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- youliveinfear, on 09/10/2008, -1/+101At a transmission rate of 180 bits a year, that rickroll is going to take a while.
- Darren07, on 09/11/2008, -3/+30Nonsense, "tweaking stars", you know how much energy and time that requires?
How about just sending a radio message. Or probe.
You know, even if they're aliens, it doesn't mean that they don't posses common sense. - youliveinfear, on 09/10/2008, -6/+31In other news, the RIAA has announced a lawsuit against "unknown alien lifeforms".
- angusm, on 09/11/2008, -2/+19Given that Cepheid variables are used to calculate celestial distances, if extraterrestrials really are tweaking their output it's going to screw up some of our calculations.
"Objects in galaxy may be closer than they appear." - Louis11, on 09/11/2008, -4/+17"Nonsense, "tweaking stars", you know how much energy and time that requires?"
Depending on how long the civilization has been around, whose to say they are not advanced enough to produce such energy? Perhaps modifying their surroundings (e.g. Stars) is a rather simple endeavor for them.
Dr. Kaku (Awesome Asian guy from many Discovery Channel Shows):
http://mkaku.org/home/?page_id=246 - roddack, on 09/12/2008, -0/+12if only the WOW signal was a rickroll....that would be epic on a galactic scale
- JM0ney, on 09/12/2008, -0/+11Please wait... Buffering .000001%
- bam359, on 09/11/2008, -1/+12Kind of a lot of effort for what boils down to smoke-signals.
- Jsmuli2, on 09/12/2008, -1/+12"tweaking variable stars" is copyrighted by Metallica.
Give them aliens hell RIAA! - stuffradio, on 09/12/2008, -0/+10My cereal is trying to tell me something! OOOOOOOOO
- apetrie, on 09/12/2008, -1/+10I guess the point is, if they were so advanced why would they use that method rather than something that would be obvious to us?
- inactive, on 09/11/2008, -1/+10just wait til mother mary visits YOU via grilled cheese sandwiches. you'll be talking to aliens in no time
- UltimatrixmaN, on 09/10/2008, -2/+10Maybe we should look for inconspicous clues since searching for the obvious obviously isn't obvious enough. I guess looking for physical clues is primitive.
- hansk, on 09/11/2008, -7/+14I don't believe this, nothing but wishful thinking. It's no different than seeing anomalies and crying "god's work!"
- NOD32user, on 09/12/2008, -0/+7In other news, the RIAA has today applied for an injunction to prevent the "unauthorized alien transmissions" until the copyright holders can be determined and properly compensated.
- Sornos, on 09/11/2008, -0/+6Hopeful, yes, but that's not all that it is. It could be an answer to the Fermi paradox. That is, we should be seeing more signs of life than we do now. Since current methods are turning up zilch, maybe we're looking the wrong place.
- LarianLeQuella, on 09/11/2008, -3/+9Apparently some neutrino physicists at the University of Hawaii have way too much time on their hands...
- hakz, on 09/12/2008, -1/+7If they have the technology to tweak stars to send a message, why not just come on over and say hi?
- barryiggins, on 09/12/2008, -2/+8wait...I'm confused--does this mean they're still gonna blow up the white house?
- Tezdoll, on 09/12/2008, -0/+6Your common sense and their common sense may be two different things.
- slapded, on 09/12/2008, -0/+6and they wore lipstick!
- Perdido, on 09/12/2008, -2/+8I LOLd. And I never LOL. It's just how I was raised.
Then again, I am drunk. - jj101, on 09/12/2008, -0/+5You eat stars?
- inactive, on 09/12/2008, -2/+7180 bits a year, eh? That's just barely enough to transmit "Never gonna give you up".
- TheStrongForce, on 09/12/2008, -1/+6This is almost as stupid as the Drake Equation
- jaksu, on 09/12/2008, -0/+5do they have wireless Internet?
- Methusalah, on 09/12/2008, -0/+4Considering how long that would take, they'd be better off letting us come up with the plans on our own.
- gobbleplex, on 09/12/2008, -1/+5How would an alien species know what's obvious to *us*?
- AndrewDB, on 09/12/2008, -0/+4Metallica wouldn't copyright it.. U2.. though...
- Fhwqhgads, on 09/12/2008, -1/+4That is the most ridiculous thing I ever heard. Is this the Onion?
- jonshipman, on 09/12/2008, -1/+4Banana jumped Walrus Hiccup!
- inactive, on 09/12/2008, -0/+3Actually, more like
Year 1: WEREHERECANYOUSEEUS
Year 2: WANTTOGETTOGETHERANDDO
Year 3: LUNCHSOMETIME
That's what you'd get from 180 bits a year and trying to make the most of every bit. - Tezdoll, on 09/12/2008, -0/+342
- Sornos, on 09/12/2008, -0/+2That's true, we're never going to meet anyone out there (space too big, relativistic effects, ect.), but knowing they're there sure as hell beats not knowing.
