Other life? (Introduction)

by dhw, Tuesday, June 23, 2020, 13:25 (1615 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

"We've only been producing radio waves to send out there for 100 years, so that's assumed to be about the minimum time a civilization would have to be in existence and broadcasting for us to detect them.(bold mine) More realistically, the authors expect that a CETI population would have to exist for an average of 3,060 years to be detectable, which means that if life formed in both places at the same time, we'd both need to be in existence for 6,120 years to make contact. (my bold)

"'I think it is extremely important and exciting because for the first time we really have an estimate for this number of active intelligent, communicating civilizations that we potentially could contact and find out there is other life in the universe — something that has been a question for thousands of years and is still not answered," said co-author and astrophysicist Christopher Conselice of University of Nottingham."

David's Comment: Alpha centuri, the closest star is 4.3 light years away. Contact must be by radio waves at the speed of light. Very few stars are close enough, unless they produced radio waves thousands of years ago as discussed..

B-M: I always find these comments to be the most enlightening. We are assuming that if there is life it would have taken a similar technological progression to ourselves and would use the same technology or use physics in the same way. There is no real reason to think that, however.

Welcome back! I hope all is well with you and your family. As for enlightenment, just wait and see the results of my research, if I can only get the $1million I need to finish it.