On Jun 21, 2005, at 9:55 AM, Kevin Street wrote:
Suppose every civilization that could communicate becomes a homebody
because it likes gossip that takes less than eight million subjective
years for a response (the subjective time to talk with someone on
Alpha Centuri)?
That's a very interesting idea, but it assumes that every civilization
eventually becomes AI in nature. What about all the carbon based souls
out
there?
Quick aside. Alpha Centauri is four lightyears away. Assuming a
conversation by radio, it would only be eight years' round trip, not
eight million. Radio waves propagate at lightspeed. Relativistic
mechanics don't enter the picture at all.
That's one reason SETI is compelling. If we came across a radio signal
from a planet, say, 25 LY away, the conversation would be very slow,
but there'd be reasonable hope for at least *one* question to be asked
and answered in a single human lifespan. (More practically, send a
massive packet of information as well as questions and wait for the
multiple replies, but you get the idea. ;)
--
Warren Ockrassa, Publisher/Editor, nightwares Books
http://books.nightwares.com/
Current work in progress "The Seven-Year Mirror"
http://www.nightwares.com/books/ockrassa/Flat_Out.pdf
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