- kLacK, on 09/12/2008, -0/+2Because our race is still "new".
- jsmith39, on 09/12/2008, -1/+3How many light years away are these stars? Even if this notional alien race were using the stars for their own communications with far flung outposts it would take hundreds if not thousands of years for the first 180 bits of data to even arrive. If you can travel that far your better off just getting in damn ship and flying there with a library worth of information.
- LLLSecretChimp, on 09/12/2008, -0/+2An infinite number of monkeys are thinking, "Now's our chance!"
- LLLSecretChimp, on 09/12/2008, -0/+2They could get tricked into it by some interstellar version of the phone company. Even highly advanced beings could be too lazy to read the entire service contract.
- jsmith39, on 09/12/2008, -0/+2Presuming they are trying to communicate with any race known/unknown there are better/easier methods of getting the word out than manipulating the 'glow' of a star. This guy is bored as Hell, and I feel bad for whatever intern gets stuck with that assignment.
- GreatSunJester, on 09/12/2008, -1/+3I would guess that any aliens advanced enough to 'tweak' stars as a messaging system really don't want to talk to primitives like us.
If aliens are so advanced as to be able to travel the stars, why do they keep abducting the dumbest people on Earth? - WELLDOITLIVE, on 09/12/2008, -0/+2Gotta hate those chicken nipples
- Mawds, on 09/12/2008, -1/+3Well I hope they not gonna give us up, or even let us down. I so hope they don't turn around and desert us, or even make us cry. I'm sure they will never say goodbye, and most of all they will never tell us lies and hurt us.
- zoydberg, on 09/12/2008, -0/+2dr. michu kaku is awesome, him and brian cox should be the poster guys of science
- ASSASSYN360, on 09/12/2008, -0/+2Actually, we sent email.
- zantos420, on 09/12/2008, -0/+2obviously you're right because obviously obvious aliens would obviously obviate we wouldn't be prepared to create obvious contact with them until we were obviously advanced enough to not search for the obvious; obviously.
- Tezdoll, on 09/12/2008, -0/+2or dumbed down?
- Gustomucho, on 09/12/2008, -3/+5Flying? Wow, nonsense!
"You would make a ship sail against the winds and currents by lighting a bon-fire under her deck? I have no time for such nonsense."
- Napoleon, on Robert Fulton's Steamship
Earth is the center of the universe, and the sun is gravitating around it.
There are things we don't understand, can't do, and can't comprehend right now.
Energy is a static quantity and is denoted in joules. Power is a measure of energy over time, and is denoted in watts (joules per second). The three levels of the Kardashev Scale can be quantified in units of power (watts) and plotted on an increasing logarithmic scale.
* Type I — a civilization that is able to harness all of the power available on a single planet — has approximately 1016 or 1017 W available.[2] Earth specifically has an available power of 1.74 ×1017 W (174 petawatts, see Earth's energy budget). Kardashev's original definition was 4 ×1012 W — a "technological level close to the level presently attained on earth" (presently meaning 1964).[3]
* Type II — a civilization that is able to harness all of the power available from a single star, approximately 4 ×1026 W.[2] Again, this figure is variable; the Sun outputs approximately 3.86 ×1026 W. Kardashev's original definition was also 4 ×1026 W.[3]
* Type III — a civilization that is able to harness all of the power available from a single galaxy, approximately 4 ×1037 W.[2] This figure is extremely variable, since galaxies vary widely in size; the stated figure is the approximate power output of the Milky Way. Kardashev's original definition was also 4 ×1037 W
In 1973, he calculated humanity's civilization type to be 0.7. - venuspcs, on 09/12/2008, -1/+3It is far more likely that subspace messages sent out by an alien race would be in the form of quantum entangled particles of light. Theoretically the message would be received at or before the time it was sent, thus making for real time communication across the universe. There is also another reason for using this form of communication. Any race with a level of technological sophistication to receive the message, know its a message, decode the message and then successfully reply to the message would have long left behind the many many problems that are currently plaguing humanity and thus would be worthy to join the League of Space Exploring Cultures.
- GiggleStick, on 09/12/2008, -1/+3I don't think they see what you did there, but I do.
- Gustomucho, on 09/12/2008, -0/+2The idea is to look for hiccups on cepheild stars, to see something is interfering with it. Example, every 10 hours there is a hiccup, or every 10 pulse there is a rapid one. One could automate a system to do that for 1000000 of years so it would be like a lighthouse.
Of course if people don't look, they won't see it. I don't think there is an easy way for a civilization out there to broadcast a presence to the whole galaxy. I don't think they would use the neutrino star for transmitting anything else than a waving flag, lighthouse, smoke message "we are here". -
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