H. Paul Shuch

Last updated
H. Paul Shuch Shuch.gif
H. Paul Shuch

H. Paul Shuch (born May 23, 1946) is an American scientist and engineer who has coordinated radio amateurs to help in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI).

Contents

Shuch, an aerospace engineer, microwave technologist, and radio amateur call sign N6TX, is believed by colleague Jack Unger to be the creator of the world's first commercial home satellite TV receiver. [1] [2] Recently a visiting professor at Lycoming College [3] and Heidelberg University of Applied Sciences, [4] Shuch continues to volunteer as the Executive Director Emeritus of The SETI League, Inc. [5] He has taught physics, astronomy, and engineering on various university campuses for over four decades. He is also active in science fiction fandom and filk music. [6]

Early life

Born Howard Paul Wakes in Chicago, Illinois, United States, Shuch later adopted the name of his stepfather, physicist Milton L. Shuch (12 Oct 1922–20 Jan 2014).

Shuch earned a Bachelor of Science in industrial technology from San Jose State University and a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. Shuch is a Vietnam War-era United States Air Force veteran and active instrument flight instructor. After his military career he worked as an engineer for several Silicon Valley aerospace companies before commencing his academic career. He founded Microcomm Consulting [7] in 1975, where in 1978 he designed and produced a commercial home satellite television receiver. [8] [9]

SETI activities

Shuch first learned about Search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), from Nicholas Marshall, W6OLO, a Hungarian engineer with whom he served on the Board of Project OSCAR, builders of the world's first non-Government satellite. Marshall introduced Shuch to longtime SETI proponent Bernard M. Oliver, then vice-president of Engineering at the Hewlett-Packard Company. Oliver in turn introduced Paul to SETI pioneers Frank Drake and Philip Morrison, who encouraged his continued interest and involvement in the development of SETI radio telescopes, as a spin-off from his design of early satellite TV receivers.

While in graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley, Shuch became acquainted with most of the members of the NASA SETI team in nearby Mountain View. Many SETI pioneers had been affiliated with Berkeley, either as faculty members, students, or postdoctoral researchers, and a SETI-friendly environment (some have called it a 'SETI cabal') persists there. Among Shuch's professors was the prominent radio astronomer William J. "Jack" Welch, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, who further encouraged Shuch's SETI activities. One of Shuch's classmates in Welch's radio telescope design course was Dan Werthimer, who went on to become chief scientist of the SETI@home distributed computing experiment.

When the NASA SETI program was cancelled by the United States Congress in 1993, New Jersey industrialist Richard Factor established the nonprofit, membership-supported SETI League, [10] which he invited Shuch to head. Shuch became the organization's first Executive Director, [11] a position he now holds on an emeritus basis. He designed the hardware and protocols for, and remains Principal Investigator on, the SETI League's Project Argus The SETI League, Inc.: Project Argus all-sky survey. [12] [13] [14]

Shuch is principal investigator for the Invitation to ETI [15] Invitation to ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence, a web-based SETI experiment initiated by his colleague, Allen Tough. Along with Ivan Almar of the Konkoly Observatory, Budapest, Shuch developed the San Marino Scale Wayback Machine, [16] an analytical tool for quantifying the significance of transmissions from Earth into Space. [17]

Honors and awards

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fermi paradox</span> Discrepancy between lack of evidence of advanced alien life and apparently high likelihood it exists

The Fermi paradox is the discrepancy between the lack of conclusive evidence of advanced extraterrestrial life and the apparently high likelihood of its existence. As a 2015 article put it, "If life is so easy, someone from somewhere must have come calling by now."

The search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) is a collective term for scientific searches for intelligent extraterrestrial life, for example, monitoring electromagnetic radiation for signs of transmissions from civilizations on other planets.

Extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI) refers to hypothetical intelligent extraterrestrial life. No such life has ever been observed to exist. The question of whether other inhabited worlds might exist has been debated since ancient times. The modern form of the concept emerged when the Copernican Revolution demonstrated that the Earth was a planet revolving around the Sun, and other planets were, conversely, other worlds. The question of whether other inhabited planets or moons exist was a natural consequence of this new understanding. It has become one of the most speculative questions in science and is a central theme of science fiction and popular culture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">SETI Institute</span> Not-for-profit research organization

The SETI Institute is a not-for-profit research organization incorporated in 1984 whose mission is to explore, understand, and explain the origin and nature of life in the universe, and to use this knowledge to inspire and guide present and future generations, sharing knowledge with the public, the press, and the government. SETI stands for the "search for extraterrestrial intelligence".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Bryan</span> American attorney and politician (born 1937)

Richard Hudson Bryan is a retired American politician and attorney who served as the 25th Governor of Nevada from 1983 to 1989 and as a United States Senator representing Nevada from 1989 until 2001. A Democrat, Bryan previously served as the state's attorney general and a member of the State Senate.

