The end of Seti

To recap but no one replied a few months ago there was a post here about a
proposed telescope that could see weather patterns of earth sized planets around
other stars. An optimistic proposal said it could be deployed in ten years. It
was spaced based. The link posted here said 60 meter resolution.

I have not been able to verify this 60 meter resolution claim beyond that
original post. It may have been the science writer of the article. But if it is
true.

If in fact this is a legitimate proposal it explains why no one is bothering to
transmit. If this is legitimate we could be looking in ten years. Was we could
see them any civilization contacting could see us in barely a century after
radio is invented. Different technology curves for different folks but if there
is a thousand year separation between being able to receive RF and to view
directly why bother transmitting? As I said, devote a few hundred square miles
to sending messages but viewing cities should be enough to send the real message.

This does not directly address the Fermi Paradox but it does mitigate an active
search for other intelligent life. I would be seen shortly after (in geological
terms) inventing radio so the only point would be a personal visit which may or
may not be of interest. Personal visits as opposed to regular observation from
afar is a tradeoff.

If the Hollywood Atom bomb makes us interesting and worth a visit then they
would have to be within 61 lightyears in an Einsteinian universe for them to
show up tomorrow at the earliest. I have no idea why that would be a trigger
event outside of Hollywood. Michael Renny was wrong but he was from Mars.
Martians are always wrong.

In any event if this telescope is possible then there is no point to continuing
SETI as no one could expect a civilization to waste the effort on transmitting
when the potential recipients can take pictures of the transmitter while under
construction. There is no point to catching accidental transmissions when
evidence of intelligent life has to be available in the images of their planets.

I find myself in an assumption of intelligent life being like us but I do not
see a generic problem.

A technological civilization requires cooperation in some form. Without
telepathy they have to live close together for large endevors so there are
cities of some sort. Do they have light at night? It is nearly impossible to
conceive of a civilization which by definition which would not divorce itself
from the day/night cycle of a planet and refuse to use fire and thus high tech
electric lights.

Which leaves us with Starship Trooper Bug cities. If that is the standare and
we are the anomaly bugs should be falling all over each other to study us up close.

So is this telescope possible? Is anything like it possible? If so we have no
reason to continue listening.

--
They do not hate us for our freedom. They hate us for both Qana massacres.
-- The Iron Webmaster, 3683
nizkor http://www.giwersworld.org/nizkook/nizkook.phtml
http://www.giwersworld.org

Richard Burke wrote:

Lets try some quick answers here which I will not be held responsible for as
this is just kicking around ideas. I will not defend anything I say in this
response. Guth types go suck something.

Please folks do NOT focus on this response. I am taking it as the first and
trying to use it to expand upon the idea and maybe the 60 meter premise is the
bogus one. However with a long enough baseline in space I do not see what it is
not possible. I do not mean classic two slit interferometry but hundreds of
telescopes working together.

My original post and this response is solely to open discussion. Everyone
please think and participate.

To recap rather than quote Matt's post, he mentions space-telescopes
capable of discerning actual detail on terrestrial-type exoplanets - and
suggests that if such a telescope is possible, radio SETI is a waste of
time because direct observation will be far more efficient.

I have a few thoughts / comments:

It's probably fair to assume such scopes are possible - though the
proposal for the TPF (Terrestrial Planet Finder) would only have
resolved an Earth-sized exoplanet to ten pixels, IIRC. Presumably
larger-scale technology could improve on this, in time. (There may be
fundamental limits imposed by quantum 'fuzziness' or
wavelength-vs-resolution issues, I wouldn't know.) However...

I agree I was surprised at the 60 meter resolution claim and as I said could
not find it repeated. As for quantum fuzziness forget that and look at tens of
lightyears of intersellar gas as fog in the morning.

1. First, you've got to find the planets. And radio searches might still
useful here, because they target whole star systems.

True but we have a nothing special sun so other nothing special suns are the
first candidates. And if they have no earth sized planets within a reasonable
distance from the sun then we are back to the very strange earth position. But
in the "average" circumstance we find potential earths. That does not mean
Ariecibo can point in their direction. The future Allen array can.

2. If we detected an exo-civ, we'd quite possibly send a radio message
to it rather than waiting to develop near-light-speed probes. Even if
governments decided not to, SOMEONE would. So, if that's what we'd do,
others might, too. Sure, these would be focussed signals, not beacons -
but it still means radio SETI's worth a shot.

