Carl Sagan did it better!

More seriously, I've always felt like Drake's equation is missing something. What if there is some way of communicating across interstellar distances that's better than radio? What if the amount of time that civilizations take to make radio obsolete is ridiculously short, like only 100-200 years?

Maybe the sky is humming with all sorts of signals...that we haven't yet developed the technology to hear.

>> ^NetRunner:

More seriously, I've always felt like Drake's equation is missing something. What if there is some way of communicating across interstellar distances that's better than radio? What if the amount of time that civilizations take to make radio obsolete is ridiculously short, like only 100-200 years?
Maybe the sky is humming with all sorts of signals...that we haven't yet developed the technology to hear.


Well we're playing with radio waves which is part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Now, I don't know what makes radio waves so special when it comes to transferring data. I mean aside from the fact that they're harmless to us (large wavelength, low frequency, low energy) there's nothing inherent about tuning into those frequencies. Imagine too, that radio waves travel at light speed. That's the fastest we know ANYTHING to travel. If were to pick up a transmission that was sent a thousand years ago, that solar system could be as good as gone by now.

well maybe not a 1000 years...unless it was their last cry for help.

>> ^rottenseed:

Well we're playing with radio waves which is part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Now, I don't know what makes radio waves so special when it comes to transferring data. I mean aside from the fact that they're harmless to us (large wavelength, low frequency, low energy) there's nothing inherent about tuning into those frequencies. Imagine too, that radio waves travel at light speed. That's the fastest we know ANYTHING to travel. If were to pick up a transmission that was sent a thousand years ago, that solar system could be as good as gone by now.
well maybe not a 1000 years...unless it was their last cry for help.


Right, that's why I'm thinking radio isn't the ultimate communication medium. Maybe there's something else more exotic that doesn't get weaker at a geometric rate, and is less susceptible to noise, and who knows, maybe even breaks the speed of light.

Drake's equation sorta assumes that there's some basic level of communications technology that civilizations develop relatively early in their lifespan, and then use continuously for the remaining duration of their existence.

I think that's a bad assumption. I doubt we'll still be broadcasting radio waves in a thousand years, let alone a million.

I think about this stuff a lot. Lately I look at all the computer power we're developing and how dangerous the universe really is. I get fixed on the horrifying implications of "Von Neumann Machines" and think most civilizations like ours who reach out with radio probably get silenced by a swarm of machines as a consequence of their indiscretion. It could be that the galaxy will be endlessly culled for all time by such robots. Or, maybe the machines would be benevolent like the Monoliths in 2001, which are Von Neumann machines in that they appear autonomous and self-replicating.

It seems likely that really advanced civilizations might "go dark" and beyond ceasing to use radio (or at least ceasing to allow radio leakage) they might actually bury/hide their civilization. They might even offload their minds into computers and not bother communicating with the physical universe outside their programmed reality at all. I'm starting to think this last bit might be the most likely of all scenarios.

I've probably read too much hard sci-fi and I really love the stuff along these themes like Forge of God, Anvil of Stars, 2001 series, etc.

Netrunner don't know if you read sci-fi but there is a great book co-authored by Arthur C Clarke about this concept. It's called The Light of Other Days and is all about wormholes. Highly recommend if you've any interest.

>> ^NetRunner:

>> ^rottenseed:
Well we're playing with radio waves which is part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Now, I don't know what makes radio waves so special when it comes to transferring data. I mean aside from the fact that they're harmless to us (large wavelength, low frequency, low energy) there's nothing inherent about tuning into those frequencies. Imagine too, that radio waves travel at light speed. That's the fastest we know ANYTHING to travel. If were to pick up a transmission that was sent a thousand years ago, that solar system could be as good as gone by now.
well maybe not a 1000 years...unless it was their last cry for help.

Right, that's why I'm thinking radio isn't the ultimate communication medium. Maybe there's something else more exotic that doesn't get weaker at a geometric rate, and is less susceptible to noise, and who knows, maybe even breaks the speed of light.
Drake's equation sorta assumes that there's some basic level of communications technology that civilizations develop relatively early in their lifespan, and then use continuously for the remaining duration of their existence.
I think that's a bad assumption. I doubt we'll still be broadcasting radio waves in a thousand years, let alone a million.

>> ^budzos:

Netrunner don't know if you read sci-fi but there is a great book co-authored by Arthur C Clarke about this concept. It's called The Light of Other Days and is all about wormholes. Highly recommend if you've any interest.

I've probably still read more sci-fi books than anything else. In fact, my reaction to reading that was "holy shit, there's an Arthur C. Clarke book I haven't read?"

But yeah, various forms of FTL communication show up all over the place in sci-fi, and the (somewhat obvious) common thread is that they all rely on something that us 21st century people don't know how to detect.

My other thought is that maybe we do know how to detect it, but all we see is noise because they're using encryption that's millions of years more advanced than ours. Vacuum energy fluctuations are my (and several sci-fi authors') favorite place to imagine this might be happening.

I stopped when he said our galaxy has 100 to 400 billion stars.... that's like me saying I have anywhere between 100 dollars and 300 billion dollars in my wallet. No way you can't tell me they haven't got a more accurate estimate than that.