60 years of silence - so far

[bilby]

A way to do it is put a shutter up in space to block the sun. Fash on off keying sending 314159.

Handy that the aliens use base 10.

 

[thebeave]

A way to do it is put a shutter up in space to block the sun. Fash on off keying sending 314159.

That should fix global warming too!

Hardly. Think about all the trees that would have to be cut down to make the plywood for that ginormous shutter. That'd be like all the trees in the Brazilian rain forest...and then some!

 

[steve_bank]

Counting would be the foundation of math with any technological civilization.

--- - ---- - ----- --------- 314159

Any technological civilization would see it. Even with radio transmission to say 'we are here' the best thing would be common constants in on off integers. Morse Code is on off keying.

The transmitter is also a lot simpler.

Thin plastic film would work. Powered by solar cells.

Maybe I will write a proposal for a Phase 1 grant, The Space Shutter. I should copyright that. HeeHee

 

[bilby]

Counting would be the foundation of math with any technological civilization.

--- - ---- - ----- --------- 314159

But base 10 wouldn't be.

--- - - --- ------- ----- ----- 31103755

Pi, in base 8.

Of course, even aliens who by pure coincidence use base ten might be looking for Tau: 6.28318...

Your assumptions are not laws of nature. The choice of base 10 for the most common mathematical convention is almost certainly not universal.

Binary would be a better choice. But runs the risk of just looking like noise.

Indeed, if you broadcast pi in any number base, it's going to be indistinguishable from random noise, if the alien audience misses the start.

Irrational numbers aren't the rational place to start with interstellar communication to an unknown alien audience.

 

[pood]

We probably use base ten because we have ten fingers and started counting with our fingers. Got to doubt that aliens are going to have ten fingers or even tententacles.

 

[pood]

I think I linked this book chapter before in another context, but it’s well worth a read for this thread. In it, the author argues that we and intelligent aliens might have no basis of communication at all, including mathematics: Undeterminism II.

 

[steve_bank]

Can an ET develop our kind of technology and science without understanding or having the same math?

Would they have the equivalent of Newton's Laws and Laws Of Thermdynamics? I'd say yes.

That would include different number bases. High school math for us humans.

We detect a potential ET signal. Is it natural? Is it periodic, does it repeat?

Counting is counting regardless of base.

Count a pile of 10 rocks and the the quantity would be percieved the same regardless of base. If ET counts regardless of the number of fingers they would see PI in their number system.

 

[Shadowy Man]

Counting is counting regardless of base.

Count a pile of 10 rocks and the the quantity would be percieved the same regardless of base. If ET counts regardless of the number of fingers they would see PI in their number system.

or primes (like Contact) or the Fibonacci sequence.

 

[pood]

Not too sure about any of ths. There is a surprising amount of literature on this subject that questions all these assumptions, such as whether aliens would even notice primes and ways in which even their arithmetic could differ from ours.

 

[steve_bank]

Of course it is all speculation.


If ET can receive a radio signal to begin with infers math and science. Unless you imagine an ET that can collectively develop theory and technology without a symbolic way to quantify variables. Hard to imagine for me.


On a planett there s a line of piles of rocks quantities 3,1,4,1,5,9.

Counting is essential.

Capatain Kirk sees it and says 'Unless I am mistaken Spock that is a representation of PI.'

An ET sees it and sees PI in terms of its language and math.

 

[TomC]

I remember reading a story as a kid about an advanced alien civilization. They'd long since overcome details like the speed of light and language issues.

They formed opinions about us humans based on our transmissions from the 30's through WWII and the 50's.

They put a zone of silence around our solar system. If we're still around in a few thousand years, they might peek in.
Tom

 

[Loren Pechtel]

A way to do it is put a shutter up in space to block the sun. Fash on off keying sending 314159.

You wouldn't even need to encode a message--a star flashing on and off would itself be enough to recognize that it was at least close to being a level 2 civilization. (Since you have only one vantage point you can't tell if the structure is merely on the order of a million miles across or truly star-enclosing. The former doesn't imply level 2, but if they can build a big light gate merely to send a message they have to be pretty close.)

