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Debate over Active SETI

Let them come.. I am ready for new body parts :)

I see both sides of this argument.. Maybe we taste good? But hopefully Blue is right...
 
This is already beyond moot. Humans have been beaming EMF waves around for centuries, so it is already too late...

if by "centuries" you mean "A century" then yes. But this argument is addressed, and seemingly refuted in the article I posted:
But maybe we haven?t yet blown our cover: Brin doesn?t accept Shostak?s assertion that ?they? already know we?re here (sometimes called the ?barn door? issue). Shostak is too generous in calculating how visible we are from hundreds (or even thousands) of light-years away, says Brin, who holds a Ph.D. in planetary science and has done consulting work for NASA. Terrestrial radio and TV signals, from I Love Lucy to whatever is leaking out of Vandenberg and Guant?namo, are relatively weak. Furthermore, electromagnetic signals fall off in proportion to the square of the distance (and ETs, if they exist, are pretty darn distant). Most likely, Brin says, they have no idea we?re here?and they won?t, unless we start beaming powerful, highly directed signals in the manner that Vakoch proposes.
 
if by "centuries" you mean "A century" then yes. But this argument is addressed, and seemingly refuted in the article I posted:
But maybe we haven?t yet blown our cover: Brin doesn?t accept Shostak?s assertion that ?they? already know we?re here (sometimes called the ?barn door? issue). Shostak is too generous in calculating how visible we are from hundreds (or even thousands) of light-years away, says Brin, who holds a Ph.D. in planetary science and has done consulting work for NASA. Terrestrial radio and TV signals, from I Love Lucy to whatever is leaking out of Vandenberg and Guant?namo, are relatively weak. Furthermore, electromagnetic signals fall off in proportion to the square of the distance (and ETs, if they exist, are pretty darn distant). Most likely, Brin says, they have no idea we?re here?and they won?t, unless we start beaming powerful, highly directed signals in the manner that Vakoch proposes.

I'm not sure on this point. Yes, picking out a single transmission is probably impossible, but if someone trained their telescopes on us, is there a frequency that they could detect that's doing something it shouldn't? I don't know. If you watch Earth as it goes around the sun, could you tell that it isn't as dark in the visible spectrum as it should be when you're seeing the night side? Maybe. Is there another frequency that's more detectable relative to what we would look like without intelligent life?
 
I'm not sure on this point. Yes, picking out a single transmission is probably impossible, but if someone trained their telescopes on us, is there a frequency that they could detect that's doing something it shouldn't? I don't know. If you watch Earth as it goes around the sun, could you tell that it isn't as dark in the visible spectrum as it should be when you're seeing the night side? Maybe. Is there another frequency that's more detectable relative to what we would look like without intelligent life?

I'll say it again... that's different that intentionally beaming high-powered messages around space.
 
She's basing her assertion on our current technology. I was stating that if there are ETs with tech capable of interstellar travel, they woukd also have tech capable of listening for very minute traces of EMF. First, you woukd not waste the energy for the travel to go some place without knowing life is there. Second, in making that journey you damn well better be abke to detect extremely small things that could obliterate your ship at such high speeds. Third, you woukd likely have some type of energy field capable of deflecting or destroying thise objects. Fourth, if you have tech that can do all that, you have tech capable of detecting EMFs that are more faint than we can currently understand. It isn't even that you need to detect a specific signal as much as changes in signals, as the change represents intelligence whereas consistency indicates probable natural causes.
 
Champ, please do a google search on when humans first started to understand and play with electricity and magnetism. That has been going on for centuries.

As I've been asserting, if ET has tech for interstellar travel they can detect extremely small EMFs.

I will go further though and say at a minimum the nuclear blasts from decades ago probably sent pretty strong signals. Now let's consider the electrical grid that itself sends out EMFs, then there is lightning by its very nature. If looking at potential planets, lightning EMF would be a good initial filtering for your search as it indicates probable water and the theory that lightning helped spark some lifeforms into existence lends this to being a good way to filter potential planets.

Remember, their tech far exceeds ours by multiple factors. They would likely use all our computing power to date in less than a second.
 
