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here can’t be many more quoted people from the
20th century,even though his question ‘Are we
alone in the universe?’ isn’t oneof his most well
known.Forwhile this individual is regarded as one
of the world’sforemost statesmen, his role as a
scientific thinker is less well appreciated. This was the titleof
arecently discovered and unpublished essaythat was written
on the eveofW orld WarII. Its author was Winston Churchill.
Speculation about intelligent lifeelsewhere in the universe
can be traced back centuries and millennia. But while muchof
the early debatewas philosophical or theological in nature,
Churchill’s paper was written at the time when the subject
was just startingto be addressedby the scientific community.
It would be several more decades before technology that
might answer that question would becomeavailable,but such
technology is now driving SETI, the SearchforExtraterrestrial
Intelligence.Here we takealook at the computer and
communicationstechnologies that are fuelling the search,
and tryto come to aconclusion on whether it might succeed.
MIKE BEDFORD
TACKLESONE OF THE
MOST PERPLEXING
QUESTIONSOFA LL TIME
ASHE DELVES INTO THE
TECH NOLOGY INVOLVED
IN THESEARCHFOR
EXTRATERRESTRIAL
INTELLIGENCE
