wrote in message
ups.com...

Seth was the first to notice that when other scientists were asked
"when will we find the signal?", the answer was typically just before
that scientist would retire. I'm not sure of his age or plans, but I
suspect Seth will retire before 20 years.

Makes sense.
"Na ons de zondvloed" (we will cross that bridge when we get there)
is what the Dutch would say.


The reasoning behind "20 years" is that with certain assumptions about
the factors in the Drake equation, and the transmitter, and etc., Seth
concludes we need to search about a million stars with good sensitivity
over a wide range of frequencies. We plan to search a million or more
stars at the ATA. How long that will take depends a bit on the
efficiency with which we deal with terrestrial signals, but it could be
twenty years.


Seth is serving as a SETI spokesperson to the public (which is
not a position to be envied), and I guess if he would say that in the
next 20 years we will increase our probability of detecting ETI signals
1,000,000 fold, from 0.0000000001 % to 0.0001 %, that he is not
gaining much influx of funding....

I, personally, do not make any predictions. ;-)


You are a wise man.