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The tools of the…

The tools of the…. STARING ALEX WAYMAN. No Close Encounters of any kind. For a long time now human beings have believed in the possibility of alien life. To this day, however, there is no credible evidence of alien life, and no contact has been made. How will they contact us?.

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The tools of the…

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  1. The tools of the… STARING ALEX WAYMAN

  2. No Close Encounters of any kind For a long time now human beings have believed in the possibility of alien life. To this day, however, there is no credible evidence of alien life, and no contact has been made. How will they contact us?

  3. Lets get the obvious out of the way… UFOs • Alien life traveling to our planet • Face to “Face” contact • Good for media and uninformed public • Bad for science.

  4. it could be worse Consider this… “Imagine sending a small rocket to Alpha Centauri, one that’s the size of the Mayflower (180 tons, with 102 pilgrims on board). Your intention is to get this modest interstellar ark to our nearest stellar neighbor in 50 years, which requires about 150 billion billion joules of energy.” – SETI Science, Rare Earth Cost of energy on Earth = $0.10 per kilowatt hour $40 Billion per passenger

  5. It’s Worse The Drake Equation doesn’t help… Given: • 10,000 Milky Way Civilizations • Milky Way Volume of 2.36*1013 Ly3 There is about 1331 Ly between us and our closest neighbor. With so many other means of contact at the disposal of an intelligent civilization, this option is needlessly inefficient and unlikely.

  6. Status Quo How do most scientists expect us to be contacted by ETs? electromagnetic wave signals specifically… Radio Waves

  7. Take us, for instance… We have leaked radio waves since the 1940s. We can detect the same transmissions from ETs.

  8. How do we do it? • Radio Telescopes detect radio waves of stars and planets. • SETI searches for artificial signals coming from certain solar systems. • Criteria: • single star systems • solar systems with “old” stars like our own

  9. The Problems with Radio • Electromagnetic signals are emitted in cones • The farther they need to go the more powerful the transmission must be. • Radio and Television signals aren’t what they used to be. • Cable and Satellite do not leak signals into outer space. • Humanity’s window of detection…100 years. • Does the same go for ETs?

  10. On the other hand… This may be why we haven’t found any ETs ourselves

  11. Alternatives Radio waves aren’t the only option. Our Alternative…The Beacon. We could look for messages pointed right at us.

  12. Alternatives Three Mediums… • Laser Beacons • Physical Packages • Genetic Messages

  13. Laser Contact • OpticalSETI, etc. already are looking. • Moores Law and future nuclear lasers suggest it’s possible. • Harvard OSETI Telescope dedicated to laser detection • Some things to consider • The signal would need to be pointed directly at us. • An intelligent civilization could send a signal out to 10,000 planets in one minute.

  14. Encoded physical objects are better than electromagnetic signals because… • They don’t become diluted as they travel • They can stay on a planet indefinitely • The best choice for a one-way message • Timing is not an issue • Large messages are not a problem • Arthur C. Clarke’s short stories and novels explored this concept.

  15. “The truth is in ourselves.” • What about a monolith inside our bodies? • “Junk DNA” stays the same for tens of millions of years • Engineered viruses insert code inside our “junk DNA”

  16. “The truth is in ourselves.” • A physical message that is • Self-replicating • Immune to the elements

  17. But don’t get me wrong… • UFOs have not been ruled out • Our propulsion technology continues to advance. • SETI’s Radio Telescope program is here to stay • Allen Array proves that radio telescopes are a respected tool in the search for ETs. • There are many more detection methods being put into practice or on the drawing board.

  18. Any Questions? …please be gentle

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