The entire argument is beyond moot. The fact SH made the comments he did illustrates the reason I stated long ago that he cannot be looked upon as the smartest person in the world and thereby take everything he states as some type of factual thing when he is merely stating his opinion, not scientific fact. People give him too much credit. He is brilliant, obviously, but he doesn't know all and even his opinion is nothing so insurmountable that it should be taken so extremely serious.

Would he be able to explain to Bill O'Reilly why the tides rise and fall?

And if he were to, should O'Reilly accept his explanation as being scientific fact, or should he be speculative that it's only Hawking's opinion?
 
I will go further though and say at a minimum the nuclear blasts from decades ago probably sent pretty strong signals.

That's a good point. The EMP of Starfish Prime should have been in the 10^14 or 15 W range. Radio dishes from the 70's had sensitivities in the 10^-22 or 23 W/m^2 range. So using our tech from the 70's, we could detect that EMP up to some distance between 30 and 300 lightyears. (Disclaimer: plenty of chances for me to have made mistakes in that calculation.)
 
But can you tell the difference between an EMP from a nuclear blast vs. an EMP from a meteor collision?
 
I'll say it again... that's different that intentionally beaming high-powered messages around space.

What does our intent have to do with it? Will aliens look the other way if they figure we didn't mean to generate the signal they detect?
 
What does our intent have to do with it? Will aliens look the other way if they figure we didn't mean to generate the signal they detect?
it's not simply a matter of intent.

now... and as you know, I'm not an astro-physicist... but according to what that one guy said, most of the EMR we've released to space would be harder to see, unless one was already looking at Earth. However, beaming high energy signals around could attract attention that would've otherwise missed us.

It's like the difference between whistling softly from a 1/4-mile away from someone, and cupping your hands around your mouth and shouting at them.
 
it's not simply a matter of intent.

now... and as you know, I'm not an astro-physicist... but according to what that one guy said, most of the EMR we've released to space would be harder to see, unless one was already looking at Earth. However, beaming high energy signals around could attract attention that would've otherwise missed us.

It's like the difference between whistling softly from a 1/4-mile away from someone, and cupping your hands around your mouth and shouting at them.

The EMPs were stronger than the directed signals anyway. It's whistling vs. cupping your hands and shouting vs. firing a shotgun.
 
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If all you pansies, shakin' in your boots because you think Mork is going to fly here in his egg and destroy us all, want an argument against active SETI, I could sign up for this one: we shouldn't waste any money on it. The odds of us doing anything that makes a difference with our current technology is so remote, I think just about anything else we do in the realm of space exploration is a better use of resources.
 
I do not mind a few dollars spent listening but i would much prefer us working together to expand humans beyond earth.. We need to start building bases and seeing what resources we can find in the solar system..
 
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Agrred with proper allocation of funding. Interstellar Travel is almost as impossible as perpetual motion...so it seriously is doubtful ET is coming. Now maybe when Andromeda collides with Milky Way it will be slightly easier depending on whether any stars come within a few lightyears...but still, that's 4.5 billion years from now when the sun is expected to exhaust its fuel and IF any intelligent life remains on Earth they will need to do everything possible to get over to one of Andromeda's stars purely for survival. Of course, that could end up being impossible even then, so....better get to work on making theories and science fiction become reality before it is too late.
 
I do not mind a few dollars spent listening but i would much prefer us working together to expand humans beyond earth.. We need to start building bases and seeing what resources we can find in the solar system..

Agreed.
 
What makes you so sure of that?

Why take that chance?

And the entire species doesn't have to be hostile to be harmful to humanity, just a couple bad actors or faction.

because weve all but exhausted our resources on this planet. And were not advanced enough for deep space travel. So the only reason to come here unannounced is to exterminate us. If they are advanced enough to find us and get here...then they are smart enough to communicate with us before just showing up face to face and hoping we don't blow each other up.
 
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I think id agree with Hawking. If a much more advanced people are coming here unannounced its probably because they are desperate. Sure, they could be desperate and nonviolent. Id vote to blow up the middle east, extract all the oil and the aliens can live there.
 
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