Jump to content

What would be a message to send to extraterrestrials?

KAL 9000

By KAL 9000
in Science & Spaceflight

 Share

Recommended Posts

RainDreamer

RainDreamer

Posted
Posted

I remember a saying something similar to this: If you want people to leave you alone, either you have to be so powerful that it intimidates others, or you have to be so ******** insane that no one want to deal with you. If we can't do the first one and ensure we don't get an invasion, maybe we could do the second one.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
p1t1o

p1t1o

Posted
Posted (edited)

The classics are the best:

2,5,7,9,11,13,17,19,23 etc.  **edit: 2,3,5,7,11,13,17...etc...  [DOH!]

And/Or:

1,4,7,9,11,12,14,16,19,20,23 etc. (atomic weight of the elements, add as many decimal places as you feel is right)

 

It basically would translate as: "Hello, we are sentient and communicative, are you?"

But I would advise caution in inviting beings millennia more advanced to come over for dinner, they might see us as something akin to a pest infestation and just wipe us out in the same way we might "wipe out" an ant nest.

Edited by p1t1o
remove retardation
Link to comment
Share on other sites
p1t1o

p1t1o

Posted
Posted (edited)
10 minutes ago, RainDreamer said:

I remember a saying something similar to this: If you want people to leave you alone, either you have to be so powerful that it intimidates others, or you have to be so ******** insane that no one want to deal with you. If we can't do the first one and ensure we don't get an invasion, maybe we could do the second one.

Hehehe! Perhaps that is one solution to the Fermi paradox - they've seen what we like to watch on TV and are staying the godda*&^ the heck away from us.

In the same way that you might cross to the other side of the road when  confronted with a dribbling, randomly shouting kardashian.

**edit**

I'd say we definitely want to keep our location a secret, but otherwise we should try to be friendly and establish a constructive dialogue.

Greg Bear's "Forge of God" and "Anvil of Stars" are a pretty good treatment of this.

Edited by p1t1o
Link to comment
Share on other sites
PB666

PB666

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, KAL 9000 said:

What do you think the best message to send to extraterrestrials (that they could understand) would be?

Major outbreak of the transxenobiotic insanity virus, stay away, no cure. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Aethon

Aethon

Posted
Posted (edited)
3 hours ago, p1t1o said:

 

2,5,7,9,11,13,17,19,23 etc.

 

It would sure be a disappointment if the penultimate moment comes, we finally receive communication from another space intelligence, and the message turns out to be something we all learned in first grade.

Edited by Aethon
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Darnok

Darnok

Posted
Posted
7 hours ago, p1t1o said:

The classics are the best:

2,5,7,9,11,13,17,19,23 etc.

And/Or:

1,4,7,9,11,12,14,16,19,20,23 etc. (atomic weight of the elements, add as many decimal places as you feel is right)

 

It basically would translate as: "Hello, we are sentient and communicative, are you?"

But I would advise caution in inviting beings millennia more advanced to come over for dinner, they might see us as something akin to a pest infestation and just wipe us out in the same way we might "wipe out" an ant nest.

What if they don't use 10 based system?

What if they didn't had Mendeleev on their planet and they have very different table, for example both elements and their isotopes in single table?

Also how would you want to send this message? Golden disks like those on Voyager?

 

I would send this

zcQzrsW.png

only simplyfied, removed axis and only 1 as diameter and 10 as circumference, without labels of course ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites
fredinno

fredinno

Posted
Posted
23 minutes ago, Aethon said:

Send the entire internet.  Google servers, Wikipedia.. There's enough redundancy built in they'll figure it out.

Then they'd realize the horrors of Humanity, and decide to turn away for a less inhabited planet, scarred for life....:P

Link to comment
Share on other sites
p1t1o

p1t1o

Posted
Posted (edited)
9 hours ago, Darnok said:

What if they don't use 10 based system?

What if they didn't had Mendeleev on their planet and they have very different table, for example both elements and their isotopes in single table?

What if they dont use a 10 base system? A better question is "What if they can't understand base-10?"

And the answer would be, well they probably aren't that intelligent and so won't be answering at all.

 

Primes are primes no matter what, they should be recognised as special by any sentient being that has a counting system.

And you dont need Mendeleevs table to recognise the ratio of masses of the elements. Even if they have some whacked out periodic table, the most common isotopes would be recognised. They should be the same the universe wide, no matter what base system they use.

 

And you might say "Well how do we know the elements are the same on the other side of the universe?" or "What if they use some bizarre numbering scheme that is unrecognisable and fundamentally incompatible?"

Well they might, but things like primes and element properties give the best chance to be most widely understood.