Why would we send if we detect by telescope? We can paint the receipt on the
ground in Serbia or Nebraska and it gets back to them in the same and much
cheaper, say one of their contents of whatever and let it arrive roughly the
same time as an RF transmission. If you can look with your telescope array in
orbit why bother with an RF? A trivial question but an important one.

3. At one time or another (mostly while making TV documentaries), I've
tackled members of the radio / optical SETI community about the limits
of electromagnetic searches. Even without this telescope idea, it's
perfectly believable that radio / laser technology might be a passing
phase: electromagnetic SETI could be looking for civilisations that are
passing through a very narrow time-window - a few hundred to a few
thousand years. The answer I have received has always been the same: "We
search this way because it's the way we CAN search, not because we
believe it's the best way possible. When new communications technologies
emerge, we'll use them, too." Now, I think this deserves further
examination...

I may miss your point here but this is the way every researcher works. I am
interested in something therefore I use the tools available. I mean it is not as
though we as scientists object to this discovery. Please see the early pulsars
designated little green men. So what are those interested supposed to do?

First develop graviton dectors? Does no everyone use the tools available to them?

And by deleting the rest I do not mean it remove it from the discourse but
rather to say I am no ready to comment on it and do not discourage consideration
of it. I will get back to it myself maybe, eventually, depending on how the
posting traffic goes.

This sounds like I am trying to control the thread and yes, that is an old job
skill, but please ignore that.

--
Israel: A land filled with panic-stricked cockroaches in fear for their
existence.
-- The Iron Webmaster, 3685

nizkor http://www.giwersworld.org/nizkook/nizkook.phtml
Blame Israel http://www.ussliberty.org a10

You SETI folks simply need to FOCUS, FOCUS, FOCUS your best talents and
resources upon whatever's a whole lot closer to home.

For example; placing a 10 meter KECK into LL-1 might become worth
doing, a whole lot better off than any terrestrial 60 meter fiasco that
simply can't avoid our global warming pollution nor the signal
distorting affects of our failing magnetosphere, as it simply would not
demand all that much station-keeping energy and, it would certainly
remain as being handy and cost effective as for getting whatever
instrument updates robotically to that sufficiently nearby location.

Manned expeditions to/from that LL-1 location (parked roughly 60,000 km
from the moon), means that we could use the likes of our terrestrial
KECK in order to keep an eye on such robotic operations, while if
accomplished within earthshine or that of a brief Earth shadow might
also be safely doable in person.

This would also become a terrific radio/radar telescope platform that
could represent the best pixel resolution and/or ET signal detection
capability in town, not to mention laser cannon packet transmitting
potential.

There shouldn't be any technical reasons as to why a 50t SETI/OSETI
platform couldn't be established within the moon's L1(LL-1) interactive
zone.
-
Brad Guth


--
Posted via Mailgate.ORG Server - http://www.Mailgate.ORG

Brad Guth wrote:
You SETI folks simply need to FOCUS, FOCUS, FOCUS your best talents and
resources upon whatever's a whole lot closer to home.

For example; placing a 10 meter KECK into LL-1 might become worth
doing, a whole lot better off than any terrestrial 60 meter fiasco that
simply can't avoid our global warming pollution nor the signal
distorting affects of our failing magnetosphere, as it simply would not
demand all that much station-keeping energy and, it would certainly
remain as being handy and cost effective as for getting whatever
instrument updates robotically to that sufficiently nearby location.

Manned expeditions to/from that LL-1 location (parked roughly 60,000 km
from the moon), means that we could use the likes of our terrestrial
KECK in order to keep an eye on such robotic operations, while if
accomplished within earthshine or that of a brief Earth shadow might
also be safely doable in person.

This would also become a terrific radio/radar telescope platform that
could represent the best pixel resolution and/or ET signal detection
capability in town, not to mention laser cannon packet transmitting
potential.

There shouldn't be any technical reasons as to why a 50t SETI/OSETI
platform couldn't be established within the moon's L1(LL-1) interactive
zone.
-
Brad Guth

To quote myself in another post in this thread. "Guth types go suck something."
My first mother in law had a favorite saying, Better to remain silent and
thought a fool that to speak and remove all doubt. I commend her wisdom to you.