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Are there other ways to detect advanced civilizations?

I know there's been some discussion of how a Dyson-like structure might appear to us, spectroscopically speaking.

Unless they can throw out physics it's going to be a planetary-orbit-scale object glowing at something like terrestrial temperatures. There's nothing remotely like that in nature because no such free-standing structure could support itself. Thus it either requires physics we have no idea exist (we can check the bond strength of every atom out there and set a theoretical max for chemistry-based material strength) or active support of some kind (say, masses spinning at above orbital velocity, thus exerting an outward force to counter the star's gravity.)

(Yes, you can build a Ringworld without unobtainium. The whole thing is sitting on a stationary base that's several times as massive as the Ringworld itself. And while you can't build the walls you don't actually need walls, merely the height of the walls. It could be done by having the terrain gradually climb and the base underneath likewise climbing. I haven't attempted to figure out the forces involved but it seems to me that the required compressive strength goes down as the angle goes down, thus saying the question simply becomes how small the angle must be. The stability problem remains, though--solid rings have negative stability whether made from unobtaininum or cotton candy.)

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Can an ET develop our kind of technology and science without understanding or having the same math?

Would they have the equivalent of Newton's Laws and Laws Of Thermdynamics? I'd say yes.

That would include different number bases. High school math for us humans.

We detect a potential ET signal. Is it natural? Is it periodic, does it repeat?

Counting is counting regardless of base.

Count a pile of 10 rocks and the the quantity would be percieved the same regardless of base. If ET counts regardless of the number of fingers they would see PI in their number system.

10 rocks is 10 rocks to any ET.

However, Pi is dependent on the number system.

Simple illustration: Let's look at base 10 vs base 12.

10: 10/3 = 3.333333
12: 10/3 = 4

I do not believe changing the number base will change any of the fundamental laws but it will change the constants in those equations.

 

[pood]

I’

Of course it is all speculation.


If ET can receive a radio signal to begin with infers math and science. Unless you imagine an ET that can collectively develop theory and technology without a symbolic way to quantify variables. Hard to imagine for me.


On a planett there s a line of piles of rocks quantities 3,1,4,1,5,9.

Counting is essential.

Capatain Kirk sees it and says 'Unless I am mistaken Spock that is a representation of PI.'

An ET sees it and sees PI in terms of its language and math.

I’m wondering if you or anyone has yet read the book chaper I linked that discusses this issue.

It seems to me our counting and numbers and arithmetic come from the discreteness we perceive in nature, including discreteness in ourselves as separate individuals. What kind of maths would a nondiscrete intelligence like the worldwide intelligent ocean posited in Stanislav Len’s novel Solaris do? In that work, all attempts to communicate with the ocean failed. We get pi from our work with circles. What if aliens did not construct or even perceive circles because of a different sensory/cognitive apparaturs from ours, while perceiving other structures we cannot dimly guess at? Is math Platonic or entirely invented in accordance with our own particular senory./cognitive structure? Many other such questions may occur.

 

[steve_bank]

Unless you want to invoke a scifi scenario technology and science requires math. Names and math symbology would be different but results would be the same. For example calculating how to land a probe on a moon.

If ET has radio than it is logical to assume they would be thinking in similar ways as us on how compunction might be accomplished.

Pood, Even when my eyesight was better I would nothave read that sort of stuff. It never interested me.

 

[pood]

Unless you want to invoke a scifi scenario technology and science requires math. Names and math symbology would be different but results would be the same. For example calculating how to land a probe on a moon.

If ET has radio than it is logical to assume they would be thinking in similar ways as us on how compunction might be accomplished.

Pood, Even when my eyesight was better I would nothave read that sort of stuff. It never interested me.

What sort of stuff? Solaris? The point here isn‘t to assume that there are sentient worldwide oceans, though for all we know maybe there could be. It’s to point out that while aliens may be intelligent, their perceptual/cognitive structure may differ from ours radically, leading to entirely different maths. The maths that describe relativity and quantum physics would have been gobbledeygook to people even 150 years ago. What other physics may aliens know about that we don’t, such that their maths may be incomprehensible to us? We used to think that Euclidean geometry described the real world but it does not. Consider the example of intelligent aliens who do not construct or perceive circles, while perhaps perceiving and constructing other geometrical abstractions to which we are cognitively closed. Pi would mean nothing to them, and what they measure and describe would mean nothing to us. Are you so sure these are impossibilities? I am not. Maybe you think our sort of maths are necessary to build high technology, but I think that’s an assumption that may not be true.

