Contact will never happen due to the vastness of space

raspberrypi67

Just thought I'd get a new thread started here in relation to actual contact with ET's.

Is space just not too vast for any types of communications to take place at all. Given
the vast distances of at least 100 light years, lets be honest, this might be a radius where some life may be but surely if there was any life more advanced than us, then given the limitations of the speed of light, the signals would have deteriorated after a fraction of a light year?

porsche boy

you assume that 'aliens' would have the same type of communication devices as us, radio waves etc. different species evolving in a different solar system may approach technology in a different way.

Anyway, just because they havent made contact dosent mean their not watching.

raspberrypi67

porsche boy wrote: »

you assume that 'aliens' would have the same type of communication devices as us, radio waves etc. different species evolving in a different solar system may approach technology in a different way.

Anyway, just because they havent made contact dosent mean their not watching.

So 1 thing your suggesting here is that they may have faster than the speed of light technology?

Bongalongherb

Sure nasa and others are looking at warp capabilities already.

Why folk think that other civilisations out there would be using the same methods of space-travel as we do is beyond me. They could be 10,000 years ahead of us in technology or more. Sure they could be invisible and visiting this planet already ?.

Type 0 civilisation we are, relying on fossil fuels at this time, compared say to a type 3 civilisation that uses the energy of a sun/star.

Folk have got to start thinking outside of the box mentality, as we are not the all knowing regarding technology. We are still learning, and will be for a long time to come.

raspberrypi67

Bongalongherb wrote: »

Sure nasa and others are looking at warp capabilities already.

Why folk think that other civilisations out there would be using the same methods of space-travel as we do is beyond me. They could be 10,000 years ahead of us in technology or more. Sure they could be invisible and visiting this planet already ?.

Type 0 civilisation we are, relying on fossil fuels at this time, compared say to a type 3 civilisation that uses the energy of a sun/star.

Folk have got to start thinking outside of the box mentality, as we are not the all knowing regarding technology. We are still learning, and will be for a long time to come.

Nasa looking at WARP drive, LMAO, they cant even get out of the solar system yet...lol
You are definitely watching tooooo much star trek. It was on Film 4 the other night.

Bongalongherb

raspberrypi67 wrote: »

Nasa looking at WARP drive, LMAO, they cant even get out of the solar system yet...lol
You are definitely watching tooooo much star trek. It was on Film 4 the other night.

I know i know, but I did say they were only looking at it, i didn't say they have it.

In the future i'm sure they will accomplish warp-time advances or even warp-drive capabilities. It will happen, but a long way off obviously.

Doom

Its theoretical science, in other words they have an idea and try to think of how it may work, most science is theoretical till they actually build a working model.
Nothing wrong with theories.

Y2KBOS86

raspberrypi67 wrote: »

Nasa looking at WARP drive, LMAO, they cant even get out of the solar system yet...lol
You are definitely watching tooooo much star trek. It was on Film 4 the other night.

I laughed at that too.

Scientific breakthroughs like that always seem to be about 20-30 years away with them :pac:

We won't be going the past the moon with humans for a long long time, never mind warp drive.

We haven't even found microbial life yet, even life such as fish-like creatures won't be found in our life times imo.

Life at the moment looks very very rare

porsche boy

well it's a posability that faster than the speed of flight tec has been mastered by a different race. As my first point suggested, it would be fool hardy to assume that any other race would evolve in a similar way to us. Put 10 people in a room and ask them to solve a problem. Will they all do ot the same way? no. So it's logical to assume a distant race in a different part of the galaxy, or even a different galaxy entirely would approach a problem in a different way to us humans.

As for 'faster than the speednof light', we have decided that limitation. Everything we say happens at that point or even close to it is conjecture, or theory. its possible that going as fast as the speed of light would kill us mere humans, then again we might be fine but time relative to us slows down, then again it could speed up beyond the speed of light. We just dont know.

Best way to end this ramble is to quote Stephen Fry I believe "Either we're alone in the universe or we're not. Each posability is equally terrifying"

Bongalongherb

Y2KBOS86 wrote: »

I laughed at that too.

Scientific breakthroughs like that always seem to be about 20-30 years away with them :pac:

We won't be going the past the moon with humans for a long long time, never mind warp drive.