How would we send it? However you like, what is easier to send than numbers?

 

This is all of course, if you are assuming its a good idea to signal your presence in the first place.

Edited by p1t1o
Link to comment
Share on other sites
KerikBalm

KerikBalm

Posted
Posted
17 hours ago, p1t1o said:

The classics are the best:

2,5,7,9,11,13,17,19,23 etc.

 

14 minutes ago, p1t1o said:

Primes are primes no matter what, they should be recognised as special by any sentient being that has a counting system.

I don't know what that first number sequence is supposed to be...

If its primes... it is missing 3, and 9 doesn't belong there... If I received that message... I wouldn't know what to make of it...

A species makes a signal powerful enough to reach across interstellar space... and then doesn't do the equivalent of checking it for spelling errors?

Or just a random coincidence?

Link to comment
Share on other sites
p1t1o

p1t1o

Posted
Posted (edited)
6 minutes ago, KerikBalm said:

I don't know what that first number sequence is supposed to be...

If its primes... it is missing 3, and 9 doesn't belong there... If I received that message... I wouldn't know what to make of it...

A species makes a signal powerful enough to reach across interstellar space... and then doesn't do the equivalent of checking it for spelling errors?

Or just a random coincidence?

Ummm..yes thats me being dense ;.;

Oof that was a bad one.

*edit*

No, wait! It was a test! And you are the only one that passed too! Yes, thats it..

Edited by p1t1o
Link to comment
Share on other sites
KerikBalm

KerikBalm

Posted
Posted

Well its better than Darnok's example... I don't know what the heck that is supposed to be.... pi = 10... wtf?!

Not to mention that its rather hard to send an image... they tried to send an image with the arecibo array...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arecibo_message

But when they sent the message to various people on Earth, no one was able to make sense of it, so its unlikely that aliens would have had much success either... unless they spend a *really really long time and a lot of effort* on it. Most likely they'd be annoyed at us for sending something so incomprehensible, and would wait for us to get our act together... its like $h17 posts on the internet... if one can't take the time to make their message coherent, I'm not going to put much effort into trying to understand it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Darnok

Darnok

Posted
Posted
21 minutes ago, p1t1o said:

What if they dont use a 10 base system? A better question is "What if they can't understand base-10?"

And the answer would be, well they probably aren't that intelligent and so won't be answering at all.

SETI does convert every received signal into every base system we do understand?

 

21 minutes ago, p1t1o said:

Primes are primes no matter what, they should be recognised as special by any sentient being that has a counting system.

Write few first primes in binary or trinary or 12-based system (you are using that system every day).

 

21 minutes ago, p1t1o said:

And you dont need Mendeleevs table to recognise the ratio of masses of the elements. Even if they have some whacked out periodic table, the most common isotopes would be recognised. They should be the same the universe wide, no matter what base system they use.

My point is that aliens can measure different attributes of matter than we do. Maybe for them it is not important what mass has element.

You are very biased to what you have learned and to way of thinking our science is going. While in other planets it might be very different, just look at humans writings... you are writing from left to right, but there are countries that wrote right to left or top to bottom. Look at your language and look at Chinese or ancient Egypt glyphs. Those are very different solutions for same problem - communication.


It may be same with everything else, you should learn to recognise things that are invented by humans from things that are natural, to see this issue. Mendeleevs table is only our taxonomy based on some old concept that atoms are base building blocks of matter, even today you can say it is not true and what we will discover in next 100 years?

 

21 minutes ago, p1t1o said:

How would we send it? However you like, what is easier to send than numbers?

.  ..  ...  ....  .....  ......  .......

Easy to send and it creates simple non random pattern?

π would be better, but I can't see solution for easy and fast way of sending image I posted in last post.

 

21 minutes ago, p1t1o said:

This is all of course, if you are assuming its a good idea to signal your presence in the first place.

I don't know.

In one case I would say that any aliens, advanced enough, we should fear of could discover us long time ago with their stealth satellites.

On other case... what if close to us are aliens on same level we are and they have nukes? Right now we are defenceless from orbital strike, so I would wait some time before broadcasting anything outside our solar system.

7 minutes ago, KerikBalm said:

Well its better than Darnok's example... I don't know what the heck that is supposed to be.... pi = 10... wtf?!

Not to mention that its rather hard to send an image... they tried to send an image with the arecibo array...

 

You just failed basic math test.

I do agree it would be slow way of communication if we would send engraved golden disks with alien civilization ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites
This thread is quite old. Please consider starting a new thread rather than reviving this one.

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
 Share
Go to topic listing
×
×
  • Create New...