Just been listening to ABC radios Astronomy segment and apparently a Professional Astronomer from Sydney as detected an intelligent signal from space. I didnt hear where it came from as the static was a bit harsh at that point. But he named the point in space Ameena's World (or something similar).
Apparently he received the signal a couple of years ago and now there has been a solar system discovered in the area where the signal came from.
Apparently won't release any data he may have on the matter.
There appears to be doubt over whether planet Gliese 581g (assume thats what they're calling Zarmina?) even exists.
I for one, am not aware of any law of mathematics which favours anything.
Statisical calculations are part of the laws of mathematics, so I am assuming that would be the grounding for that but realistic would need to see life (whatever kind) to exist on other planets before saying life can exist outside our own earth.
Even in our own solar system to find something would give at least a reference to start using statisical calculations. So NASA hurry up get out there and find some sort of wriggly thing please.
Confirming the existance via radio waves would need to form some sort of mathmatical principle before assuming there is life. Morse code was the first form of communications here on earth. The WOW report was a good start.
What I would like to see is the actual signal received posted (freely accessible) instead of a report.
I dont have a problem in assuming there is life out there and am greatful for some noise that is out of the ordinary. I am even signed up with SETI@home too. BTW the building blocks of life aren't going to convince the masses as well.
Rally & Jeff, the information in those links were awesome, thanks for posting.
Quote from The Australian... In any case, it's highly unlikely we'll ever have a face-to-face meeting, as space travel even at Star Trek's warp drive wouldn't get us there in less than thousands of years. A two-way conversation would take decades. And even for that to happen, says de Horta, we would need intelligent life to be reaching its technological prime at the same time as ours and transmitting radio waves at a wavelength that we can detect. "The whole argument about communication hinges on the longevity of a species and their use of a technology that is recognisable to us," he says.
Makes you wonder what kind of a planet Earth will be like by the time we receive a signal (if we ever do). Makes me really appreciate the distances involved. Well, I think I can go to bed tonight feeling safe and sound knowing a UFO isn't going to kidnap me for surgery.
Oh boy, I can see Gliese 581g take on a whole new wave of attention, bet the ufologists will be telling us they believe to have seen space ships buzzing around the area.
What I don't understand is, I thought there had to be a lot weight to this sort of stuff before confirmation through press releases. Or do I take it that the media have just run off with it...
Yes, interesting indeed. Dr Bhathal ("Rugby" to us) is co-patron of our society, the Macarthur Astronomical Society (MAS) down south-west of Sydney. He's a meticulous sort of bloke, so I really hope that something positive comes of this. I'm sure it'll be mention during tonights' general meeting.
Here are the domes that he bases his observations from - the left dome houses his main apparatus - a 16" SCT plus SETI goodies, and on the right a 10" with an ST-series SBIG attached. A few of us in the society have had official training on these two - so that we can run them without Dr Bhathal being physically present.
This photo was from one of our public nights we put on during IYA '09 last year. The domes have been...uhmm... washed since then.
Quote " The laws of mathematics weigh heavily in favour of the idea that we are not alone."
Would someone please list the "Laws of Mathematics" .
Quote: " Statisical calculations are part of the laws of mathematics"
"Statistical calculations" may be applied on a case by case basis to what ever you are trying to model eg. random noise. They are not part of any laws - doing statistical calcs is how I feed my family!!
Jeremy.
Last edited by The_Cat; 18-10-2010 at 04:15 PM.
Reason: Addition:
The original paper by Vogt et al was peer reviewed and published in the AstroPhys Journal. Reference link is here.
Its a good paper, and they make reference to the possible measurement uncertainties. The wording about Gliese 581g is very careful and cautious.
There is room for further interpretation which, I guess, is what is now happening via the IAU.
I'd say the media release and whatever the media has done to the story subsequently, has resulted in the 'surprise' that further analysis will be necessary before they can confirm the existence, or otherwise.
The Bhathal SETI signal observation (last year) would seem to be a separate item (for further investigation).
Keep us updated Chris .. I'm fascinated to know what his viewpoint really is (ie: straight from his own words).
Quote " The laws of mathematics weigh heavily in favour of the idea that we are not alone."
Would someone please list the "Laws of Mathematics" .
Quote: " Statisical calculations are part of the laws of mathematics"
"Statistical calculations" may be applied on a case by case basis to what ever you are trying to model eg. random noise. They are not part of any laws - doing statistical calcs is how I feed my family!!
Jeremy.
I know that a long time ago, I was taught statisical anaylsis at school (it is still math to me), In most part this thread is talking about habitable planets but is not related to the initial thread about radio signals.
Life on other systems would still need located in whatever form on another planets to really start using statisical maths as a way to definatively use to determin life could exist on other systems.
Radio is a completely different set of stats and requires a longer more intelligable signal to be definative. I would still love to hear this signal if it is around.
No matter what happens we have a reference point which is earth, but we do not have an defined external reference to continue using stats to determin other things. At the moments it still can only be dreams.
One thing that does exist is the building blocks of life in space, that gives us a start to determin something (that part is a bit out of my league). All the more to continue searching and finding answers.
Yes, communication between 2 seperate entities is difficult at the least.
For another life-form (we presume intelligent, and on par with our technological level) to communicate with us, I would compare with placing a mobile phone in the jungles of New Guinea.
The ringing attracts a native.
Firstly he tries to work out what the ringing sound is.
Then how to stop it.
If by chance he pushes the right button he may hear a voice coming out of the device.
But what is this jibberish he hears?
Similar for us and other beings. And this is assuming that the other beings communicate vocally, or with words. Maybe clicks of the tongue (if they have one).
Maybe they sing like a Whale out of a gland in the middle of their chest.