We haven't even found microbial life yet, even life such as fish-like creatures won't be found in our life times imo.

Life at the moment looks very very rare

I have to disagree with you. It is only a matter of a decade before we do find microbial life on europa i'd say. Don't forget, these planets are in our back-yard. Compared to the vastness of space and the universe, who is to say that the universe is not teeming with life. The Drake equation speaks for itself.

This nonsense that we are the only life-form in the universe is just that - nonsense. We haven't progressed technologically to the state of sending man/woman to all our back-yard planets yet, but it's only a matter of time with new technological breakthroughs, and it will happen obviously in the near future whether we here at this time are all dead and buried or not. It will happen in the future, and we know it's very possible.

Not2Good

Good old Morgan Freeman in 'Through The Wormhole had physicists suggesting that the laws of physics could be different in another part of the universe whereby it would be possible to go faster than the speed of light..... but they say many 'mad' things on that programme. They also have an episode devoted to the topic of this thread....

Bongalongherb wrote: »

Sure nasa and others are looking at warp capabilities already.

Why folk think that other civilisations out there would be using the same methods of space-travel as we do is beyond me. They could be 10,000 years ahead of us in technology or more. Sure they could be invisible and visiting this planet already ?.

Type 0 civilisation we are, relying on fossil fuels at this time, compared say to a type 3 civilisation that uses the energy of a sun/star.

Folk have got to start thinking outside of the box mentality, as we are not the all knowing regarding technology. We are still learning, and will be for a long time to come.

Frank Lee Midere

Bongalongherb wrote: »

Sure nasa and others are looking at warp capabilities already.

Why folk think that other civilisations out there would be using the same methods of space-travel as we do is beyond me. They could be 10,000 years ahead of us in technology or more. Sure they could be invisible and visiting this planet already ?.

Type 0 civilisation we are, relying on fossil fuels at this time, compared say to a type 3 civilisation that uses the energy of a sun/star.

Folk have got to start thinking outside of the box mentality, as we are not the all knowing regarding technology. We are still learning, and will be for a long time to come.

So. Where are they?

Frank Lee Midere

Bongalongherb wrote: »

I have to disagree with you. It is only a matter of a decade before we do find microbial life on europa i'd say. Don't forget, these planets are in our back-yard. Compared to the vastness of space and the universe, who is to say that the universe is not teeming with life. The Drake equation speaks for itself.

This nonsense that we are the only life-form in the universe is just that - nonsense. We haven't progressed technologically to the state of sending man/woman to all our back-yard planets yet, but it's only a matter of time with new technological breakthroughs, and it will happen obviously in the near future whether we here at this time are all dead and buried or not. It will happen in the future, and we know it's very possible.

So. Where is everyone?

Bongalongherb

Frank Lee Midere wrote: »

So. Where is everyone?

Microbial life ? or another intelligent life-form ?

If microbial life, then we are close to finding it, especially when we investigate europa especially.

Another life-form ? well maybe they just don't want to interfere with a very very young civilisation, would you, if you seen the state human beings are like on this planet ?.

Who knows, Maybe there is some prime directive scenario between different civilisations not to interfere with us here. Or maybe they are soo technologically advanced that they see us as we see ants. Or maybe they are here, but we can't see them with our limited vision regarding the visible spectrum. We are basically blind regarding what we can't actually see.

Frank Lee Midere

Bongalongherb wrote: »

Microbial life ? or another intelligent life-form ?

If microbial life, then we are close to finding it, especially when we investigate europa especially.

Another life-form ? well maybe they just don't want to interfere with a very very young civilisation, would you, if you seen the state human beings are like on this planet ?.

Who knows, Maybe there is some prime directive scenario between different civilisations not to interfere with us here. Or maybe they are soo technologically advanced that they see us as we see ants. Or maybe they are here, but we can't see them with our limited vision regarding the visible spectrum. We are basically blind regarding what we can't actually see.

Well I was talking about intelligent life since I was responding to the Drake equation with Fermi's paradox. Where are they?

I don't buy the limited vision nonsense. Light is just a form of electromagnetic radiation and eyes have developed, more than once, to see those signals rather than other wave forms that don't bounce of or get absorbed by solids for obvious reasons.

