52 Comments
- RichPowers, on 10/12/2007, -4/+37I hope NASA has secrety embedded some sort of apology following broadcasts of "Wife Swap," "The Simple Life," "The View," and every single thing MTV has aired the past 10 years.
Otherwise ET will destroy Earth to stop us from further polluting the cosmos with that *****. - centinall, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11Not to mention that they've also probably implemented some sort of Digital Rights Management to protect our alien brethrens intergalactic copyrighted works. Breaking it would surely be in violation of the IDGCA (Intergalactic Digital Giga-annum Copyright Act) and I'm sure we would soon hear about it from either the RIAU (Recording Industry Association of the Universe ) or MPAU (Motion Picture Association of the Universe).
- vikingcoder, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10@Cymrubeats
Because it is possible to find proof of extraterrestrial life. - curios, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10An advanced ET civilisation might use quantum nonlocality to communicate instantaneously.
So far, no scientist has figured out how to do this.
http://www.digg.com/space/New_approach_in_search_for_E_T_Cosmic_Astrobiological_nonlocality - anitab83, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10What makes these "scientists" think that aliens would be using radio waves and/or TV? In another 20-50 years, will we be using big antennas to broadcast entertainment? Imagine in 1000 years ... sure, we should be looking for any radio signals we can, but to expect that they'd be using TV or anything like it is ignorant.
- milomilomilo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5most likely, any advanced civilization would erect some type of transmitter than sends signals on multiple waves (radio, x-ray,etc) just saying hello we're here, hope you hear this.
It's silly to think there isnt aliens, 100 billion or so stars in our galaxy out of a couple hundred billion galaxies, obviously we are not alone.
Besides, I see people saying "aliens using tv, thats silly". No it isn't. and advanced intelligent species would like to be entertained, assuming the have eyes, they would probably have something similar to television. And for the people questioning whether they would use radio waves, I'm curious why you would even say that. It isn't as if radio waves are exclusive to earth.
I don't care if we get something discernable, as long as it's from another race, that can change the world. - Optimus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4>>@ Optimus: How will it? Does he detail the contact he has made with the aforementioned TV viewing aliens? Seriously, some of you supposedly 'logical' thinking people are as demented as the jesus bunnies. You are simply regarding something that is (as things stand) complete fantasy as real, just because.....well, i don't know why, do you?
Why shouldn't another civilization arise that uses/used wireless technology to broadcast information? Life on Earth survives in the most hostile of environments, why shouldn't we expect other Earth-like planets to exist in this enormous universe? Intelligent life already evolved once that we know of. It stares back at us each day in the mirror. Quite unlike God, we already have proof of intelligent life having arisen, so why shouldn't it have evolved somewhere else in this vast universe? - fxmcleod, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4@curious
that's because you can't use non-locality to communicate instantaneously; it goes against the theory's precepts.
It's just one of those things like perpetual motion you just can't do no matter how you try. - subscribtion, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I hope their TV is better than ours. Maybe they had a TechTV. Viva la extra-terrestrial TechTV!
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3This project has the same weakness SETI does: It's incapable of actually detecting alien civilizations more than 10 lightyears away unless they're aiming a concentrated and very powerful transmission right at us.
Perhaps SETI style projects in radio frequencies should wait until there's equipment sensitive enough to "eavesdrop" on omnidirectional transmissions similar to those Earth is sending out, from a distance of at least 100 lightyears. - coldphoenix, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Doesn't matter if they care about us noisy primitives, what matters is that we care about those "waaaayy more advanced" civilizations out there.
- kyledavis, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3The odds that any advanced civilization uses electromagnetic radiation extensively for communication beyond more than a few hundred years are pretty slim. So we'd have to be looking for it at the exact blink in the history of time that they actually were using that archaic (to them) technology. Unlikely.
- curios, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2yeh, same too with nasa, wait for revolutionary propulsion systems first, invest nearly all money in finding these, save a fortune in the long term.