Can we assume they have a speaking mouth, a language using words, similar syntax, or noise at all.
Then if they actually get to recieve an episode of 'I Love Lucy' it may scare the b-jeez out of them: "agghhh, hideous monsters!".
Or visa-versa.
All this plus messages taking years each way, or in the colour spectrum and not audible radio waves.
Hmmmm . . . communication may not be a simple thing.
Yes, communication between 2 seperate entities is difficult at the least.
For another life-form (we presume intelligent, and on par with our technological level) to communicate with us, I would compare with placing a mobile phone in the jungles of New Guinea.
The ringing attracts a native.
Firstly he tries to work out what the ringing sound is.
Then how to stop it.
If by chance he pushes the right button he may hear a voice coming out of the device.
But what is this jibberish he hears?
Similar for us and other beings. And this is assuming that the other beings communicate vocally, or with words. Maybe clicks of the tongue (if they have one).
Maybe they sing like a Whale out of a gland in the middle of their chest.
Can we assume they have a speaking mouth, a language using words, similar syntax, or noise at all.
Then if they actually get to recieve an episode of 'I Love Lucy' it may scare the b-jeez out of them: "agghhh, hideous monsters!".
Or visa-versa.
All this plus messages taking years each way, or in the colour spectrum and not audible radio waves.
Hmmmm . . . communication may not be a simple thing.
But we hope
That's where the language of mathematics comes in hope they don't expect me to do the talking
That's where the language of mathematics comes in hope they don't expect me to do the talking
Same here.
Maybe their gelatenous state doesn't understand mathematics (even though they can build a transmitter/reciever with their gelatenous fingers, or fins or whatever they have)
I think if you read anything out of the articles I linked to (assuming its one and the same person) he is apparently not listening to radio waves - he is looking at light pulses !!
As to the maths or the statistics, surely one needs statistical information based on some facts before one can even start predicting any statistical likelihood or make the statement that "The laws of mathematics weigh heavily in favour of the idea that we are not alone."
Based on observable information - how many of what sorts of planets of appropriate sizes, in what types of habitable "Goldilocks" zones, of what age and evolutionary stage, with the right types of atmospheres and the right sorts of suns, in the right types of orbits with the right types of geomagnetic field etc etc etc
Nobody has published much statistical information about hardly any of these things yet, because we simply havent collected enough of the right sort of information (if at all) and we havent been able to verify very much of what we think we know yet as this area of science is so very new.
Simply saying we (Earth and Life) are here and since we are one of a 100 billion suns in a galaxy of which there are 100 billion of those and therefore the chances are good that there is more - is sort of extrapolating everything out of nothing !
Hopeful optimism maybe ?
Love it to be true ! - but that doesn't make it so.
But recent discoveries of the volume of exoplanets seem to be improving the chances (whatever they are/were).
Rally
Last edited by rally; 18-10-2010 at 07:12 PM.
Reason: typo
I think if you read anything out of the articles I linked to (assuming its one and the same person) he is apparently not listening to radio waves - he is looking at light pulses !!
Noticed that, There was link in the original post so I assumed radio.
OH, intellegent life most probably wouldn't even consider english
I know that a long time ago, I was taught statisical anaylsis at school (it is still math to me), In most part this thread is talking about habitable planets but is not related to the initial thread about radio signals.
Life on other systems would still need located in whatever form on another planets to really start using statisical maths as a way to definatively use to determin life could exist on other systems.
Radio is a completely different set of stats and requires a longer more intelligable signal to be definative. I would still love to hear this signal if it is around.
No matter what happens we have a reference point which is earth, but we do not have an defined external reference to continue using stats to determin other things. At the moments it still can only be dreams.
One thing that does exist is the building blocks of life in space, that gives us a start to determin something (that part is a bit out of my league). All the more to continue searching and finding answers.
OK Malcolm thread is not about radio signals etc.
I have just completed first reading the article referred to by CraigS.
Interesting discussion is Ch.6 ,P29 :
Characteristics of the 37-Day Planet
Quote " ... checkered history of habitable planet claims ... "
The report is "Tops" but will take about 5 readings to digest it properly.
this all raises the question what do we want to do if we do discover life out there, more importantly intelligent life. Assuming for a moment there is life and that intelligent life is relatively common by galactic standards, do we really want to let it know we are hear? Contacting life of a intelligence the same level as our own would be slow and tedious and the information we could learn about the universe would be limited (since they would be roughly at our level anyway) we might learn stuff about biology but would most likely be unable to replicate it here on earth (depending upon the difference in biology/planet ect ect) and lastly we may just plain not understand them (and they us) given the scope of different methods of thinking within even our own species. The scary option that outweighs i believe this nicer one is finding a more technologically advanced race. One that not only can contact us but can visit. Anyone that believes such a senario would be good for us is kidding themselves, just look at us becoming more intelligent and advanced just gave us new ways to kill and conqure. If one assumes that the prime goal of life in general is to survive and to outcompete it is easy to realise that we might be done for in such an encounter. Even if the aliens we meet with the ability to vist turn out to be non-violent there is always the possibility they may destroy us for moral or ethical reasons. Remember we live on a planet teaming with life (which may indeed be very rare) on this planet live a species that is destroying the planets ability to support life, even a benign alien might make the judgement (particularly if they don't see us as sentient) that for the good of the planet and life in general to do away with the destructive speices. Just my two cents, i thought i would side with Stephen Hawkin
....If one assumes that the prime goal of life in general is to survive and to outcompete it is easy to realise that we might be done for in such an encounter.
I would strongly agree with this.
However, if we take into account the distances involved, and economical effort to cross them.. we are most likely quite safe (from them).
Apparently won't release any data he may have on the matter.
Or do I take it that the media have just run off with it...