Ardent

porsche boy wrote: »

well it's a posability that faster than the speed of flight tec has been mastered by a different race.

in a parallel universe maybe. In our universe, the speed of light is the universal speed limit.

Rucking_Fetard

The Painful Truth About NASA's Warp Drive Spaceship From A Physicist

Status of "Warp Drive"

Karl Stein

I dislike the word 'never' because it assumes that the statement will be correct forever which is horribly close-minded.

Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.

Douglas Adams

Below is how far out into our own tiny wee galaxy we've broadcast evidence of our species.

Bongalongherb

It's soo mindbogglingly big out there with billions of habitable planets just in our galaxy alone, it would be insane to think we are the only intelligent life-form out there...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/24/habitable-planets-seth-shostak_n_5527116.html

Victor

Bongalongherb wrote: »

They could be 10,000 years ahead of us in technology or more.

That seems like a naively small number, although I have to admit we have come a long way in the last 10,000 years.

If the Universe has been around for 14 billion years and the Earth has been around for 4.5 billion years and life has been around for 3.5 billion years, what is to say that life hasn't been around elsewhere for 10-11 billion years? We wouldn't be technological ants to them, we would be Amino Acids to someone else's modern humans, who in turn would be Amino Acids to someone else's modern humans, who in turn would be Amino Acids to someone else's modern humans (this 10 billion year species).

Bongalongherb

Victor wrote: »

That seems like a naively small number, although I have to admit we have come a long way in the last 10,000 years.

If the Universe has been around for 14 billion years and the Earth has been around for 4.5 billion years and life has been around for 3.5 billion years, what is to say that life hasn't been around elsewhere for 10-11 billion years? We wouldn't be technological ants to them, we would be Amino Acids to someone else's modern humans, who in turn would be Amino Acids to someone else's modern humans, who in turn would be Amino Acids to someone else's modern humans (this 10 billion year species).

Of course, but I was using the 10,000 years ahead of us scenario as from where we are right now technologically to another civilisation 10,000 years more advanced than we are now.

The thoughts of a civilisation out there that could be 100 million years ahead of us now is just unthinkable regarding their technology. It boggles the mind.

We are only out of our scientific/technological nappies today, but even a civilisation that was even 1,000 years ahead of us from we are now would be astonishing, never mind 10 billion years more advanced.

Advancements in technology in the space of 1,000 years can be pretty big in this time-line.

Or maybe it's just a holographic universe...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMBt_yfGKpU

Frank Lee Midere

Still not getting fermi's paradox. Let's take what people are saying. There is nothing special about the earth. Nothing special about evolution here.

Therefore most stars with earth type planets will have intelligent life. That's in the hundreds of millions.

Many would he billions of years older than us. So where are they?

Victor

Frank Lee Midere wrote: »

So where are they?

Keeping really quiet, because they have also worked out that there may be many, more advanced, more aggressive civilisations out there and they don't want to be found. Although I suppose, in an infinite* universe, with infinite planets, with infinite idiots, perhaps we should have heard from some.

Alternatively, we have a problem hearing them.



* Practically, not literally.

raspberrypi67

Karl Stein wrote: »

I dislike the word 'never' because it assumes that the statement will be correct forever which is horribly close-minded.

Below is how far out into our own tiny wee galaxy we've broadcast evidence of our species.



Thank you. My point exactly. No one here seems to realise the sheer vastness of space. Perhaps I'm being a bit short sighted but lets just say Light speed is the fasted form of travel.
That being said , and assuming no 'WORM HOLE' bull applies here, then we are pretty much alone.

Bongalongherb

raspberrypi67 wrote: »

Karl Stein wrote: »

I dislike the word 'never' because it assumes that the statement will be correct forever which is horribly close-minded.

Below is how far out into our own tiny wee galaxy we've broadcast evidence of our species.



Thank you. My point exactly. No one here seems to realise the sheer vastness of space. Perhaps I'm being a bit short sighted but lets just say Light speed is the fasted form of travel.
That being said , and assuming no 'WORM HOLE' bull applies here, then we are pretty much alone.

I'm sure they would be disgusted by the savages seen transmitted to them I wouldn't blame them never coming here.

animaal

Victor wrote: »

If the Universe has been around for 14 billion years and the Earth has been around for 4.5 billion years and life has been around for 3.5 billion years, what is to say that life hasn't been around elsewhere for 10-11 billion years?

