I was wondering what an ETI would want to say to us via a recieved message via a radio telescope, such as Aricebo. Perhaps they could instruct us on further technological development or other areas, but in light of Earth, I think it is much more likely that it be merely the ETI's version of an early Beatles song or some other meaningless thing (in relevance to what we can learn - in no way do I mean that any form of artistic expression is meaningless.) We often assume that aliens will recieve the Aricebo Interstellar Message as an ambassador from Earth. In fact, it is quite the opposite. Also, even if they recieved the Aricebo Instellar Message, would they be able to decode it? We know that mathematics is a universal language, but there are alot of different forms of mathematics, for example, the Aztecs used base-20. All human civilizations used base 5, 10, or 20. Only recently have other systems (trinary and binary) been used. Therefore, how could an ETI know that the Interstellar Message was in binary? Let alone that it was a mathematical language? Most likely, therefore, any message we get from an ETI will be nonsense or gibberish to us. Don't forget - without the Rosetta Stone, hieroglyphics would be meaningless.
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"Science is the most precious thing we have."
-Albert Einstein

I wonder if anyone will ever post an answer to this thread...
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"Science is the most precious thing we have."
-Albert Einstein

I don't know much about math, truthfully I stink, but I get the point your making.

It also made me thing of one thing I think about often about alien life forms. They look at planets and say,'There can't be life there. There is no water, oxygen, or vegatation.' Well within our planets(up to Pluto), we can see their is no life, but why can't there be elsewhere without those 3 things? WE live off of them, but who's to say another life form does.

If anyone could explain this to me, I would be grateful. And please, in laymens terms, lol.

Sorry unholy, I don't mean to change subjects, but I have no clue where to post it.

[Edited by Sianne on 04/18/02 at 06:00]

Oh yeah, I like your last quote.


What's mine say SWEET!
What's mine say DUDE!

Which I've got no watertight answer for - there could be weird thing's beyond our wildest dreams. Well - there's pretty sure to be!

But life, especialy advanced life must need energy. and it must involve complex structures serving a similar purpous to DNA. Energy doesn't have to be got from breathing oxygen, though that's a v. good way of doing it.

Complex structures are likely to break down at high temperatures - which is basicly a way of saying that all the life (naturaly occuring, not "living" or "inteligent" machines) we can imagine is chemical based. The only element we can make v. complex chemicals from is carbon, although silicon might just be able to do the same.

The important thing is that the building blocks of RNA, DNA and proteins (things like water ammonia, methane, hydrogen cyanide and more compex things like formaldehyde and ethyl alcohol) are floating around in abundance in space, so life is likely to come about elswhere roughly as it did here.

Re the original question, the famous message they sent from Arecibo in the 60's or 70's was given to some bright mathematicians - none of them cracked the code!

But we might try a bit harder with a genuine signal - and modern computers will alow us to try a lot of dead ends fast to maybe get to the right answer.

What would an alien have to say to us?

Well, if he/she can speak English.... then definitely he/she will say that we are "ALIENS"




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...I'd guess that'll be their first message

either that or maybe "010001010100101110010001010010010001010011001001001001001001001001001001001001010000010101111101010011111001010101010101010010100010101010100100101001001001101100101"

Aliens wouldn't need oxygen - that's a common misconception. There are plenty of organisms that don't use oxygen and plenty of strange metabolisms on Earth. Just look at hydrothermal vents or the arctic. However, there are several biochemical reasons why all kinds of carbon based life must use water. But other theoretical life forms might use other things - for example, silicon based life might use liquid nitrogen.

I bet their first message will be their TV or radio. Our first interstellar message was a TV signal from a broadcast of Adolf Hitler at the Olympics, but I doubt aliens will be able to understand it's implications in OUR history - so don't worry about Independence Day style aliens comming to Earth to join our "genocidal party" with ray guns or anything...

But, anyway, here's a little riddle... Can you guys guess what this "alien signal" translates as?

01101010001000001000
__________________
"Science is the most precious thing we have."
-Albert Einstein

true enough - or maybe they'll hear our DEW line radar first? "Those monkeys got nukes..."