Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site topaz.RUTGERS.EDU Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!columbia!topaz!crash!bnw From: bnw@crash.UUCP Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers Subject: Re: The Great Silence Message-ID: <3157@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU> Date: Wed, 7-Aug-85 03:12:53 EDT Article-I.D.: topaz.3157 Posted: Wed Aug 7 03:12:53 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 10-Aug-85 20:47:50 EDT Sender: daemon@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J. Lines: 21 From:Perhaps the problem is simply that there is no reason why anyone should have found us. This is an excerpt from _Cosmos_ by Dr. Carl Sagan. ". . .If a great many years ago an advanced interstellar spacefaring civilization emerged 200 light-years away, it would have no reason to think there was anything special about the Earth unless it had been here already. No artifact of human technology, not even our radio transmissions, has had time, even travelling at the speed of light, to go 200 light-years. From their point of view, all nearby star systems are more or less equally attractive for exploration or colonization." ". . .A sphere two hundred light-years in radius contains 200,000 suns and perhaps a comparable number of worlds suitable for colonization. . ." Why the silence? We're just one little regarded blue-green world at the unfashionable end of a spiral arm in the Milky Way galaxy. /Bruce N. Wheelock/ arpanet: crash!bnw@ucsd uucp: {ihnp4, cbosgd, sdcsvax, noscvax}!crash!bnw