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SETI & Anomalous Signals

I've been doing this for two or three years now, it makes a nice screen-saver.

I haven't heard of anyone having any sort of "hit" even one thats terrestrial in origin.

Just recently it has been causing a lot of crashes on my machine, but i think thats just good ol Windows for you.

--kiel--
 
Well no. 'cos that would mean they'd found an ETC wouldn't it....

Haven't had any problems myself either. (fingers crossed!) Works perfectly. BTW Kiel, you're the only other person I've come across that does it. :)
 
My computer's only got a tiny brain, so it can't run the SETI stuff. Not that I'm bothered - as I've said elsewhere (ad nauseam), I think the chances of finding ET radio signals are tiny, even assuming 'they' even use radio.
 
Rynner, it normally runs as your screen saver unless you start it manually, so it's not using processor time while you're working, only when you're not. Cool eh? :)

The machine I use for the net is only a P2 333 and I'm sure most people have more processing power than that..... I think :(
 
I do it as well, and I know several others who do. Problem is somebody is making a similar program to try and find a cure for cancer. And I can't justify trying to find aliens with such slim chances instead of doing cancer research.
 
I've been running SETI for just over a year (after eventually upgrading from a 20 MHz 486!), and the only problem has been associated with their limited bandwith - some days all it does is try to download another unit, and try again, and again....

Like rynner, I reckon the chances of finding ET's version of Radio 1 is pretty remote. However, if we don't look, we'll never find the neighbours.
:)
 
I've stopped running SETI after a little while as it kept failing to load work units after 200. Know idea why, may try again. The cancer one sounds more beneficial to us tho.
 
Just tried it and it works for me again - oh well back to the search :)
 
I heard that they have trouble finding comets that pass Earth's path a problem. They should get the same thing going looking for flying chunks of rock in the neighbourhood.
 
SETI

I've had it a while, on constant, but for the last few days it keeps informing me, by means of a windows alert, that it's performed "an illegal operation and will be shut down".

Anyone else getting this, or is it my own fault for upgrading to IE6? (which Microsoft update told me to do....)
 
Re: SETI

Stu Neville said:
....for the last few days it keeps informing me.....that it's performed "an illegal operation and will be shut down".

Had this a couple of times, for a day or two each time. The problem just went away......

Suspect it might have something to do with the unit it's working on :confused:
 
I know its not as cool as SETI, but consider running the United Devices Cancerbuster distrubuted ware.
It works on the same principle as the SETI ware, but it scans protein chains in order to find new drug cures for cancer. And lets face it, you've got more chance of getting the Big C than meeting aliens.
http://www.ud.com/home.htm
 
Thought Experiment on the Premise of SETI

The premise of the SETI experiment is that alien cultures will communicate using EM radiation. We can spot this and so identify a location for other intelligent species. On this premise, we train our radio telescopes on the sky and now with optical SETI we look for optical communication.

I have given this some thought (I drive a long way to work :)). Communication with places a large distance apart is a pain, just look at the time lag problems on the PathFinder mission. Humans have only had radio communication since 1896 (Marconi patent) and yet within 100 years a group of scientists has sent a piece of Motzart at Faster Than Light (FTL) speed down a 13cm piece of aluminium. Now with a number of successes with entangled pairs article we have the possibility of FTL communication over longer distances. Information is not limited by the light speed barrier as it has no energy (only its carrier is limited), if its not forbidden thus it is possible, if it is possible, then humans will do it one day.

Sorry about posting this here, but it doesn't seem to fit anywhere else and it is a bit sciency.
If I were a member of a space fairing culture I would put a lot of effort into FTL communication and abandon the obsolete technology as thou it was steam powered. Assuming that we can perfect FTL Comms in another 100 years, why would we continue to use radio or high-powered-gamma-lasers or anything else that is limited by light speed.

The above argument means that SETI is looking for something that an advanced culture would use for 200 years and then abandon. As the chances of us being within the window of picking up this 200 year period of starting transmission and ending transmission are slim, I fear SETI is onto a loser.

An analogy is the Victorians watching their letterboxes for a stray letter from an alien civilisation popping through. SETI is allowing us to watch a great many letterboxes and start looking for parcels and cards as well, unfortunately the aliens are using faxes.

Sorry about posting this here but it doesn't seem to fit anywhere else. It is a bit sciency.
 
Comment on entangled pairs...

Problem with passing information via entangled pairs (aka quantum twins) is that one has, in my understanding, to get the space between between them. On earth, that was done at the speed of light glass fibre optic along a 10km long fibre. Then then information could go from particle A to particle A' 'instantaneously' (wellover c in glass fibre, and significantly over c in vacuum ) without Chernenckov Radiation being emitted. To make this viable in space, over very large distance, one would have to get A' a long way away, which would take time. To get the infrastructure in place would take tens of years, extrapolating current technologies. Good thing is that, if my further understanding is ok, you could actually have particles A,A',A'', et seq as way stations, all 'instantaneously' connected.

Food for thought cetainly

BTW, I remeber Bell labs doing thios sucessfully in 1999 over 10 km

Comment: - cool thread!!

8¬)
 
The analogy I've used elsewhere is of a stone-age culture watching the horizon for smoke signals, totally unaware of radio waves....

And, while I agree that better/faster forms of communication are likely to be possible in future, why not start looking now with what we've got? If we don't look, we'll never find anything, even if looking is unlikely to find ET.

Future generations may smile at the naivety of 20th/21st century man, but if SETI's all we've got, why not use it?

(And there's also the assumption that 'broadcast' communication would cease when FTL comms. becomes possible - but people still send letters...)
 
