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Stephen Hawking and Yuri Milner Announce $100M Initiative to Seek ET

scientificamerican.com

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Re: Stephen Hawking and Yuri Milner Announce $100M Initiative to Seek ET

#21

Post by tfm »

codeshaman wrote: post #17

A very noble endeavour indeed, but I still don't get it. So let's say that by examining the petabytes of data that's received from the telescopes, at some point a signal is detected. Let's say that somehow all the competing scientests and skeptics, religious and opinion leaders magically and peacefully agree: the signal is from an inteligent life form. Somewhere close, just a couple of hundred light years away ... Th…

It's certainly difficult to imagine projects that operate on a timescale beyond a single human lifetime, but it got civilisation this far!

Re: Stephen Hawking and Yuri Milner Announce $100M Initiative to Seek ET

#22

Post by neals »

codeshaman wrote: post #17

A very noble endeavour indeed, but I still don't get it. So let's say that by examining the petabytes of data that's received from the telescopes, at some point a signal is detected. Let's say that somehow all the competing scientests and skeptics, religious and opinion leaders magically and peacefully agree: the signal is from an inteligent life form. Somewhere close, just a couple of hundred light years away ... Th…

Yes. Yes we will.

Re: Stephen Hawking and Yuri Milner Announce $100M Initiative to Seek ET

#23

Post by sdrinf »

codeshaman wrote: post #17

A very noble endeavour indeed, but I still don't get it. So let's say that by examining the petabytes of data that's received from the telescopes, at some point a signal is detected. Let's say that somehow all the competing scientests and skeptics, religious and opinion leaders magically and peacefully agree: the signal is from an inteligent life form. Somewhere close, just a couple of hundred light years away ... Th…

There are very few pieces of information really worthy of deliberate broadcasts across star-systems in the hopes of someone catching it. One of these few might be a full dump of neural vector-states (or functional equivalent thereof), at an appropriately low-level assembly, which when successfully executed, brings not a message, but the messenger itself.

Re: Stephen Hawking and Yuri Milner Announce $100M Initiative to Seek ET

#24

Post by vixen99 »

codeshaman wrote: post #17

A very noble endeavour indeed, but I still don't get it. So let's say that by examining the petabytes of data that's received from the telescopes, at some point a signal is detected. Let's say that somehow all the competing scientests and skeptics, religious and opinion leaders magically and peacefully agree: the signal is from an inteligent life form. Somewhere close, just a couple of hundred light years away ... Th…

What we will have is a lot more experience with protocols as are required to detect such signals. Not difficult to imagine circumstances in which such capability could be highly significant or even critical for mankind or the Earth's future.

Re: Stephen Hawking and Yuri Milner Announce $100M Initiative to Seek ET

#25

Post by jively »

codeshaman wrote: post #17

A very noble endeavour indeed, but I still don't get it. So let's say that by examining the petabytes of data that's received from the telescopes, at some point a signal is detected. Let's say that somehow all the competing scientests and skeptics, religious and opinion leaders magically and peacefully agree: the signal is from an inteligent life form. Somewhere close, just a couple of hundred light years away ... Th…

An upheaval in the way we see our role in the universe? Re-invogorate the race to space? I think there's plenty of things that follow "then what?".

Re: Stephen Hawking and Yuri Milner Announce $100M Initiative to Seek ET

#26

Post by jshelly »

saiya-jin wrote: post #18
jshelly wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to think the podcast Radiolab has done more for generating interest in science then any other project I can think of.

sorry to break your perception (or not), but even as a space exploration enthusiast, never heard of that. but then again, podcasts generally are on outer rim of interest of general population

Where are you located?

Re: Stephen Hawking and Yuri Milner Announce $100M Initiative to Seek ET

#27

Post by SCHiM »

codeshaman wrote: post #17

A very noble endeavour indeed, but I still don't get it. So let's say that by examining the petabytes of data that's received from the telescopes, at some point a signal is detected. Let's say that somehow all the competing scientests and skeptics, religious and opinion leaders magically and peacefully agree: the signal is from an inteligent life form. Somewhere close, just a couple of hundred light years away ... Th…

Do you not think that actually knowing, really knowing, is a worthy cause in and of itself? To have proof that we are not alone? Even if we can't get there I think that certainty would be a very nice thing to have.

Re: Stephen Hawking and Yuri Milner Announce $100M Initiative to Seek ET

#28

Post by happyscrappy »

melling wrote: post #14

I wish someone would instead come up with a project to really capture the public's attention about space exploration. More interest means more funding. The U.S. Budget is measured in billions. The New Horizons project, for example, only cost $700 million. The Lunar X Prize might have been that project but it doesn't seem to be making progress: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Lunar_X_Prize http://lunar.xprize.o…

I know America is supposed to lead the way but Europe is larger and richer and has a space budget one third of NASA.

Re: Stephen Hawking and Yuri Milner Announce $100M Initiative to Seek ET

#29

Post by x5n1 »

melling wrote: post #14

I wish someone would instead come up with a project to really capture the public's attention about space exploration. More interest means more funding. The U.S. Budget is measured in billions. The New Horizons project, for example, only cost $700 million. The Lunar X Prize might have been that project but it doesn't seem to be making progress: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Lunar_X_Prize http://lunar.xprize.o…

We need to build a huge space ship with a fusion engine and send it to the nearest star. But that sort of doesn't make any sense because we have lots of our own solar system to explore.

Re: Stephen Hawking and Yuri Milner Announce $100M Initiative to Seek ET

#30

Post by ohitsdom »

rdl wrote: post #2

Wow. Thank you, Yuri! I suspect even if this is unsuccessful at finding ET, it will do lots of awesome other things. And if it is successful in finding ET, then it's probably the most significant possible discovery.

What "awesome other things" will this accomplish? No research is being done with this, it's just pointing a radio dish at the sky and listening.
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