If that's so, then it would seem to me truly amazing to have not picked up even a radio or electromagnetic signal that implies intelligence out there- If there is life elsewhere out there, are we on the leading edge of it's development?
That's a good question, about which a lot has been written. I can't adequately even summarize what's been said, but my own favored hypothesis is that radio may not remain a method of transmission for very long, such that you'd be incredibly lucky to discover broadcasts. We've only been looking for fifty years, and if a civilization (on average) uses it for two hundred years, then the overlap is so small as to be highly unlikely to be fruitful.
But there are many other good answers, which it's worth considering. We may not be very good at looking; or we may not be looking for the right things; or there may be other obstacles, such as those created by the vast distances and unknown forces in the deep beyond the heliosphere.
You could certainly be right, but I don't see anything that can replace some form of electro-magnetic radiation as long range communication device, and any civilization developed enough to have developed radio would have some form of wavelength transmission in some range of the ELM spectrum that they would use, unless they've advanced to some kind of quantum 'two-places at once' type long range communication, but I think that creates a reasonably large window. Then again, 'reasonably large' can look pretty small in the context of a few billion years...
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If that's so, then it would seem to me truly amazing to have not picked up even a radio or electromagnetic signal that implies intelligence out there- If there is life elsewhere out there, are we on the leading edge of it's development?
That's a good question, about which a lot has been written. I can't adequately even summarize what's been said, but my own favored hypothesis is that radio may not remain a method of transmission for very long, such that you'd be incredibly lucky to discover broadcasts. We've only been looking for fifty years, and if a civilization (on average) uses it for two hundred years, then the overlap is so small as to be highly unlikely to be fruitful.
But there are many other good answers, which it's worth considering. We may not be very good at looking; or we may not be looking for the right things; or there may be other obstacles, such as those created by the vast distances and unknown forces in the deep beyond the heliosphere.
You could certainly be right, but I don't see anything that can replace some form of electro-magnetic radiation as long range communication device, and any civilization developed enough to have developed radio would have some form of wavelength transmission in some range of the ELM spectrum that they would use, unless they've advanced to some kind of quantum 'two-places at once' type long range communication, but I think that creates a reasonably large window. Then again, 'reasonably large' can look pretty small in the context of a few billion years...
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