The Silence of the Universe is Significant

Geoff Marcy, the University of California at Berkeley astronomer who has found scores of exoplanets, and who has diligently searched for signs of anything artificial in the data, says the silence is significant: “If our Milky Way Galaxy were teeming with thousands of advanced civilizations, as depicted in science-fiction books and movies, we would already know about them. They would be sending probes to thousands of nearby stars. They would have a galactic Internet composed of laser beams at various wavelengths shooting in all directions, like a museum security system. They would reveal enormous infrared waste heat from their vast energy usage.”

Notes:

The fact that we can't detect anything out there means there may be nothing to detect.

Folksonomies: extraterrestrial life

Taxonomies:
/technology and computing/software/databases (0.649943)
/business and industrial/energy/electricity (0.590104)
/technology and computing/internet technology/email (0.210749)

Keywords:
enormous infrared waste (0.984240 (negative:-0.417605)), vast energy usage (0.948319 (negative:-0.417605)), Significant The fact (0.739007 (neutral:0.000000)), Geoff Marcy (0.727448 (positive:0.381500)), Berkeley astronomer (0.679459 (neutral:0.000000)), Milky Way (0.668641 (positive:0.323017)), science-fiction books (0.655297 (positive:0.544880)), advanced civilizations (0.649149 (positive:0.323017)), various wavelengths (0.642380 (neutral:0.000000)), galactic Internet (0.620756 (neutral:0.000000)), nearby stars (0.619975 (neutral:0.000000)), laser beams (0.609723 (neutral:0.000000)), museum security (0.572682 (neutral:0.000000)), silence (0.482962 (positive:0.309622)), thousands (0.399804 (positive:0.323017)), exoplanets (0.362758 (neutral:0.000000)), probes (0.302786 (neutral:0.000000)), Galaxy (0.289611 (positive:0.323017)), Universe (0.273122 (neutral:0.000000)), University (0.266773 (neutral:0.000000)), California (0.266669 (neutral:0.000000)), scores (0.266304 (neutral:0.000000)), signs (0.265783 (neutral:0.000000)), data (0.265470 (neutral:0.000000)), movies (0.264010 (positive:0.544880))

Entities:
Geoff Marcy:Person (0.848137 (positive:0.381500)), Milky Way:FieldTerminology (0.702698 (positive:0.323017)), University of California:Organization (0.554287 (neutral:0.000000)), Berkeley:City (0.545425 (neutral:0.000000))

Concepts:
Star (0.965281): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Solar System (0.944148): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Milky Way (0.938484): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc | yago
Galaxy (0.856722): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Planet (0.801959): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Sun (0.764273): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Redshift (0.744933): dbpedia | freebase
Universe (0.669674): dbpedia | freebase

 Why Carl Sagan is Truly Irreplaceable
Periodicals>Magazine Article:  Achenbach, Joel (March 2014), Why Carl Sagan is Truly Irreplaceable, Smithsonian Magazine, Retrieved on 2014-03-03
  • Source Material [www.smithsonianmag.com]
  • Folksonomies: science science popularization