From: Rik van Riel (riel@nl.linux.org)
Date: Thu Oct 21 1999 - 06:01:49 MDT
On Wed, 20 Oct 1999, Larry Klaes wrote:
> >If any of this cock-eyed theory is correct, why are we looking in the
> >water hole for the very low level signals of an extrasolar
> >civilization?"
- the water hole absorbs any long-distance signals
- meaning we can only stuff from nearby
- we can only "communicate" with ETIs that are near
enough that the round-trip doesn't take more than
a generation or two
- we have very primitive radio equipment so we want
to use a low-noise band (or maybe radio doesn't
get any better and we're stuck with such a band
forever)
These things would make the water hole a very very
suitable place to start out scanning for ETIs. If
any ETIs exist nearby we might find them this way,
if they don't exist or are using something complely
beyond our imagination, well, then we're screwed
anyway :)
Rik
-- The Internet is not a network of computers. It is a network of people. That is its real strength. -- work at: http://www.reseau.nl/ home at: http://www.nl.linux.org/~riel/
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