--
The only good Zionist is a dead Zionist. It is our moral duty to make all

Zionists into good Zionists.
-- The Iron Webmaster, 3679
nizkor http://www.giwersworld.org/nizkook/nizkook.phtml
environmentalism http://www.giwersworld.org/environment/aehb.phtml a9

Richard Burke wrote:
Just to clarify my last post, in case it seemed like a rant.

Both of us are trying to avoid being taken wrong. I didn't take yours as a
rant. I presume you did not take mine as dogmatic. Good.

The
intention was more to make a (perhaps obvious) comment about how science
operates at an institutional level. It is resistant to change to new
models for very good reasons - but those reasons do not guarantee the
existing model is either right, or exclusively right. There are other
approaches to SETI out there that, in a fair and completely rational
world would be given equal time, or at least a slice of time. But the
world doesn't work that way.

I have reason to expect there would be any change in the current SETI approach
until such an optical telescope is in place and produces such resolution.

I think what I should have added to the first is that IF such a telescope does
work to such a resolution it will be long before we can generate a powerful
enough RF signal to send messages. If the current idea is sufficient for 60
meter resolution then even my proposed shortest route to a powerful enough
transmitter power (antenna gain mostly) to send ourselves. (I have not got a
webpage to completely explain it yet but requires AI and bots in space to build
it from asteroid material. I have explained it here but do not have
groups.google.com links to it.) So knowing we can be seen putting the message in
a desert is much cheaper and works forever regardless of continuing to use RF.

But if this does work and certainly it is a matter of time to build it if the
theoretician says ten years it shouldn't be more than thirty years the shift in
ideas will come quickly after it works. It may hang on for a generation which is
shorter than my parenthetical method can be built but it should be obvious
instantly that looking could find an ancient Rome type civilization so there is
no point in hoping for a civilization advanced enough to build an RF transmitter
of the necessary power.

My intention was less to rail against this than to point out that new
telescope technology will not 'supersede' radio SETI - at least not
until after multiple detections. No one can predict where those
detections will come from. Could be radio telescopy, could be direct
optical observation, could be a billion year-old underground bunker in
the Kuiper belt. There will come a point where our technology makes
multiple forms of sETI possible by the piggy-back method I described. A
probe to Pluto is potentially a SETI tool. So is a new telescope. But
they are unlikely to get *used* that way except (if you'll pardon the
pun) by serendipity.

I do not see why it not supercede once planets could be viewed at city size
resolution. It is not conceivable that such a transmitter could be built by any
civilization which deliberately leaves no traces on the surface even cave
dwellers. If interested enough to build the transmitter why not a message on the
surface?

Meanwhile, established SETI researchers are doing a fine job using the
prevailing model. And I'm sure all of us will be thrilled if it turns up
trumps.

I have no problem with SETI and have participated in @home since its second
year. I once kept a couple rather old machines alive and on a home network just
to crunch more WUs -- and local safe backup and such.

My point was simply to suggest why no one might be transmitting. That SETI may
have observed dozens of RF using civilizations but without transmitters powerful
enough to be detecable here. We are going to highly directional up and down to
satellites and fiber optics replacing powerful broadcasting. We might give it up
completely in only a few more decades. I don't see SETI ever detecting cellphone
signals not matter how good.

Certainly radio astronomy is not going to disappear and why not piggyback.
Sounds good to me. Nothing to lose but that is a decision for the future.

But no matter how long it takes for old ideas to die out it is an eyeblink
after such telescopes come into existence and quite possibly before it is
possible to build the transmitter.

This does remove the idea that a civilization which has moved beyond RF
entirely would choose the oldest possible technology to say, you are not alone.
That means we are not dealing with the lifespan of a civilization to do such a
thing but rather the maximum time window between the invention of radio and of
this kind of telescope. One hopes that is under two centuries between the
inventions here on earth. But even if that long it is trivial in comparison even
to known human civilization spanning 6000 years, 3%.

Without reviewing the Drake equation perhaps there is another term in relation
to RF SETI, the short window in which RF would be considered useful.

This also answers the "they may be hiding" suggestion because they would know
they were observed before they thought of there being someone to hide from.
For us the common focus on someone to hide from was late 19th century and
resulting in War of the Worlds by Wells. Of course we cannot expect theological
to have precluded serious discussion on other worlds so it would likely have
appeared earlier than the industrial revolution.

