laura (10/22/82)
I went to a Carl Sagan lecture at the University of Toronto (here) about six months ago. He was speaking on Looking for Extra-Terestrial civilisations and raised a number of good points among them: EM theory is a relatively recent development on this planet. Given that we have only had such a small window of time in which we have been announcing ourselves, is it any wonder that no one has bothered to come check us out?? (except to two drunken farmers in....) Remember what radio noise they are going to be hearing from us: McCarthy trials, Howdy-Doody....Hmmm I think that I might try someone else first too given that tracking down Extra-Terrestrial civilisations was my game... We havent looked all that hard! A large orbital radio telescope would help...but then that costs money which hasnt been put into space development in recent times. If money cannot be found to not turn Pioneer off and monitor it now I dont see much hope for getting a large telescope in the future... In fact, I like how Sagan presented our search for other civilisations. He said that he had talked with a person (rather distinguished sort whose name I cannot recall now, *DARN*) who said that he had conducted this experiment. He got up one morning and set his table for an elabourate dinner for two. Then he opened the front door and patiently waited. After a whole day, no lobster had come in to eat dinner with him. He concluded that since there was no lobster eating dinner with him there was therefore no such thing as a lobster...... Laura Creighton decvax!utzoo!laura
ark (10/22/82)
I have heard it proposed that perhaps civilizations only use radio for a short period -- until they have their planet so thoroughly cabled that they can use land lines instead.