[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > but if the number of civilizations is small then there may be so much > chance in the encounters that the intelligent space faring beings will > be small and the cultures themselves will not be looking for new > species. Kind of like human ice age spread. > <snip>Let me make an analogy; why is the sky dark at night? given all > the stars out there we would expect light coming from every where. but > that is not what happens. we see only an the light from a cone of > sources because of the speed of light.
But surely all this talk of ships and visitors is irrelevant. We're not looking for ships, or even evidence that the aliens have been here at any point. Radio waves of one form or another disseminate in all directions, at full speed. If we're listening across such a wide spectrum, and hearing stars, wouldn't we also hear some evidence of another civilisation. I'm not saying we'll be watching their TV like in Contact, but so many different things generate RF that any civilisation is going to start producing it, even before they turn to the stars. Cheers Russell C.
