The Personal Website of Mark W. Dawson

Containing His Articles, Observations, Thoughts, Meanderings,
and some would say Wisdom (and some would say not).

SETI and Vulcan

Are we alone in the universe? Are there advanced civilizations that we can detect? How can we better the odds of making contact? These questions are both fundamental and universal. Today’s generation is the first that has the science and technology to prove that there is other intelligence in the cosmos. The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute’s first project was to conduct a search for narrow-band radio transmissions that would betray the existence of technically competent beings elsewhere in the galaxy.

After decades of searching SETI and SETI@home has not discovered any signs of intelligent life. Is this because the search in incomplete and insufficiently expansive, or is it possible that there is no intelligent life that can be discovered?  In my Science article “Intelligent Life in the Universe” I discuss the issues of the possibilities of evolution of intelligent life.

A brief summary of this article is that the possibilities of intelligent life evolving in our Galaxy is somewhat small. It is also very possible that detecting intelligent life may not be possible as they would be at a different technological state than we are. Therefore, we may have a situation analogous to the Precession of the Perihelion of Mercury’s Orbit that occurred at the beginning of the 20th century.

Precession of the Perihelion of Mercury’s Orbit

A long-standing problem in the study of the Solar System was that the orbit of Mercury did not behave as required by Newton's equations. This problem became observable in the 18th and 19th century as advancements in telescopes and measuring instruments made it possible to accurately measure the precession. The problem is that as Mercury orbits the Sun it follows an ellipse...but only approximately. It was found that the point of closest approach of Mercury to the sun does not always occur at the same place in space, but that it slowly moves forward in Mercury’s orbit. This effect is known as precession. The anomalous rate of precession of the perihelion of Mercury's orbit was first recognized in 1859 as a problem in celestial mechanics.

The precession of the orbit is not peculiar to Mercury, all the planetary orbits precess. In fact, Newton's theory predicts these effects, as being produced by the gravitational attraction of the planets on one another. The precession of the orbits of all planets except for Mercury's can, in fact, be understood using Newton’s equations. But Mercury seemed to be an exception.

As seen from Earth the precession of Mercury's orbit is measured to be 5600 seconds of arc per century (one second of arc=1/3600 degrees). Newton's equations, taking into account all the gravitational effects from the other planets (as well as a very slight deformation of the sun due to its rotation) and the fact that the Earth is not an inertial frame of reference, predicts a precession of 5557 seconds of arc per century. But the actual measurements showed there is a discrepancy of 43 seconds of arc per century from Newton’s predictions.

This discrepancy cannot be accounted for using Newton's formalism. Many ad-hoc fixes were devised to explain this discrepancy. One explanation was that an undiscovered planet orbited between the Sun and Mercury, causing the perturbation of Mercury’s orbit which showed up as precession. The race was then on for astronomers to discover this planet. This supposed planet was even given the name “Vulcan”. A few astronomers actually claimed that they have discovered Vulcan, but it was determined that the discoveries were equipment anomaly’s, observational errors, or very small, long-duration sunspots. No astronomer ever discovered Vulcan for the simple fact that it did not exist.

When Einstein developed his Theory of General Relativity he applied it to the problem of Mercury’s Orbit. Einstein was able to predict, without any adjustments whatsoever, that the exact orbit of Mercury is correctly predicted by the General Theory of Relativity. When he did this Einstein realized that General Relativity was correct. However, he required an additional observation of phenomena that Newton’s Universal Gravitation had no allowance for in order to prove his General Relativity was correct. He found this in his prediction of the Deflection of Starlight.

SETI - Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence

Is the search for SETI as doomed as was the search for the planet Vulcan? And doomed because there is no intelligent life in our Galaxy at this time, or if there is intelligent life at this time it is in a different technological state than we are. These issues and other issues are examined in my articles “Intelligent Life in the Universe” and  "Science vs. Science-Fiction", and I would encourage you to read these articles. I believe that these questions and issues are fundamental questions that need to be answered before much more time and monies are spent on SETI. More thought and research need to be expended in answering these fundamental questions. Until this is done I do not expect much from, nor pay much attention to, SETI.

Disclaimer

Please Note - many academics, scientist and engineers would critique what I have written here as not accurate nor through. I freely acknowledge that these critiques are correct. It was not my intentions to be accurate or through, as I am not qualified to give an accurate nor through description. My intention was to be understandable to a layperson so that they can grasp the concepts. Academics, scientists, and engineers entire education and training is based on accuracy and thoroughness, and as such, they strive for this accuracy and thoroughness. I believe it is essential for all laypersons to grasp the concepts of this paper, so they make more informed decisions on those areas of human endeavors that deal with this subject. As such, I did not strive for accuracy and thoroughness, only understandability.

Most academics, scientist, and engineers when speaking or writing for the general public (and many science writers as well) strive to be understandable to the general public. However, they often fall short on the understandability because of their commitment to accuracy and thoroughness, as well as some audience awareness factors. Their two biggest problems are accuracy and the audience knowledge of the topic.

Accuracy is a problem because academics, scientist, engineers and science writers are loath to be inaccurate. This is because they want the audience to obtain the correct information, and the possible negative repercussions amongst their colleagues and the scientific community at large if they are inaccurate. However, because modern science is complex this accuracy can, and often, leads to confusion amongst the audience.

The audience knowledge of the topic is important as most modern science is complex, with its own words, terminology, and basic concepts the audience is unfamiliar with, or they misinterpret. The audience becomes confused (even while smiling and lauding the academics, scientists, engineers or science writer), and the audience does not achieve understandability. Many times, the academics, scientists, engineers or science writer utilizes the scientific disciplines own words, terminology, and basic concepts without realizing the audience misinterpretations, or has no comprehension of these items.

It is for this reason that I place understandability as the highest priority in my writing, and I am willing to sacrifice accuracy and thoroughness to achieve understandability. There are many books, websites, and videos available that are more accurate and through. The subchapter on “Further Readings” also contains books on various subjects that can provide more accurate and thorough information. I leave it to the reader to decide if they want more accurate or through information and to seek out these books, websites, and videos for this information.