> Yes, I have a comment. As was said in the movie Contact, "[if there aren't
> any intelligent civilations out there] it sure would be a waste of space".
> If you look at it, the search for Mersenne primes is intrinsically same as
> the search for extraterrestrial life. No one can say for sure if there
> really are any more Mersenne primes to be found. We still look for them
> though, because the statistical likelihood of finding one is pretty
> compelling. Given the vast amount of space out there and the incredible
> number of galaxies (most of which we do not know about) I would say the
> likelihood is equally as strong, if not stronger that something
> intelligent is out there.
I find the odds overwhelmingly depressing. If we say the universe is 20
billion years old or so, and it took several billion for even the first
stars to form, and another several billion for the planets and common
elements to congregate, and then another several billion years for planets
to cool, etc.
Then the odds of having planets suitable for life, such as earth. I'm
certain there are only thousands of such planets out of possible billions.
Then, whether you believe in evolution or not, there are still pretty big
odds against life forming anyway, but I'll gloss over that and say it
happens but it's rare (something I don't agree with anyway). And then,
there are the odds against any such life evolving into a form intelligent
enough to become intelligent enough to develop transmission mechanisms.
And then, barring any fictional FTL messaging, there is the incredible
amount of time it would take for any signals to even reach our isolated
planet, on a distant spiral arm of a remote galaxy. And any signals would
be incredibly weak if they even did exist, and would be barely detectable,
if at all, against the background radiation of space (big bang radiation).
And the fact that there is just SO much area to cover, so many signals to
analyze.
And then the fact that we've only been scanning space for any kind of
signals for only a few decades.
It's like looking for a needle (that might not exist) in one of trillions of
haystacks, and expecting to find that needle in the first few tries.
Naturally, I'd be blown out of my socks if we found any sort of pattern
emanating from deep space, indicative of intelligence (or signs of
intelligence from Earth itself :-), but I feel quite confident in saying
that the odds are 100% in favor of us never finding any such signs before
Sol blinks out for good.
Mersenne Primes on the other hand (ob. reference) are much more likely (and
expected) to be found, probably this year sometime I'd hazard to guess.
I'll stick with GIMPS. :-)
Aaron
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