Posted on 07/16/2002 7:40:55 AM PDT by Momaw Nadon
CANBERRA (Reuters) - Scientists searching the stars for aliens are convinced an E.T. is out there -- it's just that they haven't had the know-how to detect such a being.
But now technological advances have opened the way for scientists to check millions of previously unknown star systems, dramatically increasing the chances of finding intelligent life in outer space in the next 25 years, the world's largest private extraterrestrial agency believes.
"We're looking for needles in the haystack that is our galaxy, but there could be thousands of needles out there," Seth Shostak, the senior astronomer at California's non-profit Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence ( news - web sites) (SETI) Institute, told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday.
"If that's the case, with the number of new star systems we now hope to check, we should find one of those in the next 25 years."
But Shostak, visiting Australia to attend a conference on extraterrestrial research, said detecting alien life, like the big-eyed alien in the film E.T., was only the start.
"Even if we detect life out there, we'll still know nothing about what form of life we have detected and I doubt they'll be able -- or want -- to communicate with us," Shostak said.
Since it was founded in 1984, the SETI Institute has monitored radio signals, hoping to pick up a transmission from outer space. Its Project Phoenix conducts two annual three-week sessions on a radio telescope at Arecibo, Puerto Rico.
Project Phoenix, widely seen as the inspiration for the 1997 film "Contact" starring Jodie Foster, which depicted a search for life beyond earth, is the privately funded successor to an original NASA ( news - web sites) program that was canceled in 1993 amid much skepticism by the U.S. Congress.
But the search has been slow. About 500 of 1,000 targeted stars have been examined -- and no extraterrestrial transmissions have been detected.
E.T. NOT ON THE LINE
"We do get signals all the time but when checked out they have all been human made...and are not from E.T., more AT&T," said Shostak.
He said the privately-funded institute was developing a giant US$26 million telescope to start operating in 2005 that can search the stars for signals at least 100 times faster.
The so-called Allen Telescope Array, named after sponsor and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, is a network of more than 350, six-meter (20-foot) satellite dishes with a collecting area exceeding that of a 100-meter (338-foot) telescope.
The Allen array, to be built at the Hat Creek Observatory about 290 miles northeast of San Fransciso, will also expand the institute's stellar reconnaissance to 100,000 or even one million nearby stars, searching 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Shostak said he is convinced there is intelligent life out there -- but don't expect to find a loveable, boggle-eyed E.T..
He said if any aliens share the same carbon-based organic chemistry as humans, they would probably have a central processing system, eyes, a mouth or two, legs and some form of reproduction.
But Shostak thinks any intelligent extraterrestrial life will have gone light years beyond the intelligence of man.
"What we are more likely to hear will be so far beyond our own level that it might not be biological anymore but some artificial form of life," he said. "Don't expect a blobby, squishy alien to be on the end of the line."
394 posted on 7/19/02 6:38 PM Central by apochromat
You have mistaken me for someone else. Until this moment, I have never addressed a post to you, nor have I ever taken any action to have you removed from this site. Your presence here is of no interest to me, and right now I see no reason why our paths should cross again.
"My understanding is FTL effects need not violate causality."
The problem comes with relativity. Suppose that an observer determines that event "A" is in some way the "cause"
of event "B." If FTL communication is possible, then relativity allows the existence of another observer who sees "B"
as occuring in "A's" past, i.e., as the effect having preceded the cause.
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(don, I've no argument here with this poster, becuase he's not obnoxious and he's being helpful.)
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Posted by Physicist to apochromat
#163 of 432
In a Wheeler-Feynman sort of way, I suppose.
No, in a Jack Finney-H.G. Wells sort of way. OBAFGKM already showed you that if Alice sends an FTL signal (event "A")
to an observer Bob (event "B"), and Bob is travelling towards Alice sufficiently fast, event "B" will occur before event "A"
in Bob's frame. That means that in Bob's frame, his line of simultaneity intersects Alice's location at an earlier time than she
sent it. So if Bob bounces this FTL signal back to Alice, it will arrive at her location before she actually sent it.
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WTH?????? Blah! My leg is wet after that humper.
Arrrggghhhh!!!!!! LOL! I usually go on Free Republic to take a break from my mathematics homework. (currently a Calc I student) :)
Well. anyway, I'll give it a try.
If the signal goes 1 nanometer per year faster than light, then it will presumably be (1/2) light years plus (1/2) nanometers away after 1/2 of a year. If the mirror intercepts the signal when the mirror is at (1/2) light years away, (the signal will be (1/2) light years - (1/2) nanometer away at that point), and sends the signal back, presumably traveling at (c + 1 nanometer/lightyear), then in the round trip it should return to me in (1 year - 1 nanometer/lightyear)?
Well, I gave it a try anyway.
Tell me if I'm right or wrong please.
Why, if God wanted to create another forms of life, even the rational one, who are we to tell Him not to do it?
The Holy Scriptures are intended to be the encyclopedia for all subjects. They contain what is needed for the salvation of souls. You cannot reason that if something is not in the Bible than it is not real.
Such exclusive version of Sola Scriptura interpretation of the Bible is more like Islamic understanding of Koran.
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