Quote:
Originally Posted by August
Don't be so sure. People who witnessed the Wright Brothers first flight were on hand to watch man land on the moon.
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Well it is certainly not impossible, and I would be overjoyed if it were to happen within my lifetime, however - the problems of the vastness of the universe compound the calculations, for a start the observable part extends for roughly 13.7 billion light years. For us to 'hear' a signal from another intelligent transmitter we need to be close, within our own galaxy at least (a few hundred light years max). The probablity (given the physical vastness of what we can see) that this might happen is an infintesimal or very very close to 0. Then we have the problem of time. How big or long is time? even if the universe is teeming with life, the probability that 2 intelligent lifeforns evolve within the same window of time (a few thousand or possibly 10s of thousands of years)- is again an infintesimal. Multiply these 2 probabilities together, because we need to be not only physically close but also close enough in time and the result you get (even if as we suspect life is common in the universe) is so close to 0 as to be not really worth thinking about. Even if life is common (and we have no proof that it is yet) It is very likely that right now in our time, no other life exists within our universe.
Still, here's to hoping. No reason to stop looking.