[Bud]

Kind of a facile statement. Radio waves are radio waves. The spectrum is the spectrum.

Any intelligent aliens are very likely to be using the electromagnetic spectrum for wireless communications. They might use it in somewhat different ways, but the technology is still essentially the same.

[marcosdumay]

For intraplanetary communication, yes, I'd agree. But those signals shouldn't be strong enough for us to detect (otherwise, what a wasteful species).

Now, for interplanetary signals, radio does not look that interesting.

There's the problem that it, like everything else, is jut too damn slow. So just the assumption that long distance communication is common is already iffy.

Then, radio is either too hard to manage, or has a too long wavelength. Yes, some hyper intelligence out there may think differently, but from our current understanding, it looks way more likely that such hyper intelligence will still find it easier to send matter, neutrinos, or whatever it is that composes most of the Universe.

[norea-armozel]

>For intraplanetary communication, yes, I'd agree. But those signals shouldn't be strong enough for us to detect (otherwise, what a wasteful species).

Many of our radio signals are detectable from terrestrial sources such as radio and air TV stations. Even Ham radio signals throw out enough power for their signals to be easily detected beyond our solar system.

[cgriswald]

Eh, not really "easily." If a comparable civilization was located around Alpha Centauri, we would have to focus the equivalent of an Arecibo radio telescope at it for many months, maybe a year, to detect its presence. That's "easy" in the sense that we could do it, but it's also very expensive to do and we won't do it without having at least some idea that a civilization exists there already. The farther out we go from Earth, the harder it is, and it gets impossible (in the sense that we lack the resources to do it) very quickly with increasing distance.

For interplanetary communication, tight beams would make way more sense than broadcast. And unless one of those beams is directed at us, we aren't likely to intercept it. This is really what SETI is looking for because it's the easiest thing to look for.

[norea-armozel]

Yeah, but the fact remains that it's more likely we'll get a random stray signal before we'll get an intended broadcast from another civilization. I just don't see it as being one of those things any civilization is likely to do (what's the point of communication with another civilization at such extreme distances?).

[tired_man]

If they determine that the random signal contains any sort of information, even if we can't understand it, I think they'd simply be happy to have confirmation of another civilization.

Getting a chunk of signal with modulation or one containing repeated patterns would be a world changer.

[cgriswald]

That isn't a fact. We are more likely to detect a strong intended broadcast and will be so for the foreseeable future.

Your parenthetical is a good question.

We ourselves have sent a message to M13, a globular cluster ~20K lya. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arecibo_message) The only reason? To say "We are here." The thinking behind the choice of target was that the stars are close together so for one message we get more likely reception. That thinking was flawed because stars in a globular cluster are hot, young, and short-lived, so unlikely to support life, much less complex life.

We will probably begin sending similar messages when we discover more likely candidates. We are very close to being able to detect the atmospheres of Earth and super-Earth exoplanets. If we find one that contains a significant amount of free oxygen, it will be a good candidate for life, and I can certainly see us sending a signal to these planets.

The point of such a message is that for relatively small cost, we can potentially discover we are not the only intelligent life in the universe.

Additionally, the sheer knowledge that could be acquired if both species beamed constant signals to each other about their cultures, scientific discoveries, and etc., would be damn near priceless. Even if we found a civilization slightly behind ours or on the same level as ours, there would suddenly be two Earths with both similar and dissimilar problems with both similar and dissimilar solutions to those problems. Our knowledge of the universe and our ability to solve problems would grow, even if our mutual civilizations lagged behind each other by (say) 100 years due to the distance.

[cgriswald]

Assuming an advanced alien civilization can detect and interact with neutrinos in some way, neutrino communications could be very cost effective. They need only focus a beam from the flood of neutrinos coming from their parent star.

Lacking that, I can't imagine sending matter would be very cost effective relative to radio.

[marcosdumay]

Radio spreads. You can get a small chunk of matter very near c with a small part of the energy needed to send an easily detectable UV light bean to Alpha Centaury.

[tired_man]

I beg to disagree. That makes the assumption that alien civilizations are in the same technologic era as the earth.

I don't see any reasons to believe they'll be using the RF spectrum. Simply because RF is about all we can manage to pick up is not sufficient reason.