- donjaime, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Lets imagine that over the life of the cosmos thousands of civilizations have come about, lasting for thousands of years and creating tons of RF chatter. What are the chances that one of those civilizations is around NOW (where now is relative to however long it takes the signal to reach earth for us to hear)? Very small.
I dont think we will Hear ET. It is far more likely that any civilizations have long since crumbled. If life does exist, it more than likely exists in some more primitive form.
If an intelligent civilation is out there, given the life of the universe, they are most likely waaaayy more advanced and thus not concerned with all the noise we are making. - donjaime, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2You are thinking only in 3 dimensions.
Im sure that we arent the only life forms to exist in the universe, but when you factor in the immensity of TIME, you can kind of see how slim the chances are that we are co-existing with other intelligent life right now. - coldphoenix, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I thought the world of technology was heading towards wireless everything?
- NinjaBoy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Yeah I always wondered if maybe other civilizations made better forms of communications and never used radio communication.
- jake8689, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2this entire story basis itself on the fact that other races uses radio waves to comuicate witch we don't know if it is or is not a fact and the cosmos is more like 15 times as old as our planet as our planet is 1 billion years old and the cosmos is around 15 to 17 billion years old, i know seems young but thats the current theory
- NinjaBoy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Digg needs a way to delete you comment if its still in the edit time frame
- jake8689, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1no hers why if we wait till we get these new tech then well just wait for the next and the next and the next and 100 years will go by with no real new information about our universe
- matt9m5, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1this reminds me of an alan rickman/tim allen film called galaxy quest.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0177789/
only difference is that they were receiving our signals. - crashflow, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1what if they all watching cable?
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The first thing that came into my mind was a taco that craps ice cream. but that's probably just me.
- 1310nm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Conversation should have gone like:
"Hey guys, I saw this in a movie once..."
"You're fired." - laweasel74, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I'm sure it began to suck as soon as it started airing reruns of Intergalactic Fastlane and old The Man Show episodes (or whatever the male species is called there).
- jeff419, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1What if SETI is just pretending to listen to hide that fact that we already are in communication with the aliens, assuming we are?
- Cymrubeats, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1It doesn't have to leave the atmosphere to become so dissipated there's nothing left...that would kinda explain why there's TV transmitters ever few miles as opposed to one for even continent, (real life situation coming up, brace yourself) and my sister can't get channel 5, yet she lives 2 minutes away from me (were still on analogue here).
- jeff419, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Since all perception is just the measurement of vibrations whose to say some aliens don't "see" radio waves?? Some species of animals on earth "see" using infared, or other wavelengths that we can't see at all.
- curios, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1 Experiments in quantum entanglement show corralations that cannot be explained by local classical reasoning. Instantaneous communication IS happening BUT the results are random, so, sofar, no useful infomation can be sent using this technique, yet.
- curios, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1 Remember, the wave function collapses instantaneously, at all the places it had an amplitude, except at the point where it interacted with another wave function, asssociated with another 'particle'
- jake8689, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Its not that radio waves are exclusive to earth hell there some suns emit them but you haft to remember that they may be so different from us that it could easily be some kind of weird wave thing that we don't know about it or they just don't give a damn about earth and are just waiting for buck rogers to end before they say "hi, whats up uh were those alien guys you always talk about, and it's not a cookbook
- curios, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2missplaced comment, erased.
- WaterDragon, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3This old idea seems so unlikely and absurd!
If a signal was broadcast from Earth, and then spread out into the universe....there is no reason to imagine that it would have remained coherent as a discrete packet of information.
It would have spread out, to the point of dissipation...the signal that left one little transmitter, when it spreads out into millions of cubic miles of space becomes such a weak signal, that it loses all coherence, and becomes just a little bit of noise, and eventually, probably just disappears entirely, having interacted with other noises.