Meanwhile, their scientisis are still telling them that flying cars will be available within the next 20 years.

2 stroke

Ardent wrote: »

In our universe, the speed of light is the universal speed limit.

Thinking like that is holding back the human race. Remember when the earth used be flat.

MeteoritesEire

A little exerpt from Kim Stanley Robinsons novel 2312

"The stars exist beyond human time, beyond human reach.We live in a little pearl of warmth surrounding our star;outside it lies a vastness beyond comprehension.The solar system is our one and only home.Even to reach the nearest star at our best speed would take a human lifetime or more.We say 'four light years' and those words 'four' and 'years' fool us; we have little grasp of how far light travels in a year.Step back and think about 299,792,458 metres per second or 186,282 miles per second.Think of that speed as traversing 671 million miles in every hour.Think about it traversing 173 astronomical units a day; an AU is the distance from the earth to the sun, thus 93 million miles, crossed 173 times in a day.Then think about 4 years of days like that.That gets light to the nearest star.
But we can propel ourselves to only a few percent of the speed; so at 2 percent of the speed of light (ten million miles an hour) it will take about 200 years to go those 4 light years.And the first stars with earthlike planets are more like 20 light years away.
It takes a hundred thousand years for light to cross the milky way.At 2 percent of that speed-our speed, let us say-five million years.
The light from the Andromeda Galaxy took 2.5 million years to cross the gap to our galaxy.And in the universe at large, Andromeda is a very nearby galaxy.It resides in the little sphere that is our sector of the cosmos, a neighbour galaxy to ours."

---

helped me put the vastness into perspective.But there's life out there, no doubt about it.Carbonaceous meteorites are filled with amino acids which are the precursors for life.One meteorite called Allende which fell in Mexico in 1969 , probably the most studied meteorite of all, was found to have something like 90 amino acids, 22 of which are found in all life forms on earth ...

raspberrypi67

MeteoritesEire wrote: »

A little exerpt from Kim Stanley Robinsons novel 2312

"The stars exist beyond human time, beyond human reach.We live in a little pearl of warmth surrounding our star;outside it lies a vastness beyond comprehension.The solar system is our one and only home.Even to reach the nearest star at our best speed would take a human lifetime or more.We say 'four light years' and those words 'four' and 'years' fool us; we have little grasp of how far light travels in a year.Step back and think about 299,792,458 metres per second or 186,282 miles per second.Think of that speed as traversing 671 million miles in every hour.Think about it traversing 173 astronomical units a day; an AU is the distance from the earth to the sun, thus 93 million miles, crossed 173 times in a day.Then think about 4 years of days like that.That gets light to the nearest star.
But we can propel ourselves to only a few percent of the speed; so at 2 percent of the speed of light (ten million miles an hour) it will take about 200 years to go those 4 light years.And the first stars with earthlike planets are more like 20 light years away.
It takes a hundred thousand years for light to cross the milky way.At 2 percent of that speed-our speed, let us say-five million years.
The light from the Andromeda Galaxy took 2.5 million years to cross the gap to our galaxy.And in the universe at large, Andromeda is a very nearby galaxy.It resides in the little sphere that is our sector of the cosmos, a neighbour galaxy to ours."

---

helped me put the vastness into perspective.But there's life out there, no doubt about it.Carbonaceous meteorites are filled with amino acids which are the precursors for life.One meteorite called Allende which fell in Mexico in 1969 , probably the most studied meteorite of all, was found to have something like 90 amino acids, 22 of which are found in all life forms on earth ...

Nice paragraph. It certainly shows us. I do agree ok that there is a probably a multitude of life out there. Just a pity light is soo slow and that we are so in the middle of nowhere!! But then, other lifeforms that are similar to us probably think the same!!

endacl

Bongalongherb wrote: »

Sure nasa and others are looking at warp capabilities already.

Why folk think that other civilisations out there would be using the same methods of space-travel as we do is beyond me. They could be 10,000 years ahead of us in technology or more. Sure they could be invisible and visiting this planet already ?.

Type 0 civilisation we are, relying on fossil fuels at this time, compared say to a type 3 civilisation that uses the energy of a sun/star.