Xenoarchaeology, a branch of xenology dealing with extraterrestrial cultures, is a hypothetical form of archaeology that exists mainly in works of science fiction. The field is concerned with the study of the material remains to reconstruct and interpret past life-ways of alien civilizations. Xenoarchaeology is not currently practiced by mainstream archaeologists due to the current lack of any material for the discipline to study.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wow! signal</span> 1977 narrowband radio signal from SETI

The Wow! signal was a strong narrowband radio signal detected on August 15, 1977, by Ohio State University's Big Ear radio telescope in the United States, then used to support the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. The signal appeared to come from the direction of the constellation Sagittarius and bore expected hallmarks of extraterrestrial origin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Communication with extraterrestrial intelligence</span> Branch of SETI

The communication with extraterrestrial intelligence (CETI) is a branch of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) that focuses on composing and deciphering interstellar messages that theoretically could be understood by another technological civilization. The best-known CETI experiment of its kind was the 1974 Arecibo message composed by Frank Drake.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alexander Zaitsev (astronomer)</span> Russian astronomer (1945–2021)

Aleksandr Leonidovich Zaitsev was a Russian and Soviet radio engineer and astronomer from Fryazino. He worked on radar astronomy devices, near-Earth asteroid radar research, and SETI.

Astrolinguistics is a field of linguistics connected with the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI).

The San Marino Scale is a suggested scale for assessing risks associated with deliberate transmissions from Earth aimed to possible extraterrestrial intelligent life. The scale evaluates the significance of transmissions from Earth as a function of signal intensity and information content. The scale was suggested by Iván Almár at a conference in San Marino in 2005. The radio output of Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune is not considered in the model. The San Marino Scale was subsequently adopted by the SETI Permanent Study Group of the International Academy of Astronautics at its 2007 meeting in Hyderabad, India.

Active SETI is the attempt to send messages to intelligent extraterrestrial life. Active SETI messages are predominantly sent in the form of radio signals. Physical messages like that of the Pioneer plaque may also be considered an active SETI message. Active SETI is also known as METI.

Metalaw is “the entire sum of legal rules regulating relationships between different races in the universe.” It is a concept of space law closely related to the scientific Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). The idea is an elaboration of Immanuel Kant's Categorical imperative "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law."

A post-detection policy (PDP), also known as a post-detection protocol, is a set of structured rules, standards, guidelines, or actions that governmental or other organizational entities plan to follow for the "detection, analysis, verification, announcement, and response to" confirmed signals from extraterrestrial civilizations. Though no PDPs have been formally and openly adopted by any governmental entity, there is significant work being done by scientists and nongovernmental organizations to develop cohesive plans of action to utilize in the event of detection. The most popular and well known of these is the "Declaration of Principles Concerning Activities Following the Detection of Extraterrestrial Intelligence", which was developed by the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA), with the support of the International Institute of Space Law. The theories of PDPs constitute a distinct area of research but draw heavily from the fields of SETI, METI, and CETI.

The cultural impact of extraterrestrial contact is the corpus of changes to terrestrial science, technology, religion, politics, and ecosystems resulting from contact with an extraterrestrial civilization. This concept is closely related to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), which attempts to locate intelligent life as opposed to analyzing the implications of contact with that life.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Technosignature</span> Property that provides scientific evidence for the presence of technology

Technosignature or technomarker is any measurable property or effect that provides scientific evidence of past or present technology. Technosignatures are analogous to biosignatures, which signal the presence of life, whether intelligent or not. Some authors prefer to exclude radio transmissions from the definition, but such restrictive usage is not widespread. Jill Tarter has proposed that the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) be renamed "the search for technosignatures". Various types of technosignatures, such as radiation leakage from megascale astroengineering installations such as Dyson spheres, the light from an extraterrestrial ecumenopolis, or Shkadov thrusters with the power to alter the orbits of stars around the Galactic Center, may be detectable with hypertelescopes. Some examples of technosignatures are described in Paul Davies's 2010 book The Eerie Silence, although the terms "technosignature" and "technomarker" do not appear in the book.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Breakthrough Listen</span> Initiative to search for intelligent extraterrestrial life

