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From: joi@ozemail.com.au (Jonathon Alexander)
Subject: Re: Anti-life
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Date: Sat, 1 Oct 1994 03:41:33 GMT
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Snowhare (snowhare@xmission.com) wrote:
: This is known as the Fermi Paradox. The fact is - depending on the 
: assumptions you make, you can come to to conclusions either that there 
: are a few million civilizations similar to ours in our own galaxy - or 
: only one (us). There may well be (probably are IMHO) many many civilizations 
: scattered through the universe. BUT - if (as it seems) the speed of 
: light is actually the ultimate speed limit, the nearest one may be too 
: far away to ever even communicate with us. We could (in theory) talk with 
: a civilization like our own up to a hundred thousand light years away 
: (assuming we were lucky enough to identify one - small needle in a very 
: large haystack). But not one in M31.

Dear Snowhare,

We dont need two-way communication. It would simply be enough to receive 
information. Since info is likely to be xmitted by electromagnetic 
radiation, (probably ast the highest possible frequency, to maximise the 
badnwidth) perhaps from 
sweeping beams, we should be able to detect it approx as far out as we 
can see stars. It is interesting to note that there are short bursts of 
gamma rays (the highest frequency radiation known) of unknown origin 
ditributed over the universe. Perhaps if we could demodulate these we
might find we are not alone after all

Regards
John Alexander
