate the
difficulty of finding life.

~~~
urbanjunkie
So, in a discussion about finding alien life, you don't think the Fermi
Paradox is relevant, OK.

Your condescending response is amusing, but also demonstrates that you've
failed to understand what the Fermi Paradox. I would humbly suggest that you
read up on it at the Wikipedia page, as most of your objections are dealt with
there.

