

It doesn’t HAVE to be that intelligent life is its own doom, but it does seem increasingly likely.
It doesn’t HAVE to be that intelligent life is its own doom, but it does seem increasingly likely.
In his essay “To Tell a Chemist” (1965), Asimov proposed a simple shibboleth for distinguishing chemists from non-chemists: ask the person to read the word “unionized”. Chemists, he noted, will read un-ionized (electrically neutral), while non-chemists will read union-ized (belonging to a trade union).
Breakthrough Starshot project is working towards accelerating a probe close to 20% of C. That’s a significant fraction of C in these terms.
Even if we could get to .25 C, that would be 80 years for the probe to get there, and then 20 more for the data to come back.
But yes, that is still VERY close.
Isaac Asimov is considered one of the greats of 20th century science fiction. Again, while most famous for writing science fiction he wrote much more than just that.
Isaac Asimov has won scores of Hugo Awards for stories and for Best Editor; dozens of Nebula Awards; several World Fantasy Awards; over a dozen Theodore Sturgeon Awards and Homer Awards; and multiple Sidewise Awards1. He has won Hugo Awards for Best Related Work, Best Novelette, and Best Editor.
He wrote 40 novels and a lot of short stories, and is a great read almost always. He also wrote textbooks because he was just amazing.
Interesting read. Thank you.
Did some checking, out of curiosity.
And yeah. Interesting as hell.
We recorded 65 dBSPL (dB of sound pressure level) ultrasonic sounds 4 inches (10 cm) from tomato and tobacco plants, implying that these sounds could be detected by some organisms from up to several feet (meters) away.
https://www.sci.news/biology/plants-ultrasonic-clicks-07895.html
If you don’t test for it, it WILL rear its ugly head again.