"Soon, humanity may face an existential shock as the current list of a dozen Jupiter-sized extra-solar planets swells to hundreds of earth-sized planets, almost identical twins of our celestial homeland. This may usher in a new era in our relationship with the universe: we will never see the night sky in the same way ever again, realizing that scientists may eventually compile an encyclopedia identifying the precise co-ordinates of perhaps hundreds of earth-like planets."
Kaku goes on to casually juggle concepts that would send media-darling Seth Shostak packing to the nearest mental institution.
2 comments:
Mac -
Seth and co. already dwell in the most cush asylum in the land. And he's practically the warden. :)
A few minutes with Dr. Kaku, and I fear something more like a Simpsons-esque exploding head for dear Seth.
Kyle
UFOreflections.blogspot.com
That's a very cool article. He even inadvertantly presents a solution to the Fermi Paradox:
Because of the enormous static found in deep space, broadcasting on a single frequency presents a serious source of error. Instead of putting all your eggs in one basket, a more efficient system is to break up the message and smear it out over all frequencies (e.g. via Fourier like transform) and then reassemble the signal only at the other end. In this way, even if certain frequencies are disrupted by static, enough of the message will survive to accurately reassemble the message via error correction routines. However, any Type 0 civilization listening in on the message on one frequency band would only hear nonsense. In other words, our galaxy could be teeming with messages from various Type II and III civilizations, but our Type 0 radio telescopes would only hear gibberish.
Nifty.
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