I have thought some more over lunch. I hope this thread is not anti-SETI. Like all programs of work they should be evaluated as potential benefit divided by cost times the probability of success. The SETI program with a massive potential gain a small cost and a very small chance of success is the opposite of the space station, expensive for very limited benefit but is succeeding.

I just wanted to consider the potential for success of the SETI program in achieving its aims.

Good point about still sending letters in the days of e-mail. Perhaps radio waves will always be used for on planet communication. Horses for courses and all that.
 
SETI

From the BBC :

'Space has often been described as the last frontier but scientists the world over have long agreed that receiving a signal from another civilisation would be one of the greatest events in the history of humanity.
Until now however little thought has been given to what we would actually say if we encountered ET. Should it be more than a simple intergalactic "Hi there. What's your name?"
The man charged with the task of thinking about an intergalactic conversation is Dr Douglas Vakoch who has the grand title of "Interstellar Message Group Leader". He says "How we answer makes a tremendous impact because it determines the nature of the dialogue for hundreds of thousands of years...

...Seti also believes that any initial response to an "alien" is one that should be written with the help of people from all walks of life. To that end Seti is holding workshops to solicit suggestions from artists to philosophers and from doctors to teachers.

Dr Vakoch says: "We have to start thinking about how we want to be represented. I personally think we should consider including some of our foibles, some of our weaknesses and some of the things we wish we could do better"...

...Less prosaic suggestions for chatting with ET were given by school children on a field trip at the centre. One teenager suggested "Come to Earth and let's party" while another warned "Make sure you get plenty of rest before you come because there's a lot to see and if you're sleeping you might miss something". '

What message should we send? 'Peace' 'Don't bother'? 'Duck'?
 
Hmm, it's a very good question indeed, assuming we do make contact with ETI's, their language will more than likely be completely different, we can't even figure out what dolphins say to each other, and could conceivably take decades to figure out.

Assuming we both parties would expect a simple message, and one that would cause the least amount of confusion, I'd say scrap a "hello, we come in piece", how about just sending them the alphabet, and a rudamentary list of words, because if I were the ETI, I would assume (but as they say, assumption is the mother of all FUBARS, and where my system falls down) that that's the way the other people would do it.

It's a bit like being stuck on 2 desert islands with a coconut, fish and a big flag, you'd assume the other person would use the flag to get our attention and not a fish.

We have an alphabet, and assuming they have an alphabet, exchanging alphabets and key words is IMO the only way to progress, instead of sending a message with no context.

bleh :confused:
 
The first message is obviously going to have to be simple, easily understood by any intelligence, and the obvious product of an intelligent life-form.

First dozen prime numbers?
 
Alphabets are fraught with problems - say the message targets are chinese or Egyptian.

The first dozen prime numbers, seems good but suppose we receive a primer message like this

1, 10, 100, 101, 1000, 1001, 10000, 1100, 1101, 1110, 100000, 11000, 1000000, 100100, 1001001, 100110, 10000000 . . . and so on

How do we read it? well as binary 1, 2, 4, 5, 8, 9, 16, 12, 13, 14, 32, 24, 64, 36, 37, 38, 128 . . .

Well the message these strange aliens are sending is just a sequence of numbers from 1 to in this case 17

I'll leave you to work out the principle behind this number sequence. :cool:
 
I remember in a n episode of Stargate SG1 they used the periodic table to overcome the alphabet problem. I don't know the ins and outs of the procedure they used but surely this might be a good base for a common language, elements such as hydrogen and carbon have to be pretty universal, and although i don't doubt there'll be gaps in each of our tables there would be at least some common ground to start upon.

--kiel--
 
A fascinating question. The voyager craft was easy, we told them where to find us, but in this case they already know where we were. The was an experiment some years ago where a stings of several hundred numbers were sent out to a group of senior scientists in this field and they were asked to decode it, no one succeeded. It turned out to be a square picture with the numbers as a grey scale.

The idea of using the periodic table is not as good as it seems, as the periodic table is actually very subjective. Out periodic table is based on the number of protons in the nucleus and the chemical properties are determined only by the corresponding numbers of electrons in the shells around the nucleus. If the alien culture treats each isotope as a separate element, perhaps they categorise by the numbers of up and down quarks the nucleus is composed of!

Binary is the way to go, the digital on-off sequence must (never say never) be universal, however we have sent out analogue signals for over 100 years.

There is another thread on the New Science forum on the basic premise of SETI, please contribute.
 
If our message is in binary, how do we tell them whether the numbers are Little Endian or Big Endian? After that, how can we express any context in a message of nothing but numbers? I think that using the basic elements is a wise way to go, but agree we'll need something more universal than the periodic table. Why don't we just broadcast an episode of the 'Smurfs' at high power in their direction? I'm sure they'll be able to make something out of that...
 
I was thinking about this binary thing. The only reason why it is logical to us is because it is the basis of computing but . . .

If quantum computing is possible then the logical arithmetic becomes 1, 0, and # (entangled). Now awe are just beginning to develop quantum computing so a civilisation a couple of hundred years ahead of us . . .
 
But shurely (says mathematical thicko) Binary is as simple as you get....

A common base no matter how many fingers/tentacles/pseudopods you've got?

And quantum is 'determined state 1'/ 'determined state 2'/ 'undetermined state' - so you only measure determined states? Or am I looking for answers in the wrong forest, never mind barking up the wrong tree?
 
Wow!

Try here for a good overview of the Wow signal (I assume this is the same one).

Anyone care to speculate as to what it was?

Jane.
 
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