Folk have got to start thinking outside of the box mentality, as we are not the all knowing regarding technology. We are still learning, and will be for a long time to come.

NASA? Warp technology?

Sure I watched Wrath of Khan last night. I was looking at warp capabilities too!

Invisible and visiting already? I suppose, if they subscribe to the prime directive, you might be on to something. Still a bit Roddenberry though...

Type 0? Not using the energy of a star, you say? Sure, I had a solar powered calculator waaaaay back in the 80's

You appear to be talking about what you would like to be the case, as opposed to what actually is the case.

Red Nissan

I've always harboured the theory that we are in fact a manipulated race from an ancient civilization who may have made their home here, or on Mars or Venus perhaps and then possibly went extinct but leaving a DNA trait behind.

Communications may be one way.

endacl

Red Nissan wrote: »

I've always harboured the theory that we are in fact a manipulated race from an ancient civilization who may have made their home here, or on Mars or Venus perhaps and then possibly went extinct but leaving a DNA trait behind.

Communications may be one way.

And that civilisation got the DNA from......?

Rucking_Fetard

MeteoritesEire wrote: »

helped me put the vastness into perspective.But there's life out there, no doubt about it.Carbonaceous meteorites are filled with amino acids which are the precursors for life.One meteorite called Allende which fell in Mexico in 1969 , probably the most studied meteorite of all, was found to have something like 90 amino acids, 22 of which are found in all life forms on earth ...

Organic molecules found in the galactic core: Are stellar nurseries spitting out building blocks of life, as well as stars?

Researchers at the Max Planck institute in Germany have discovered large quantities of organic molecules at the center of the Milky Way that resemble life-bearing amino acids in their complexity. The new-found presence of this complex organic molecule, iso-propyl cyanide, is a good indicator that amino acids themselves are floating throughout the interstellar medium. If this is indeed the case, it in turn suggests that these wandering amino acids may have played a vital role in the synthesis of life on other planets in the galaxy.

Red Nissan

Victor wrote: »

That seems like a naively small number, although I have to admit we have come a long way in the last 10,000 years.

A lot depends on opportunity, man could have lived on this planet 300 millions years ago, but it was occupied and a quite a hostile environment.

Climate change also knocked us back and earlier man died off completely, also new men seem to have stopped arriving, meaning this is our last chance.

flanna01

Why would anybody contact us...??

Turn on the news any day of the week, we wouldn't be the most friendliest of life. We live on a small dirt ball in the middle of nowhere. And we are not aware of any other life forms in the Universe at present.... So what do we do??

Answer) We point nuclear warheads at each other, and arm them with a swift response system. Basically, this ensures that the first missile to be deployed, will be met with every missile on the planet going off in mainly pre-emptive strikes against each other... Which in turn renders the human race extinct.

*Clever eh?*

Maybe we are not ready to be contacted??

Would we ever try to showcase our technology to a nest of ants??

Or maybe we are missing millions of years of signals and messages, maybe we don't have the ability to detect these signals? We talk about radio waves as if everybody uses them, what if the signals are encrypted in rays of light? Maybe out DNA is full of messages? What about vibrations??

We expect everybody to sing to our tune. What if we are the super poor relations, just bugs in the grand scale of Cosmos intelligence??

We could stick an eternally charged up I-phone into an ants nest, and leave a users manual beside it.... We could then ring the phone every five minutes forever... It would never be picked up. The ants (as intelligent as they are), wouldn't even know it was a communication device.

Are we alone in the Universe - Almost certainly not. Will we ever be contacted - If we haven't figured it out by now...Probably not.

Standman

I used to fairly certain that there must be intelligent life out there somewhere, space being so unimaginably vast, but now I'm not so sure.

Say for example that the perfect scenario needed for microbial life to form happens once every billion years; we would have ~13 separate instances of this kind of life. Let's also say there is a 1 in 13 chance of any life evolving to an intelligent stage. That would leave 1 intelligent life form at this stage in our universe (us).

I think the above assumptions are reasonable based on what we know, which is essentially close to nothing when it comes to relating our knowledge to the rest of the universe.

We only have one example of any kind of life, so all of this is just guesswork.

shedweller

endacl wrote: »

And that civilisation got the DNA from......?

The Engineers, of course!
Duh, were ya not payin attention??!!!

raspberrypi67

Hmmm, I'd fairly bet my life that there is plenty of life ok. I feel that's a given.

