Hi all. just found an article you may be interested in regarding the search for extra terrestrial life.

basically an alternate view to scanning electromagnetic frequencies.

http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/200408022...trunc_sys.shtml

thoughts anyone?

Every little innovation could help; it can also hurt by increasing the noise level. Humans are good at seeing meaning where there is none. My guess is that by starting at an arbitrary position in the decimal field of the number pi and proceeding an arbitrary length of sufficient size we can generate a binary field of bits which if complexity is not spared, could be decoded as the U. S. tax code. I'm not recommending it however.

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For those inclined to oppose human meddling with the structure of the universe or the composition and configuration of objects and groups of objects within the universe, consider:
Whether there is a limit to the magnitude of a modulation of chaos below which order remains invariant? Or, is order but a fiction invented by perspectives applied over finite, however large, time intervals?

Until we find the first piece of something with writing on it from another civilized world, we probably are better off simply scanning, looking for a signal of the EM variety. What this idea is proposing is sort of like sending cosmic junk-mail. Some creature[s] would have to make a list of plausible places to send their greeting cards, and then launch them out of their solar system. If we were to do it today, each one would be sent with a billion dollars worth of postage. Would we send them to a billion stars? How philanthropic!

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Forming opinions as we speak

No kidding. And if we find a slow cruising one, like our own voyager, then odds are that Captian Kirk has just entered their system, and we would see their civilization anyways.

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http://amssolarempire.blogspot.com

Imagine a civilisation with several widely separated colonies; if these colonies want to send messages to one another they can either fire powerful lasers at one another, and if the lasers were powerful enough and the detecting telecopes sensitive enough these lasers would allow a bit rate of several bits per second;

or they could fire tiny pellets full of memory at each other-
thse pellets could contain terabytes of compressed memory, the equivalent of hundreds of years of laser transmission...

not a bad idea.

But how do you aim these pellets, and how do you recover them?

It would be more difficult to aim a pellet stream than a laser, and if you sent millions, perhaps only one or two would get through-

then you have to detect the pellet, and catch it as it passes through at interstellar speeds.

Maybe a beacon on the pellet could announce its location;
perhaps the pellet could be gathered by some sort of magnetic scoop

not too sure about the magnetic scoop, though;

if it is strong enough to capture a pellet, it would probably denature the information contained in that pellet.

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Orion's Arm . The Starlark . Voices: Future Tense- Novella Contest Issue! . OA Flickr set

Or we could develop modulation/demodulation of ultra high frequency gamma radiation and send lotsa bits per second at light speed. We might be able to code the information at lower frequencies, blue shift it up to the gamma region of the spectrum and then, during reception, red shift it down to a decodably manageable portion of the spectrum. A veritable feast for those who design signal conditioning systems!!

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For those inclined to oppose human meddling with the structure of the universe or the composition and configuration of objects and groups of objects within the universe, consider:
Whether there is a limit to the magnitude of a modulation of chaos below which order remains invariant? Or, is order but a fiction invented by perspectives applied over finite, however large, time intervals?

To continue with this theme, gamma ray bursts take on new interests. Maybe they are signals from ET. Has anyone looked at red shifting these down to frequencies that we can attempt to demodulate in case techologically enhanced information is embedded in them? Our energy assessment of the energy levels may be based on the false premise that the source is omnidirectional when they are really hyper-directional (by our standards) data transmission streams.

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For those inclined to oppose human meddling with the structure of the universe or the composition and configuration of objects and groups of objects within the universe, consider:
Whether there is a limit to the magnitude of a modulation of chaos below which order remains invariant? Or, is order but a fiction invented by perspectives applied over finite, however large, time intervals?

I would hope that a conscious effort is being made, that within our focus of our search amongst the stars, planets, and galaxies of the universe, that we are indeed allowing our peripheral curiosities, to explore beyond the obvious.

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"Take a look out at the deep emptyness of everything you could never imagine". --- Molecular

Great platitude! Can you be more specific. The fact that we call what we are doing "exploring" suggests that we are looking beyond the obvious. Did you mean peripheral curiousness as in inquisitiveness?

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For those inclined to oppose human meddling with the structure of the universe or the composition and configuration of objects and groups of objects within the universe, consider:
Whether there is a limit to the magnitude of a modulation of chaos below which order remains invariant? Or, is order but a fiction invented by perspectives applied over finite, however large, time intervals?

I don't see why you would be limited to several bits per second with lasers. You can transmit the same amount of bits via directional radio over intestellar distances that you can with non-directional radio and sattelites on stellar distances: you just need more sensitive detectors and powerful emmitters. If you ran an interstellar internet hub, you could probably pay for the 1 GW or so of transmission/recieving power that you would need.

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http://amssolarempire.blogspot.com

If a fisherman takes his boat and sets out on a journey to harvest the offerings from the bottom of the sea, but instead, reels in a sunken treasure chest of gold from centuries ago, he may then throw it back, in anticipation of obtaining that which has more value to him.........the fish. Though, would he have realized anything after taking his catch back to the shore. :huh:

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"Take a look out at the deep emptyness of everything you could never imagine". --- Molecular

A pile of old "in hand" is more valuable than a shipload of uncaught fish....unless the fisherman is Adam before the birth of Cain and Able.

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For those inclined to oppose human meddling with the structure of the universe or the composition and configuration of objects and groups of objects within the universe, consider:
Whether there is a limit to the magnitude of a modulation of chaos below which order remains invariant? Or, is order but a fiction invented by perspectives applied over finite, however large, time intervals?

Didn't we do this some 20yrs ago with voyager? Is the idea that we need to look for a return to sender?