(Color added by me.)
The misdirection being introduced here is moronic. 13 in base 5 is not the same thing as 13. As you’ve used it, 13 means 13 in base 10 not 13 in base 5. Is that inept sleight of hand intentional?
I think we are in a position that an group of native americans might find themselves in-if they spotted smoke signals from a distant mountain range: we don’t know what the signals mean-and by the time we replied, whoever sent them may well have moved on. My guess is; if the universe is paked with intelligent life forms, we ought to pick up something. Or, (as i suspect) intelligent life stops using narrowband radio after a short time, we are unlikely to receive anything.
That’s the whole point of my post. 13 in base 5 is not the same thing as 13 in base 10. One is prime, the other is not. Sheesh.
Got it.
Your point is that X is the the same thing as X. Y is prime; X is not. Your point is moronic misdirection that does not address the original question.
When SETI began (and I’m including all incarnations of SETI as well as SETI@home), it seemed like it was just a matter of time before all the data was processed and filtered and we found intelligent signals somewhere. But the longer this takes without such a discovery, the more remote it seems that there are any such signals to be had anywhere.
A little like the hunt for Bigfoot. As more and more data is collected and time passes, the evidence for Bigfoot’s existance is not getting stronger. Just the opposite, and although we can never conclusively prove BF doesn’t exist, the odds are getting poorer.
Maybe not the best analogy, since I personally believe the chances of Bigfoot’s existance are less than an alien civilization. But they are both diminishing to near-zero.
I’ll try to make things simple for you, since you seem to be having a hard time:
Which of the following numbers are prime?
11, 13, 17
I’ll answer that when you tell me which of the following numbers are prime:
x, y, z
The problem is, you don’t actually know what numbers I’m asking about, so you can’t answer me. And I don’t actually know what numbers you’re asking about, so I can’t answer you, either. If you mean the numbers 11[sub]dec[/sub], 13[sub]dec[/sub], and 17[sub]dec[/sub], then all of them are prime. But if you mean 11[sub]quint[/sub], 13[sub]quint[/sub], and 17[sub]quint[/sub], then none of them are prime. But those are completely different numbers. If you wanted to be really clear what numbers you’re asking about, you could represent them as a bunch of asterices, and then I could also tell you which are prime.
In everyday usage those numerals represent values expressed in base 10. To be specific, 11[sub]10[/sub], 13[sub]10[/sub], 17[sub]10[/sub] are all numeral representations of prime values. Is there a reason you did not specify a base? Yes, I suspect there is. Now, as to your difficulty… Why do you contend that two things that are not the same thing qualify as one thing? You have already conceded that…
…and yet you insist that those two things apply to the original challenge to identify one thing, namely…
(emphasis added) Was your original response merely a sophomoric joke carried too far? Just say so. But if you want to continue equivocating between numerals and values, I suggest you find some scholarly support for your position.
Can it really be this complicated?
13 is not a number. It is a REPRESENTATION of a number. 13 is a way to represent a collection of objects that are this many:
Now, I can call that number “Bob”, or 1101, or XIII, or D, or 15, or Ξ , or thirteen, or whatever. It doesn’t matter how I represent that number, that number is still the same number of objects. The number doesn’t change whether I call it Bob or 13.
Are you with me so far? So, it doesn’t matter how you represent the number of objects that is this many: *************, that number will always be prime. You cannot factor ************* into any whole number except ************* and *. This characteristic of numbers doesn’t change no matter how you represent the number.
So a number is either prime or it isn’t prime, regardless of how you represent it. This is as silly as representing ************* as “black angus beef”, and then claiming that since black angus beef is prime beef, ************* must be prime.
This is it. If our detection technology is such that we couldn’t detect something we could easily identify coming from our backyard, what are the chances of us detecting an alien signal from all around the universe?
And if we are not sending anything out, why do we expect aliens to be doing the same?
to aguirre, I think that the problem is that you expect 13 to come to us as * *** and then we won’t know what base that is supposed to be in. If the aliens are smart, they will send it as ************ and hope we can count.
- *** is a smart way of representing numbers and it saves us a lot of heartache when it comes to doing basic arithmetic, but it is not the way to communicate with aliens.
Huh. I guess it’s extra difficult doing math when your drifting boat is covered in monkeys.
Thanks Sapo, I thought no one had read my email exchange with the SETI institute. Which (that email exchange) really opened my eyes about the current effort. It seems as if there is a double-standard being used and it seems kind of stupid.
Really? How can you possibily say that now? We’re but a speck of sand, bumbling around in the darkness. Maybe you could say that if we were somehow able to extend our presence into the whole galaxy and we didn’t find anything. And the next galaxy. And so on, many billions of times…
If the universe is infinite, there is probably a planet full of bigfoots somewhere.
Exactly.
Well, really, how dare you try to hijack this thread about remedial math with your SETI stuff? (someone else had already noticed your mail exchange, I believe).
At any rate, I can imagine someone trying to pass an initiative to broadcast a message out and be met with the stereotypical paranoia of “How do we know they won’t come and invade us? We need to find them first and learn their ways before we make contact”
What would our transmission be? Just a long sequence of primes and leave it as a beacon for “them” to know we are here? (that is what I would support, btw) All kinds of data about us and where we are?.
Yeah, I appreciated his posting of it because it answered my question in post #24. Considering the Milky Way is approximately 100,000 light years wide, our difficulty in detecting a clone earth beyond 30-50 light years is rather humbling. That’s practically a rounding error!
So we’re pretty much in the dark unless someone out there tries really hard to send a message to our corner of space.
Another thing to consider is that, even on Earth, we’re moving towards cables and fiber optic or forms of radio which don’t go out very far.
An interesting fact to me is the (apparent) lack of Von Neumann or Bracewell probes. Or just the fact that it doesn’t seem like there’s a bustling galactic empire…the galaxy is so old, even if it took tens of millions of years, there’s plenty of time for an intelligence to spread out. That has to mean something.
That’s already happened, I’m afraid. The most famous is probably the Acrecibo message. Don’t worry, the aliens who will get it are really far away (25,000 light years, according to the article).
This is another decent Wiki page chronicling other messages we’ve sent out. A curious thing are the Voyager plates and other messages that have sound and music – it’s interesting, but also a little chauvinistic I think, presuming an alien entity would have a hearing system similar to ours, or even a proclivity towards music.
I can’t imagine a human scientist receiving the Arecibo message and making any sense of it. Imagine an alien life form.
As for the Voyager plates, if I were an alien species and received them I would assume that the species who sent that is already extinct at their own hands (what kind of a species sends porn into space as a calling card, anyways!) 
We should be sending hundreds of probes flying perpendicular to the plane of the galaxy pulsing prime numbers at all different rates over all different frequencies. (and make them useful by making them telescopes and radioing back to Earth, of course)
Even if we never find any alien civilizations with SETI, in my non-astronomer opinion SETI is acquiring a background picture of the universe at different radio wavelengths.
I suspect that the “SETI Catalog” of radio objects, and of the radio background, will become useful in unexpected ways, as did the star catalogs of the past.
I don’t know why SETI people don’t include this line of reasoning in their pitch. Either it’s too geeky, or I’m dead wrong. Or both!