Is all the 'waring' that goes on not a form of survival, crude as it may be and Vicious. Look how aggressive some of the comments
on these threads are, no need for it really, we all have an opinion, some not so clever maybe!!
Whats to say that the underlining pin point of life is to be aggressive in order to survive. We should we think its just man. If other life forms are based ( and whos to say they are actually ) on amino acids like ourselves then the same would happen in their societies too, perhpaps. Granted , if they manage to hang on to becoming more civilized than we are right now and realise that fighting isn't the answer.!!
We need another couple of hundred of years to understand quantum physics I think. I get the impression sometimes that the scientists add a lot of guess work and suppositions into their thinking. Part of me thinks that the laws of Physics may not apply in some instances when it comes to super dense objects and other areas of the universe. Who knows.

flanna01

Our planet has thousands upon thousands of different life forms living on it... All have enough intelligence to survive, hence they know how to hunt, kill, feed, reap the harvest, survive etc...

Yet only the human kind established a higher intelligence, that mastered communication, commerce, weapons, aviation, space exploration, and even landed fellow humans onto the Moon... Not to mention putting remote controlled buggys on the Planet Mars...

We can now down load real time images of the surface od Mars... And let's not forget the two Voyagers currently entering into deep space..... And still sending back messages!!

A mere 5,000yrs ago, man was still dependant on candles and God's... In a short space of time, humans have gone at break neck speed on the technology front... Was this wisdom explosion pre-ordained, or maybe as a race we are maturing, and with maturity comes intelligence..?? Remember, we are using less than 10% of our brains......???

Our DNA has the blue print of our bodies... In a healthy human being, we have everything we need, arms, legs, eyes, ears etc... Yet the DNA still calls for a brain that we are currently not utilising fully?? Why house 90% of grey matter that we don't use??

Going back to my original line of thought... If indeed we are a maturing breed, then the brain is geared up for 'adulthood' so to speak..
What in another 500yrs we find we are using 15% of our brains... What will we 'become' when we are using the full capacity of our brains??

If 10% equals advanced technology and the beginnings of space exploration... What will 100% equate to...? Maybe then we will be ready for contact???

endacl

That 100% of the brain stuff is just another canard, like FTL travel. It displays a fundamental lack of understanding of what the brain does, and how it does it. Science fiction is fun. Change the parameters, and the possibilities broaden.

Rucking_Fetard

Yup, theirs MRIs of people brains awake/asleep. Its all used.

10% thing was traced back there lately, some lad in the 40s/50s but it was taken up wrong from there.

endacl

Rucking_Fetard wrote: »

Yup, theirs MRIs of people brains awake/asleep. Its all used.

10% thing was traced back there lately, some lad in the 40s/50s but it was taken up wrong from there.

It's a total myth. Nobody knows who came up with it first. Einstein has been suggested, but there's no record of him referring to it. Not really his field anyway...

It makes for a good movie premise, but that's all it does.

Capt'n Midnight

porsche boy wrote: »

you assume that 'aliens' would have the same type of communication devices as us, radio waves etc. different species evolving in a different solar system may approach technology in a different way.

Anyway, just because they havent made contact dosent mean their not watching.

We've been transmitting for little over a hundred years.

And thanks to the interweb and digital TV our broadcasts into space are getting weaker and less detectable. AM radio is being phased out. Analog TV has gone forever. Morse is no longer used by the military. We are filling in all the white space in the spectrum so less spikes.

All ET will pick up from us now are navigation radars and VLF stuff used to communicate with submarines.

And that's if ET is even looking for radio, ESA is rolling out 1.8GBs laser to Geosynch satellites
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Data_Relay_System

namloc1980

porsche boy wrote: »

you assume that 'aliens' would have the same type of communication devices as us, radio waves etc. different species evolving in a different solar system may approach technology in a different way.

Anyway, just because they havent made contact dosent mean their not watching.

Intelligent ETs would almost certainly understand radio waves and the entire electromagnetic spectrum given that it is, literally, a universal phenomenon.

Red Nissan

namloc1980 wrote: »

Intelligent ETs would almost certainly understand radio waves and the entire electromagnetic spectrum given that it is, literally, a universal phenomenon.

