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From: JoSH@RUTGERS.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.physics
Subject: I Love Lucy
Message-ID: <14468@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 9-Dec-83 15:57:21 EST
Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.14468
Posted: Fri Dec  9 15:57:21 1983
Date-Received: Tue, 13-Dec-83 05:47:02 EST
Lines: 20

From:  JoSH <JoSH@RUTGERS.ARPA>

One arguable limit to the life of the "I Love Lucy" episodes fleeing
outward into the universe is that at some point the signal becomes
just too weak to detect.  
Assume you are a radio-archeologist on a far world. You have an
antenna 1000 kilometers in diameter capable of detecting any single
photon falling anywhere on it. (all this for I Love Lucy...)
Assume you can reconstruct the show by detecting one photon per pixel
(ignore sound).
Assume ILL is transmitted at 50 MHZ with 50kW and radiates in a sphere.
Assume 600x400 pixels 60 frames/sec, ignore retrace, sync, etc.

Our radioarcheologist can only pick it up out to 8.4 lightyears.
(Somebody check my arithmetic or provide more reasonable assumptions.
 This seems to contradict the popular notion that all that radiated
 noise lasts forever and ever...)

--JoSH
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