I have something else in the back of my head I can't formulate right now but it
answers at least one other "why we aren't hearing them" idea.

--
No one could ever accuse Judaism of being a religion of peace.
-- The Iron Webmaster, 3690
nizkor http://www.giwersworld.org/nizkook/nizkook.phtml
book review http://www.giwersworld.org/israel/wi...utioners.phtml a7

"Matt Giwer" wrote in message


To quote myself in another post in this thread. "Guth types go suck something."
My first mother in law had a favorite saying, Better to remain silent and
thought a fool that to speak and remove all doubt. I commend her wisdom to you.

Obviously we all know of where you got your incest butt-cheeks of such
warm and fuzzy buttology, along with all of it's bigotry, arrogance and
just otherwise being summarily dumbfounded is what your status quo is
all about.

How typically SETI closed mindset, and otherwise exactly the
proof-positive as to why SETI should be allowed to die, is directly
because of "Matt Giwer's" naysayism that absolutely sucks and blows.
-
Brad Guth


--
Posted via Mailgate.ORG Server - http://www.Mailgate.ORG

"Brad Guth" wrote in message
news:e6cd20c1d0840ec463779df3dc26efa5.49644@mygate .mailgate.org

You SETI folks simply need to FOCUS, FOCUS, FOCUS your best talents and
resources upon whatever's a whole lot closer to home.

For example; placing a 10 meter KECK into LL-1 might become worth
doing, a whole lot better off than any terrestrial 60 meter fiasco that
simply can't avoid our global warming pollution nor the signal
distorting affects of our failing magnetosphere, as it simply would not
demand all that much station-keeping energy and, it would certainly
remain as being handy and cost effective as for getting whatever
instrument updates robotically to that sufficiently nearby location.

Manned expeditions to/from that LL-1 location (parked roughly 60,000 km
from the moon), means that we could use the likes of our terrestrial
KECK in order to keep an eye on such robotic operations, while if
accomplished within earthshine or that of a brief Earth shadow might
also be safely doable in person.

This would also become a terrific radio/radar telescope platform that
could represent the best pixel resolution and/or ET signal detection
capability in town, not to mention laser cannon packet transmitting
potential.

There shouldn't be any technical reasons as to why a 50t SETI/OSETI
platform couldn't be established within the moon's L1(LL-1) interactive
zone.
-

Of course we still have all of the closed mindset folks of SETI and/or
those of the Mars or bust that wouldn't ever consider anything except
our total surrender, as to accepting only their limited views and of
their agenda without further question nor lack of public funding. In
other words, they want the rest of us village idiots to be exactly like
their very own kind of Third Reich minions.

Apparently the consequences of history, of their present day or much
less that of their future doesn't have to include the truth, nor a
stitch of remorse. The logic of getting a return on investment (talent
as well as cold hard loot) is also a none issue as long as their
offshore or other tax avoidance accounts are sufficiently overflowing.

The cost and/or environmental impact of their actions, or that of their
having taken no other appropriate policing actions against the ongoing
cost or environmental fiasco of so many other negative impacts into
account, apparently as such doesn't count. Wasted talents, countless
physical resources devoured, spent loot or even spilled blood is
apparently a done deal and doesn't qualify as being worth anything,
other than to continue their ongoing and if possible never-ending quest
of taking advantage of others and of not giving a tinkers damn about
whatever's the consequences (isn't that a little GW Bush or Christ on a
stick like).

Thus whatever's of constructive contributions are never going to be
accepted for the intent of what they are. It's simply all or nothing
their way, and only their way. No wonder they'd snookered the likes of
Paul Allen into their sticky webs, whereas birds of a feather do in fact
stick together.
-
Brad Guth


--
Posted via Mailgate.ORG Server - http://www.Mailgate.ORG

"Matt Giwer" wrote in message
. ..
To recap but no one replied a few months ago there was a post here about a
proposed telescope that could see weather patterns of earth sized planets
around
other stars. An optimistic proposal said it could be deployed in ten
years. It
was spaced based. The link posted here said 60 meter resolution.

I have not been able to verify this 60 meter resolution claim beyond that
original post. It may have been the science writer of the article. But if
it is
true.