We don't have to give out a signal, our planet is doing a good enough job on it's own. In fact this phenomenon is now the key factor used to find potential life on other planets.

Our magnetic fields deflect sufficient destructive radio waves from the Sun to actually allow life a change to form and develop. This is also broadcasting into space and any life forms out there would presumably be even more aware of us for a millennia or more already, we'd be like Spike244855349639B as a likely Class M.

They would in fact be actually waiting to hear "I love Lucy" come through all the other static.

Zubeneschamali

namloc1980 wrote: »

Intelligent ETs would almost certainly understand radio waves and the entire electromagnetic spectrum given that it is, literally, a universal phenomenon.

They would understand radio, yes, but why would they be searching the skies for radio signals?

We weren't broadcasting anything detectable 100 years ago, and it's possible that we won't be broadcasting anything detectable in 100 years time, if everything is fibre/modulated coherent lasers or some other thing we haven't even invented.

If there's, say, a million years between civilizations popping up in the volume in which radio signals are detectable (and it could be 100 million, or a billion for all we know), the chances of spotting this 100 year window of messy broadcast radio isn't worth searching for.

If everyone out there uses coherent neutrinos/tachyon beams/modulated gravity waves or some other exotic yoke to communicate, we wouldn't even be able to detect them yet. We could be in the position of an ancient Greek SETI researcher searching the skies for signs of really big beacon fires, or lighting beacons in the hopes that ETs will spot them.

Red Nissan

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

We weren't broadcasting anything detectable 100 years ago, .

Our planet has been identifying itself as a potential class M for billions of years. Our magnetic fields are generating strong radio signals that have been visible across the vastness of space.

It's a relatively recent discovery that life as we know it cannot survive or at least form if the host planet does not have a magnetic shield.

We now look for other class M planets by looking for this signal and we have found a few. It does not prove life, just another aspect as protecting us form the deadly Sun or host star is the first criteria for intelligent life potential.

We have been marking our location long before the first shrew that eventually became us ever evolved.

Zubeneschamali

Red Nissan wrote: »

It's a relatively recent discovery that life as we know it cannot survive or at least form if the host planet does not have a magnetic shield.

Did you learn about this discovery from the same place you learned about "class M" planets?

Nerro

namloc1980 wrote: »

Intelligent ETs would almost certainly understand radio waves and the entire electromagnetic spectrum given that it is, literally, a universal phenomenon.

Yes they would understand it but would an advanced civilisation use it? As it it is quite slow method and quite high energy losses using it. So welcome to quantum world....we only now just begin to understand it but give another 50 years and it should be common knowledge. Take even quantum entanglement or quantum computers, if we master that, sky is the limit.
And I can bet there are other ways of communication, we just didn't discovered them yet.

namloc1980

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

They would understand radio, yes, but why would they be searching the skies for radio signals?

We weren't broadcasting anything detectable 100 years ago, and it's possible that we won't be broadcasting anything detectable in 100 years time, if everything is fibre/modulated coherent lasers or some other thing we haven't even invented.

If there's, say, a million years between civilizations popping up in the volume in which radio signals are detectable (and it could be 100 million, or a billion for all we know), the chances of spotting this 100 year window of messy broadcast radio isn't worth searching for.

If everyone out there uses coherent neutrinos/tachyon beams/modulated gravity waves or some other exotic yoke to communicate, we wouldn't even be able to detect them yet. We could be in the position of an ancient Greek SETI researcher searching the skies for signs of really big beacon fires, or lighting beacons in the hopes that ETs will spot them.

It's not just radio broadcasts, it's the entire spectrum. We're broadcasting more electromagnetic waves than we ever have. Mobile phones, WiFi, digital fta tv, satellites communications, deep space probe communication and many many more besides are all broadcast on the electromagnetic spectrum.

ps200306

Nerro wrote: »

Yes they would understand it but would an advanced civilisation use it? As it it is quite slow method and quite high energy losses using it. So welcome to quantum world....we only now just begin to understand it but give another 50 years and it should be common knowledge. Take even quantum entanglement or quantum computers, if we master that, sky is the limit.
And I can bet there are other ways of communication, we just didn't discovered them yet.

Quantum entanglement can't be used for communication. It's called (oddly enough) the no-communication theorem.