The reasoin is this ,

the intersteller seas are just so vast that it blocks out the possablity for it to happen , i mean evan if it took only 100 years for modern ish brits to find and try to get to usa with sailign boats ( i realy dont know actual time frame) . and thats only 3471 miles. i can see it taking litraly hundreds of thousends of years to do the equvielent when your talking about 99999999999999999999999999999999999999999 miles

^ Yeah, and our world is round but it's still 2D. Space is 3D. The distances are not just vast, but there are an infinite number of directions to travel. Not like on the surface of earth where you go east west north or south and eventually discover other people.

I know that the number of miles you've mentioned is probably an example of hyperbole used to make your point (which I totally agree with by the way), but as a math nazi I feel compelled to point out that radio signals would take about 17 billion billion billion years to travel that distance and not literally hundreds of thousands. >> ^westy:

The reasoin is this ,
the intersteller seas are just so vast that it blocks out the possablity for it to happen , i mean evan if it took only 100 years for modern ish brits to find and try to get to usa with sailign boats ( i realy dont know actual time frame) . and thats only 3471 miles. i can see it taking litraly hundreds of thousends of years to do the equvielent when your talking about 99999999999999999999999999999999999999999 miles

>> ^nanrod:

I know that the number of miles you've mentioned is probably an example of hyperbole used to make your point (which I totally agree with by the way), but as a math nazi I feel compelled to point out that radio signals would take about 17 billion billion billion years to travel that distance and not literally hundreds of thousands. >> ^westy:
The reasoin is this ,
the intersteller seas are just so vast that it blocks out the possablity for it to happen , i mean evan if it took only 100 years for modern ish brits to find and try to get to usa with sailign boats ( i realy dont know actual time frame) . and thats only 3471 miles. i can see it taking litraly hundreds of thousends of years to do the equvielent when your talking about 99999999999999999999999999999999999999999 miles



Lol , I ment hundreds of thousends for people on othe rplatnets to evan have the tech and imputus to travel to the other locatoins.

But yah that as well , i asume you would only evan bother to try anny travel onc eu can go faster than the speed of light , or u can biuld some kind of space ship thats like a planet , which personaly i think is more likely , If u think earth is relaitavely unstable , its probably allot esear to bould a supper masive space ship and fly it around space , than it is to work out how to go faster than the speed of light.

There's the whole temporal aspect of the issue. Who knows how long we'll be using electromagnetic radiation for communication. Perhaps in like, 100 to 1000 years we'll have invented some new method. Maybe we'll have changed so much by then that our current conceptions of technology and existence won't even be relevant anymore.

Say there's been, like, 1000 intelligent, space-faring species throughout our galaxy since the beginning of the universe. If we assume it took them roughly as long to evolve as it took to get complex life here on earth, we can assume that the first intelligent aliens took flight perhaps a billion years ago. And then, at even intervals a new species develops a technological society. Even with 1000 intelligent, technological species in our galaxy alone, there'd be like, on average, a million years between them. Chances of two of them evolving at the same time are relatively small. And even if they used radio-signals for like 10,000 years, before becoming something that we can't even conceive, or destroying themselves, that would still be an average of 990,000 years of radio-silence per 1,000,000 years. Thus, if we stick around even for thousands of years, we still only have a tiny, tiny chance of ever picking up a radio-signal from another intelligent species.

Carl Sagan said almost the same thing 30 years ago in 1 of the episodes of Cosmos, but instead of caffeinated-arm-flailing-rant format, he said it slow and concisely, albeit slightly monotone. Because of the cold war, and the man-will-destroy-itself-in-nuclear-fallout attitude of the time, he was not so optimistic about finding other societies, because he imagined other societies would do similar, as in they would kill themselves shortly after coming up with radio and nuclear technology.

There was an update to the series a few years later, and he was much more optimistic that humanity would not destroy itself.

Also, it's not likely that any of the early radio waves we sent out will be "readable" once they reach a considerable distance away, so it's irrelevant whether they watch TV or not.

>> ^spawnflagger:

Carl Sagan said almost the same thing 30 years ago in 1 of the episodes of Cosmos, but instead of caffeinated-arm-flailing-rant format, he said it slow and concisely, albeit slightly monotone. Because of the cold war, and the man-will-destroy-itself-in-nuclear-fallout attitude of the time, he was not so optimistic about finding other societies, because he imagined other societies would do similar, as in they would kill themselves shortly after coming up with radio and nuclear technology.
There was an update to the series a few years later, and he was much more optimistic that humanity would not destroy itself.
Also, it's not likely that any of the early radio waves we sent out will be "readable" once they reach a considerable distance away, so it's irrelevant whether they watch TV or not.

Even without the immediate threat of Nuclear War we still have plenty of time and options to kill ourselves off with. We haven't even travelled to our nearest planet, I think its going to be a while before we ever really explore the Solar System, never mind the rest of the Galaxy. I think if Humans ever do survive that long, if we somehow manage to obtain the wisdom to match our technology and dodge planet killing asteroids, then we will probably have less in common with them than we do with our fishy ancestors.

As for extraterrestrial life, there is a fair chance it exists, or has existed or will exist. I think its not too much of a stretch to imagine intelligent life. I don't think we'll ever find them, not without faster than light travel. And space isn't just vast in 3 dimensions, its pretty fast in a the 4th as well. We have existed for the tiniest sliver of time, we've had technology for a tiny sliver of that...We have to survive for a very very long time before we are anything but a tiny fragment of history.

Time and space are more intertwingled than you think. Just the fact that stars are so insanely far away makes the odds astronomical (badum dum tish) that we would detect or be detected by another civilization.

To be detected, there would have to be another civilization with listening capabilities (radio, microwave etc) that evolved at maximum 200 light years away from here... 200 light years is nothing in the astronomical scale.

Chances may be higher that we can detect some other civilization, but that means that they would have to have sent out signals equivalent to their distance from here in light years, so that we can pick them up. They can be much older than us and live further away and have sent their signals while we were still cavemen or fish or before even, but that would likely mean that they will be a long time extinct when we get the signals. And it would also mean that we never, ever would be able to contact them.

Just from the forseeable distance, we likely will not be able to contact any alien civilizations, since, I mean just 200 light years would mean a delay (lag if you will) of 200 years(!!). Try to remember back on the last two hundred years and think of how much we've changed. Theres no conversation to be had that way. Just the verification of existence, which I guess would be cool in itself though.