Davies, Paul
<p>Apr 23, 2010 2:44 PM  I met  Pam Grange see Keplers...  ok with my presentation,
but better to have my own book to plug. 
 
PAUL DAVIES... English;  one year older than me;  physicist;
 
wife is Pauline - not there;
 
Eerie Silence is his new book   (buy it second hand in several months)
 
Frank Drake's estimate is  10k civs in Galaxy.  that would make them
about 1000 LY apart  approx.
 
That means they do not know we exist ... light cone hasn't arrived.
They cud know abt our atmosphere.
 
Lighthouse beacon, say, sweeping in the plane of the milky way...  might intercept it.
otherwise, best is to hope that we might be colinear with  a ray from  ET1  to ET2.
 
need dedicated dish to look for beacon.
 
We know rate of star formation.
 
Crick  thot origin of life was v improbably;
Jacques Monod  "mankind is is alone"   life is imposs rare.  cuz of imposs of forming macromolecs.
frak accident.
 
SETI is Quixotic  (great adjective).  QUIXOTIC
Popularized by Carl Sagan and Frank Drake.
Fell into disrepute...  now riding wave of popularity again.
 
Conferences in the Vatican and the Royal Society of London.
 
Is life a cosmic imperative!!!????
 
wud be great evidence if we find  life 2.0   says Chris McKay.
 
Ariz State Univ has  2 bits of Mars rocks  from  meteroids...  so planets seed one another.
 
Mars cooled more quicly than we did  (cuz its smaller)  so, poss faster life origin.
 
Almost all life is microbial.
 
Workshop  BEYOND Conference.  ? non-carbon based life.
 
?  arsenic-based life ...  study of Mono lake  (heavy arsenic contamination, being studied by
a female  USGS researcher, young woman in the audience.
 
All life on earth uas  left handed  amino acids and right handed  CHO's
how abt MIRROR LIFE  with reverse chirality.
 
how abt a message in a bottle  thorwn out at sea...
favorite example is a msg IN OUR DNA or in the dna of a species still alive.
prime numbers,  etc.
 
Q:  how abt  probing for earth like atmoshperes  (a la  TPF?)
 
A:  Kepler will find planets...  he says  TPF is not funded cuz too expensive.
(I later comment ...  may get funding after Kepler discovers earth-like planets)
 
Arecibo  would NOT be able to pick US up is it were  1000 LY away... tv stations too feeble.
 
My Q:  Rare Earth...  microbes get going immediately;  but complex life took
2 to 3 BYrs to get going?   He gives indecipherable answer.
Does not buy rare earth arguemnt, cuz example of one.
cites  Brandon Carter argument?
 
Robin Hanson - the great filter
 
Dyson spheres ... look for them.
 
artifacts, probes.
 
Post-bio intel ...  he's a believer.
megabrains  covering entire surface of a planet.
 
Q:  2 separate communities...   scientists  vs  UFO  beleivers...
Betty and Barney Hill
 
he says he'smet  Allan  Meinig  (USAF  genl  who coined term  Close Encounters of the 3rd kind.
 
he attirbs these to lucid dreaming and sleep disorders... yes.
 
Q  stable points... in solar system  ... to look for probes... eg poles of moon.
He says look at LaGrange points.
Look for plutonium... all natl pluton shud be gone... if we find any its a
dead give away that they were here.
 
Paul is in charge of post-contact communication and protocol.
 
 
 
 
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