This site suggests using computer code to send basic (yeah, it’s a pun) information to extraterrestials.
(WARNING: POP UPS ON SITE)
How would we go about developing a “universal” code? How could we be reasonably sure ET would understand it? Is this a better way than the Pioneer record player? Is it a good idea to seek out new life, new civilizations in the first place?
I don’t realy have a position here, so it’s not a debate to me, but I didn’t think GQ was the forum either, as I’m asking for opinions.
Take any or all of the Qs, I’m keenly interested in hearing what You have to say.
There have been a couple of good attempts at this already; the problem is that there is absolutely no guarantee of any common frame of reference.
The best one I saw was a ‘self-unpacking’ series of pages; from the first one, you could infer that certain symbols represented numbers, on the next page, the number were arranged in such a way that the basic mathematical operators could be deduced, subsequent pages went on to talk about pi, hydrogen, and so on.
I had a go at decoding it myself (by just downloading the pages and not the comments; it is pretty intuitive.
In Sphere by Michael Chriton, a character described an conference where a scientist exhibited a signal designed to be understood as coming from intellegent life (the kind people want to send to aliens). No-one decoded it.
It sounds depressingly plausible. I mean we can hope … … … … … etc would convey “we’re intellegent, we’re not just a pulsar” but going to anything else without being able to point is going to be tricky
Oh, I dunno; the message I looked at actually got as far as describing Earth chemistry (all in terms that had been defined in previous pages, the definitions based on previous pages etc right back to basic numeric stuff at the start); it also introduced the concept of the variable or ‘unknown’ and the last page uses this symbol to ask some questions.
I’d great him with a 2X4. I don’t want an alien landing in my backyard.
But seriously, chemistry would seem to be the best solution (no pun intended) to an exchange of ideas. It is universal. Now making carbon atoms say hello… I’ll leave that feat to someone else.
This isn’t a very efficient means to communicate a lot of data a long distance, but I am impressed by the creativity that went into constructing the Pioneer plaque. At the top is a schematic depiction of the hyperfine transition of neutral hydrogen, a well-known phenomenon in astrophysics that produces radiation of a specific wavelength - 21 centimeters. If the line in the middle of the depiction is taken as 21 cm, then the two people and the drawing of the spacecraft are to scale. The map to the left makes use of pulsars, very precise astrophysical clocks which change predictably with time. The directions of 14 pulsars is given, as is their periods in binary (though this is hard to make out from that image). That’s enough information to determine not only where the sun is in our galaxy, but when the pulsar periods were determined. The diagram at the bottom shows the nine planets of our solar system, and their distance from the sun, in binary. Also, the probe is shown coming from the third planet. This is enough information for sophisticated aliens, from pretty much anywhere in the galaxy, to find Earth.
Yeah, Achernar, that was a feat of Sagan proportions. (I have his book about it.) But, that leads to my OP’s final question:
Should we be telling aliens how to find us?
I mean, look what almost every discovery of new cultures by the Old World led to. Virtual destruction of many cultures and even genocide. (Depends on how you view it, I know, I was in that horrible genocide thread.) How can we be so sure a slightly more advanced species won’t just overwhelm us culturally, or even eat us? (To Serve Man)
BTW, I still have the LP of Pioneer’s world greetings and music. (Came with the book)
Way too cool.