So NO...we are not ever going to get sitcoms from distant galaxies.
I'll put it in terms that kids can understand....if you have one teaspoon of chocolate syrup, and you 'broadcast ' it into a hundred gallons of vanilla ice cream---you are not going to even notice the chocolate! - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0i just caught one of their signals...it's the honeymooners, but i can't understand their overdub.
at least they've got a sense of humor
/goes back to pr0n - Optimus, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3>>Wanna know what else strikes me as ignorant (no? i'll tell you anyway...and before you read on, i'm an atheist) How people can dismiss complete ***** (the existence of god), yet pursue a search for utter ***** (aliens watching TV)
Mr. Beats, may I suggest you pick up a copy of this book:
http://www.amazon.com/God-Delusion-Richard-Dawkins/dp/0618680004/sr=8-1/qid=1165975160/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-8477432-1315211?ie=UTF8&s=books
Should answer your question quite succinctly. - tinHeights, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0If aliens really are creating TV shows, and they're as smart or smarter than our TV show creators, they'll have a really GooYah version of DRM that will be uncrackable. And if we do manage to crack it, we'll be subject to Galactic Law and huge fines.
- biddessa, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Quite doubtful. sweet!
- lattrig, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"How people can dismiss complete ***** (the existence of god), yet pursue a search for utter ***** (aliens watching TV)"
Because its our only chance of detecting aliens. Some of those planets out there may have life on them, some of that life might be intelligent, and some of that intelligent life might have technology like radio - and they're the only ones that we can ever know about! - curios, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1missplaced comment, erased.
- zafiroblue05, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2At the distance we're at, any signal would be faint.
But it doesn't matter, anyway - in a few years, most human TV communications will be through wires, not through-the-air broadcast signals. Most likely aliens would be the same way, so there'd be only a span of a few decades in which they sent off radio/TV communications. The chance that we're living right now at the exact time to be in the few-decades time span for an alien civilization is tiny. - MackPrime, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2I'd never stop laughing if we tuned into their "first airing" of television.
- vikingcoder, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Reporting on the inclusion of more the EM spectrum in the SETI program is different than concentrating solely on a narrow band that we are currently using.
Armchair complainers ramble about scientists "not speaking english" while also complaining when simplifications & popular allusions are presented because - *gasp* it's not an exact description. - 4NDr01D, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1if they communicate telepathically or by sonar we wouldn't hear them...
haven't you read
"our hive mind, ourselves" - swaters210, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1I didn't read the article ,but I couldn't resist and this is the first thing that came to mind: "Bring us Ally McNeal! "
digg me down as you will - Cymrubeats, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2@ Optimus: How will it? Does he detail the contact he has made with the aforementioned TV viewing aliens? Seriously, some of you supposedly 'logical' thinking people are as demented as the jesus bunnies. You are simply regarding something that is (as things stand) complete fantasy as real, just because.....well, i don't know why, do you?
Too many people are scared to admit they simply do not know, and cling onto the weakest threads imaginable. - curios, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1Explain why.
- KniteWulf, on 10/12/2007, -6/+3This could explain the weird dialogue and/or music I experience on my radio. Oh wait, those are from the OTHER aliens..
- StratoFabio, on 10/12/2007, -6/+3Definitely. I'd include America's Next Top Model.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -6/+0@Cymrubeats
right on, my brother atheist!
i'm all for exploring our solar system and beyond and even colonizing other space bodies at some future point, but these alien chasing supposed atheists really do strike one as desperately searching for a god replacement. a cowardly quest for immortality technology from ET perhaps?
hey dawkins! you're gonna die, deal with it! - Cymrubeats, on 10/12/2007, -11/+3Wanna know what else strikes me as ignorant (no? i'll tell you anyway...and before you read on, i'm an atheist) How people can dismiss complete ***** (the existence of god), yet pursue a search for utter ***** (aliens watching TV). I await the fumbling, excusatory replies.
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