Blueblaze |
11-27-2023 01:13 PM |
Quote:
Originally Posted by ThirdOfFive
(Post 2277084)
True, but considering that radio waves travel at the speed of light (as do TV signals), those signals have already reached 75 star systems, with that number growing all the time. If there are intelligent beings within that range who are capable of at least the science we have, it is a good bet that they know about us--at least to the extent that our media represents our civilization, which come to think of it is pretty negative most of the time.
Maybe they figure that we're not worth striking up a conversation. If all I knew of us is what is on our news and entertainment media, I know I'd come to that conclusion.
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No doubt, there is a race of spacefaring monsters out there, glued to their TV's, and on the verge of attacking the moment they discover that Dallas season 9 was just a dream -- which is exactly the plot of a Futurama episode. "Lrrrr", ruler of Omicron Persei 8, invades, conquers Earth, and goes away -- and Earth goes right back to the same lunacy we consider normal, here on our planet of backward lunatics.
The fact is, here in the real world, those radio waves would have degraded so far by the time they made it to the first star system, that even if it happened to be inhabited by an "advanced" civilization, they probably wouldn't have recognized what it was, even if they knew what to look for. Think about it -- this thread started with someone marveling that NASA managed to communicate over a mere 10 million miles -- and they had to use a focused laser to do it, with someone at the other end looking for it. Meanwhile, the nearest star is 500 thousand times farther than NASA's little experiment.
The most likely scenario is that, in a universe of a billion-billion stars, Earth TV transmissions probably won't make it to an advanced civilization until centuries after we're radioactive dust. That's how unimaginably huge the Universe is. There are undoubtedly millions of advanced civilizations in the Universe. The fact that we didn't detect one of them the moment SETI switched on the giant Arecibo antenna, tells you that we will never hear from any of them.
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