NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #1/NN_1993_1.iso/spool/sci/space/18870

Text File | 1993-01-06 | 1.6 KB | 38 lines

Newsgroups: sci.space
Path: sparky!uunet!munnari.oz.au!titan!trlluna!bruce.cs.monash.edu.au!monu6!giaeb!tim
From: [e-mail] (Tim Roberts)
Subject: question about SETI
Message-ID: <tim.726364246@giaeb>
Keywords: SETI
Sender: [e-mail] (Usenet system)
Organization: Monash University, Melb., Australia.
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 23:50:46 GMT
Lines: 26

OK, I'm a rank amateur, I don't normally read this group, so please be gentle
with me.....

Lots of money (I understand) is being spent on SETI, on the usual quite
reasonable assumption that there may be millions of civilisations out there.
Now, it seems to me that it would be astonishing if another civilisation were
at exactly our point in technology.  Those that are far below would not be
able to send or receive anyway.  So we only need consider those that are in
advance of us, perhaps to almost unimaginable amounts.  Further, we need only
consider those that want to contact a backward civilisation like ours - if
they don't want to, they'll make sure we never know about them.

So, we are left with a civilisation that is probably very far ahead of ours,
but wants to contact us (for some reason).  Now, how would they go about it ?
Surely they'd set beacons somewhere in space that could not possibly be
missed.  And, remember, their technology is probably millenia (at least) ahead
of ours.

So, my question is, given that we ought to look for beacons that cannot be
missed:  has anyone examined the immediate vicinity of pulsars ?  I mean,
REALLY examined them ?

Wouldn't this be better than searching more-or-less random points in space ?

Tim