• Nougat
    link
    fedilink
    228 months ago

    Don’t forget the inverse square law. Even without a change in medium or any obstacles, the strength of the signal decrease over distance until it is undetectable.

    This is also why there are no extraterrestrial civilizations hearing any radio broadcasts from Earth. Our transmitters are so weak that any signals we send out fade into the CMB before they get any real distance.

      • Nougat
        link
        fedilink
        58 months ago

        They would not have been able to watch it from an original OTA broadcast, no.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          English
          28 months ago

          They’ve probably just got a spy satellite around earth that transmits back. Or maybe an extremely directional antenna / receiver dish would work, since they’re focused on Earth specifically.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      108 months ago

      You area conflating auditory waves with radio waves.

      These are very much not the same thing. Sound waves require a medium while radio waves do not.

      Radio waves travel vast distances through space while sound doesn’t travel at all.

      • Nougat
        link
        fedilink
        28 months ago

        Space is a medium, as exemplified by the fact that light curves around massive objects, because the space is curved.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          English
          108 months ago

          Space isn’t a medium because mediums have privileged frames of reference.

          You’re talking about spacetime which is a field, not a medium.

          • Nougat
            link
            fedilink
            18 months ago

            So you’re saying that light can travel through not-space?

            • @[email protected]
              link
              fedilink
              English
              58 months ago

              Light is also not “stuff” - it’s electromagnetic radiation. It’s by the unprivileged intertial frame of reference that we define the speed of light. Light’s speed is the speed at which it travels unimpeded through the spacetime “field”. Additionally light does not accelerate or change speed in any way while traveling in that frame.

              Unless you’re asking if light travels through things that are not the field known as the spacetime continuum in which case yes: light travels (and changes speed) through all sorts of materials. Like glass.

              • Nougat
                link
                fedilink
                18 months ago

                Don’t materials also need to exist in space?

    • Rhaedas
      link
      fedilink
      68 months ago

      If they didn’t fade with distance, this is as far as they have gotten. So for now we are still quiet in the dark forest.

    • Boomer Humor Doomergod
      link
      fedilink
      English
      48 months ago

      If we had FTL I’d be a radio archaeologist, flying out to various distances to attempt to capture lost episodes of old TV shows like Doctor Who