Telescopes are theoretically limited in resolution by the diffraction limit
(quantum fussyness if you like).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffraction

The resolution r is as small as the wavelength w times the distance R
divided by the diameter of the telescope d. Or in other words, the diameter
of a telescope is equal to the wavelength times the distance divided by the
resolution. Something like r/R = w/d.

To get 60 meter resolution at 10 lightyears, at 200nm or so, you need a
telescope with a diameter of something like 10^9 meters (sorry I dont have a
calculator handy, but it should be in that range). That is larger than the
Earth-Moon system. If we only have a radio-telescope of that size; SETI
would be easy...

There are two possible breaks (that we know of) in this theoretical
limitation :

(1) Use interferrometry. You don't need a full circular telescope of
diameter d to obtain the resolution.Simply linking some smaller telescopes
separated by that distance d will get you the resolution. Unfortunately, you
will not be able to determine the actual location of what you are looking as
better than the refraction limit of the real diameter of these telescopes.
So you might be able to see that there are details of a certain size, but
you cannot determine where they are w.r.t. each other. You cannot take a
normal picture with such a interferrometer.
So it will be almost impossible to determine if there is something
'artificial' about the details that you are looking at.

(2) Scientists have found that materials with negative magnetic and/or
electrical permeability might allow for lenses that are not restricted to
the diffraction limit. Materials with such properties do not exist in
nature, but certain 'meta-materials' have been constructed that show such
properties for at least microwave regions. This meta-material development is
truely facinating. For example, 'cloaking' devices can be built (a microwave
cloak is currently under development) that can totally hide objects from any
observers at certain frequencies. The microwaves just go around it. When
used as lenses, meta-materials can observe details below the refraction
limit. However, I understand that the distance to the object should be very
small (smaller than the size of the lens).
So it is still unlikely that any ET can make a 'small' telescope with
smaller-than-refraction-limit resolution. At least we have still not yet
found a theoretical trick around that limit.


If in fact this is a legitimate proposal it explains why no one is
bothering to
transmit. If this is legitimate we could be looking in ten years. Was we
could
see them any civilization contacting could see us in barely a century
after
radio is invented. Different technology curves for different folks but if
there
is a thousand year separation between being able to receive RF and to view
directly why bother transmitting? As I said, devote a few hundred square
miles
to sending messages but viewing cities should be enough to send the real
message.

There can be MANY reasons why we have not detected a beacon signal yet, so
to postulate that yet unproven (even in theory) telescope technology
eliminates the objective for ET to send out any radio signals seems rather
arbitrary.

What am I saying ? Here you go :
We have scanned only a minute fraction of the radio spectrum for ETI beacon
signals.
We have scanned only a minute fraction of the stars of the Galaxy for ETI
beacon signals.
We have scanned these radio spectrums and each star only for a minute
fraction of time.
We have a scanned with a sensitivity that is astonishing for terrestrial
communication, but rather poor when talking about interstellar radio
transmissions.
We have scanned an even smaller fraction of stars of optical beacon signals
(OSETI).
Frankly, we barely started listening...

I think so far the only thing that we have shown is that there does not seem
to be an extremely powerfull semi-omnidirectional beacon in the Galaxy that
is transmitting in the 'water-hole'.
Not that that means anything, because if you would calculate the power
requirements for such a beacon (in the water hole) then you would find that
only a Kardashev type III civilization could be able to sustain such a
beacon. And we know that there is no Kardashev type III civilization in the
Galaxy, or else there would be no stars visible at night.
Also, there are much better (cheaper) ways to build ETI beacons if someone
would want to do so. They would likely be in the 50Ghz and above area. And
we have not looked there at all yet.

And all this is assuming that anyone would ever want to send out beacon
signals. We (humans) certainly do NOT do that. Why would anyone else ?

I think it is more likely that a beacon will be directed at us after some
(radio/radar leakage) signals from us have been detected by an ETI.

The size/sensitivity requirements for such a system (than can detect our
early TV CW cariers) are much less than the requirements for a telescope
with 60 meter resolution that can distinguish a building or a city from a
mountain...

By now (50 years after first powerfull transmissions), a few hundred or
maybe a thousand star systems have had the ability to receive and respond to
our early transmissions. A few hundred out of 300 billion stars in the
Galaxy....
There can be many reasons why we have not received any signals yet, and I
think it is unlikely that the development of super-telescopes is one of
them... It's a nice idea though...

My 2 cts.