 

[steve_bank]

I don't put anyone on a pedestal and I do not accept authority by title or authority.

Scholarly speculation on ET is just that, speculation. An interesting subject but outside the forum I was never interested in that kind of 'stuff'. What interested me was hard science and how things worked, that kind of stuff.

I would argue that any ET that has the equivalent of our science and technology would necessarily have the same principles of logic and math. Along with that would be speculation of life esewhere and speculation.

Or an ET could develop technology and never think about about going off world and about other life.

On a problem like this I would go to a white board and work out all te poosibilites and combinations. Enumerate the possibilities.

The civilizations in the Americas never developed science, math, and technology on a par with Europe, Mid East, Rome, and elsewhere.

Incas and Mayas had high civilizations. Civil engineering on a par with Rome. But they never developed something as basic as the wheel to any great extent.

Pre CE China had water powered stamping machines, mass manufacturing of parts.


It is probably not a given that any ET that has the capacity to develop science as we have will do so.

 

[lpetrich]

ch5.4

Eavesdropping Mode and Radio Leakage from Earth

WOODRUFF T. SULLIVAN III

[377] Earth is even now advertising itself splendidly to the Universe. We cannot know whether the first artificial nonhuman signal detected would place us in the role of intended recipient or of eavesdropper, but in our explorations we should allow for both possibilities.

Then going into a lot of detail about the visibility of analog TV broadcasts. These broadcasts have a strong carrier-wave signal, strong because this signal serves as the frequency reference for the broadcast. At different frequencies relative to the carrier frequency are the three color signals, as AM (amplitude modulation), and the sound signal, as FM (frequency modulation). he video signals in them have horizontal and vertical synchronization signals in them.

TV broadcasts were first grayscale, with color later hacked on by adding two chroma signals, differences between the color-channel signals. For color TV, the TV electronics composes the three color-channel values from these signals.

 Analog television

These details would be VERY hard to observe over interstellar space. One would need a planet-sized antenna, one whose surface area is around the Earth's cross-section area, and that's for being relatively close to the Solar System.

But in the outer Solar System, like in the Kuiper Belt, it would be much easier.

 

[pood]

ch5.4

Eavesdropping Mode and Radio Leakage from Earth

WOODRUFF T. SULLIVAN III

[377] Earth is even now advertising itself splendidly to the Universe. We cannot know whether the first artificial nonhuman signal detected would place us in the role of intended recipient or of eavesdropper, but in our explorations we should allow for both possibilities.

Then going into a lot of detail about the visibility of analog TV broadcasts. These broadcasts have a strong carrier-wave signal, strong because this signal serves as the frequency reference for the broadcast. At different frequencies relative to the carrier frequency are the three color signals, as AM (amplitude modulation), and the sound signal, as FM (frequency modulation). he video signals in them have horizontal and vertical synchronization signals in them.

TV broadcasts were first grayscale, with color later hacked on by adding two chroma signals, differences between the color-channel signals. For color TV, the TV electronics composes the three color-channel values from these signals.

 Analog television

These details would be VERY hard to observe over interstellar space. One would need a planet-sized antenna, one whose surface area is around the Earth's cross-section area, and that's for being relatively close to the Solar System.

But in the outer Solar System, like in the Kuiper Belt, it would be much easier.

I keep constantly reading about how our TV programs from the fifties are already some 70 light years out, and therefore aliens within that range could right now be tuning into I Love Lucy and wondering what the hell Ricky and Lucy are on about, why they are wearing such funny constumes, and why they have two arms and two legs instead of good old 20 tentacles. Whenever I read this stuff I wonder what the writers are thinking (or drinking), because as you say the signal that far out would be far too weak to pick up except with a ginormous antenna as you describe.