Breakthrough Listen is a project to search for intelligent extraterrestrial communications in the Universe. With $100 million in funding and thousands of hours of dedicated telescope time on state-of-the-art facilities, it is the most comprehensive search for alien communications to date. The project began in January 2016, and is expected to continue for 10 years. It is a component of Yuri Milner's Breakthrough Initiatives program. The science program for Breakthrough Listen is based at Berkeley SETI Research Center, located in the Astronomy Department at the University of California, Berkeley.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Berkeley SETI Research Center</span>

The Berkeley SETI Research Center (BSRC) conducts experiments searching for optical and electromagnetic transmissions from intelligent extraterrestrial civilizations. The center is based at the University of California, Berkeley.

METI International, known simply as METI, is a non-profit research organization founded in July 2015 by Douglas Vakoch that creates and transmits interstellar messages to attempt to communicate with extraterrestrial civilizations. It is based in San Francisco, California.

The Rio scale was proposed in 2000 as a means of quantifying the significance of a SETI detection. The scale was designed by Iván Almár and Jill Tarter to help tell policy-makers how likely, from 0 to 10, it is that an extraterrestrial radio signal has been produced by an intelligent civilization.

References

  1. ↑ Ungar, Jack (2003). Deploying License-Free Wireless Wide-Area Networks. Cisco Press. pp. v. ISBN   1-58705-069-2 . Retrieved 2007-12-31.
  2. ↑ Birkill, Steve (1997). "RWT and the History of TVRO" . Retrieved 2008-03-22.
  3. ↑ "Contact Admissions". Archived from the original on 2007-07-13.
  4. ↑ "SRH Hochschule Heidelberg (Staatlich anerkannte Fachhochschule) | Bildung | Home Page". Archived from the original on 2008-03-10. Retrieved 2008-03-10. Heidelberg University of Applied Sciences
  5. ↑ Ph.D, H. Paul Shuch. "The SETI League: Searching for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence". www.setileague.org.
  6. ↑ "Dr. H. Paul Shuch - The Entertainer". The Columbus Optical SETI Observatory. Retrieved 2016-01-28. Besides presenting a paper at SPIE's OSETI II conference, Dr. H. Paul Shuch, Executive Director of The SETI League, entertained attendees as they gathered for the workshop session at the close of the conference. Here are just some of Paul's extensive repertoire of SETI filk songs.
  7. ↑ "Microcomm: Microwave Communications Innovation and Consultation since 1974". microcomm.net.
  8. ↑ Cooper, Robert B. (2006). Television's Pirates: Hiding Behind Your Picture Tube. Far North Cablevision, Limited. pp. 386–387. ISBN   0-9777980-0-3.
  9. ↑ Cooper, Robert B. (October 1982). "Coop on Basics: the TVRO Receiver". Coop's Satellite Digest: 8.
  10. ↑ Clark, Andrew J.H. and David H. (1999). Aliens: can we make contact with extraterrestrial intelligence?. Fromm International. pp.  85. ISBN   0-88064-233-5.
  11. ↑ Chown, Marcus (19 April 1997). "The Alien Spotters". New Scientist: 28. Retrieved 2008-04-13.
  12. ↑ Shostak, Seth (1998). Sharing the Universe. Berkeley Hills Books. pp.  168. ISBN   0-9653774-3-1.
  13. ↑ Clark, Stuart (2000). Life on Other Worlds and How to Find It. Springer Praxis. pp.  138. ISBN   185233097X.
  14. ↑ Darling, David. "Internet Encyclopedia of Science" . Retrieved 2008-05-01.
  15. ↑ Feedback (18 December 2004). "ET on the Internet". New Scientist: 76. Retrieved 2008-04-13.
  16. ↑ Hecht, Jeff; Paulshuch, H (24 October 2006). "The San Marino Scale: A new analytical tool for assessing transmission risk". Acta Astronautica. 60 (1): 57–59. Bibcode:2007AcAau..60...57A. doi:10.1016/j.actaastro.2006.04.012.
  17. ↑ Almar, Ivan, "Shouting in the jungle: the SETI transmission debate." Journal of the British Interplanetary Society 60(4):142-146, April 2007
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.