Is there really life on other planets?
- Thread starter pluto2
- Start date
We've had radio for a hundred years but they've had it longer (positing a more advanced civilisation) - we should have detected whatever they're transmitting - radio transmission on Earth is 24/7 52 weeks a year.
Presumably alien civilisations would be the same - therefore there should a constant never-ending stream of radio signals for us to detect.
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Ophiolite
Valued Senior Member
Your logic has an unusual flavour.
1. If intelligent life is reasonably common (i.e. three or four civilisations per galaxy - from your comments I think you would consider this to be rare) we should anticipate one of three things
a) Evidence of their presence within the galaxy. Nothing
b) Detection of their electromagnetic transmissions (it is irrelevant when we discovered radio, it's when they discovered it that counts). Nothing
c) Visits. No, UFOs aren't it
We can populate the entire galaxy within about one million years. So I must echo Fermi, where the hell is everyone?
I see Oli beat me to it on point 1 b).
Heh - lame. Seriously. LAME.
Fermi concludes that we are alone because in the 100(60 at his time) years we have been able to receive radio signals and have not gotten any from outside the solar system...we are alone. So many problems with that. I sure wouldn't bet the farm on that theory.
Oli said:
But in order to receive signals, they have to pointed in our direction, no? So you're assuming that they know we're here. And you're also assuming that they've known we're here long enough for a radio transmission to reach us. You're also assuming that they, too, have radio technology. Just because we have it doesn't mean they do.
ophiolite said:
I don't know where you draw the "three civilizations per galaxy" number from. I have no way of knowing how close that number is. It might be 100. It might be 100,000. It might a million.
What evidence, exactly, would you expect to find? The closest star to our own is still more than 4 light years away, so I can't imagine you'd expect to find a deep space probe, or something to that effect. What sort of evidence are you expecting?
How is it irrelevant? You're working under way too many assumptions here.
I don't necessarily believe UFOs are it, either, but I'm not claiming to know that they aren't. You are. So it's your logic, not mine, that has the odd flavor...
What on earth gives you that idea?
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Ophiolite
Valued Senior Member
Lame, mind boggingly, fatally, conclusively lame.
I don't know how you manage it nietzschefan! Such consistently misguided posts.
Fermi did not conclude that we are alone. (The word paradox could have given you a clue if you understood what it meant.)
He raised the issue of the paradox on the basis of the absence of visits by ET, not the absence of radio contact.
It isn't a theory, it is an observation.
Now, really, will you promise to try harder in future?
I have to wonder how it is you're incapable of posting without making some sort backhanded comment or insult...
He wasn't commenting on you, he was commenting on the Fermi Paradox. Now, unless you're Fermi's great grandson, or something, I see no reason why you would take exception with his comments.
No, they're an EM transmission that spreads spherically - they'd be faint but undirected.
Ophiolite
Valued Senior Member
I have grown tired of the thoughtless character of the posts by certain posters on this forum. Such posts merit condemnation. Do you think stupidity should be encouraged?
I was commenting upon how thoughtless his comments were. He clearly had not read the very link he quoted, or had failed to understand it, for his post was - as I pointed out - laced with errors. If I post nonsense I expect to be taken to task for it. Why should he expect any less?
Feel free to set low standards if you wish. Accept the consequences of such a decision.
I have tried polite interactions with nietzschefan in the past. I have been greeted with assinine retorts, ignorance and rudeness. So be it. If that is how he wishes to conduct himself on this forum then I will be direct in my condemnation of his stupidity. I shall make no effort to help him to an understanding, since he has displayed no desire to learn. Why should he? He apparently knows everything.
Ophiolite
Valued Senior Member
Probably not. That is one of the partial solutions to the paradox.
That's why we build such large arrays and spend so much computer time.
SETI is linked around around the world, practically ANY individual on the internet can sign up and devote his/ her PC to processing faint signals in the hopes of discerning a meaningful signal.
But his point is clear - we don't even do so many passive transmissions now - they are rapidly declining from our planet. So it's like a what...120year window possibly of passive radio transmission. Pretty small ripples in the massive pond of even just our own galaxy and even the timeline of "humanity". We have no idea how many transmissions we may have "missed".
Also picking up a transmission from light years away, even knowing it was coming is a trick even now.
Ya you used to be nice and now you are a prick. I do not think it was me who started it.
TV and radio are dying out?
Analog TV is - even then it's cabled and directed. Digital TV pretty much everywhere in 10-15years.
Radio is pretty much on it's way out (Internet broadcasting, satellite, Ipod addicts).
Radio is pretty much on it's way out (Internet broadcasting, satellite, Ipod addicts).
How was it thoughtless? He made a valid point about us not having radio technology for very long. It states how little we've been listening, and how primitive our listening devices are. Consider this, from the very same Wikipedia article Oli offered:
"SETI estimates, for instance, that with a radio telescope as sensitive as the Arecibo Observatory, Earth's television and radio broadcasts would only be detectable at distances up to 0.3 light years."
So you're accusing him of not reading the link, but here you are actually positing the lack of radio transmissions as a valid reason to doubt the existence of ET civilizations, which points to the possibility that YOU didn't even read it!
There's no need for the ad hoc. If you don't like his post, come up with something to counter it that isn't directed personally at him.
Oli said:
Again, I point you to the article you posted.
"Clearly detecting an Earth type civilization at great distances is difficult. A signal is much easier to detect if the signal energy is focused in either a narrow range of frequencies (Narrowband transmissions), and/or directed at a specific part of the sky. Such signals can be detected at ranges of hundreds to tens of thousands of light-years distance.[49] However this means that detectors must be listening to an appropriate range of frequencies, and be in that region of space to which the beam is being sent. Many SETI searches, starting with the venerable Project Cyclops, go so far as to assume that extraterrestrial civilizations will be broadcasting a deliberate signal (like the Arecibo message), in order to be found."
So it isn't "We would just pick it up anywhere". So again, the lack of communication with another civilization means absolutely nothing other than the universe is freaking huge, and even if we knew exactly where they are, or they where we are, communicating would be extremely difficult.
Thus, the Fermi Paradox is clearly lame.