It might be a good idea to mark the moon so that whatever happens to us anyone with eyes to see can see that intellegence has come this way before.

A set of simple dark circles arranged in a pattern of the squares of the first three primes (1 4 9) visible with the naked eye from Earth should get the attention of whoever inherits the Earth.

They should be durable enough to last for several hundred million years. but not so big as to mar the appearance of the moon too much. Next to the circles could be a diagram of a telescope. Next to that could be a dark smudge. Seen through the telescope the smudge resolves into some simple diagrams of basic astronomy so they don't make the same mistakes we made like assuming that the Earth is the center of the universe.

There could be some basic physics such as might bring them to a level of understanding equal to the mid 20th century E=Mc^2.

If you were to put a small message on the moon for the inheritors of the Earth hundreds of millions of years from now what would it be?

1 is not a prime number.

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Nothing beautiful was ever made from gravel.

Divisible into whole natural numbers of itself and one only by whole natural numbers of itself and one. Although some arguably define it as two distinct divisors ie only itself (not one) and one. I and others don't see a logical argument for the distinction as it should be noted that mathematicaly one divided by one is two distinct numbers. One is the dividend or numerator and one is the divisor or denominator as one apple divided by one person is (quotient) one apple per person.

And PS off topic!!!

Nor is 4.

Millions of years from now, we'll be living on the Moon at the very least.

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all we have to do is follow the Chairface Chippendale method and success is guaranteed.

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"blacker than the blackest black... times infinity."- Nathan Explosion
The.. Best.. Thread..Ever...

Why does it need to be visible from Earth? Put it on the far side. That way, it wouldn't mar our view but ET visitors would readily see it. Our Earthly successors will discover it when they achieve the capability of space travel and are presumably ready to know about us.

But I hardly think it's necessary. I think we've left more than adequate signs of our passing.

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Brett
Peters Creek, Alaska
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1 is not a prime number and PS this is not off topic.

To be fair, aastrotech said the square of the first three primes. Which would be 4, 9 and 25.

Personally, I'd want to get my facts right before I start defacing the moon.

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Nothing beautiful was ever made from gravel.

How about ?

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For me it's enough for the garden to be beautifull; why do so many want to see fairies at the bottom?

"Many of those people are not getting four when adding two and two; many of them aren't even getting five or twenty-two. They're getting potato."
Gillianren

If you want to make an argument supporting your contention that one is not a prime why don't you make another thread? Possibly that would be off topic for this astronomy site.
To seque back to the OP would you say that an inteligence capable of recognising the squares of primes would dismiss a pattern of one four and nine as evidence of inteligence?

Following on from what PetersCreek said about the far side, and what you said about "basic physics" in the OP; how about a gene bank, seed bank, data bank, etc- all stored in some indestructible shelter? That would also be good insurance for us now, on top of any messages you wanted to send to our descendants.

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So that the inheritors of the Earth who may not be advanced as us might gain something of us.
Signs that in a hunderd million or a billion years will be recognisable as such by a pre telescopic inteligence?
What's the point of that? By then they will gain very little from the awareness of us.
Putting such a message on the moon will tell them something about us without actually writing it. It will tell them that dispite the magnificent achievement of being able to put the marks on the moon we humbly acknowledge the possibility of our own mortality on this world. Yet still we are willing to make the herculean effort of bequething our highest achievements to people we have no possibility of recieving gain from. I suppose in a sense that means

I'm not arguing, I'm pointing out your mistake. If you wish to persist in your mistaken belief, that is up to you, but I don't want people reading this thread to be misinformed.

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Nothing beautiful was ever made from gravel.

Why would they want to geneticly recreate a people who have obviously deliberately deprived them for their entire existence of what megre assitance we may have had to offer after our expiration?

I contend that you made the mistake. I have pointed out the specifics of your mistake. You have three times now pointed out nothing to support your contention.

I don't think I understand this.

But anyway, don't include our genes if it bothers you. The point I'm trying to make is- why stop at lunar crop circles? You wanted a "Herculean" effort, no? Stick a copy of everything up there.

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This page explains why one isn't a prime.

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"Any Sufficiently Analyzed Magic is Indistinguishable from SCIENCE!" -Agatha Heterodyne

"Any technology, no matter how primitive, is magic to those who don't understand it." -Florence Ambrose

As do many others, not to mention ordinary books:

"prime number a number other than one, divisible only by itself or unity" - from Chambers English Dictionary.

"prime A whole number larger than 1 that is divisible only by 1 and itself." - from The Penguin Dictionary of Mathematics.

"A prime number is a positive whole number, other than 1, that is divisible only by itself and 1." - from The Open University MST121 Using Mathematics Revision Pack.

And for those not wishing to leave their computer, there's always Wikipedia:

"In mathematics, a prime number (or a prime) is a natural number which has exactly two distinct natural number divisors: 1 and itself. The first twenty-five prime numbers are: 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37, 41, 43, 47, 53, 59, 61, 67, 71, 73, 79, 83, 89, 97."

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Nothing beautiful was ever made from gravel.

That's quite a mouthful for a bit of mathematical symbology. Can you similarly tell us what the Nazca Lines are meant to communicate?

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Brett
Peters Creek, Alaska
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Even if you think you're right, if 1 is disputed, you'd better off going with 4, 9, 25 anyway. The message will be unambiguous.

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Not really. One of the few things worth watching on the History channel anymore is Life After People. If we collectively drop dead tomorrow, you've got maybe a thousand years for some of what we've made to be discovered before its utterly unrecognizable. Unless you think chips of plastic is enough of a fingerprint.

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The last time I felt a warm fuzzy feeling, I was informed by my doctor that it was just gas.

I've seen a bit of that show...but I'm not so sure that at least some of our work would be so unrecognizable that it wouldn't impart as much of a "we were here" message as symbols on the Moon. Take the pyramids, for instance. How long would they last before they became unrecognizable as an man-made object? Mount Rushmore? Hoover Dam?

But I'll grant that after hundreds of millions of years, they won't be anywhere near as obvious as markings on the Moon.

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Brett
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If they were on the MOON!!!? It doesn't matter what the were meant to communicate. What they would communicate however...

Besides circles would be more visible and last longer than an equal area of line. Remember the idea is to minimize construction cost and visual marring while still being visible from Earth with the naked eye for several million years. At least as long as it took us to evolve from rodents after an extinction event to the state we are now. Maybe something else will evolve as much in that much time.

No I was pointing out that it wouldn't make sense and would be kind of meen and selfish to hide it on the far side of the moon. It is meen because it deprives them of our advanced assistance and it is selfish because it serves only to posthumously agrandise ourselves.

I would dare say that they would be non existant after that much time. Mile high mountains of solid granite are worn down in that kind of time. Nothing on the surface will remain. And most of what is below the surface will be worn down to nubs buried under miles of sediment. There is a small probability that some things might fall into places where they would be preserved and exposed some hundred million years from now. But I doubt if much would survive that would tell much about us or be of much help to them.

Okay. Put it on the near side. Place it in orbit. Bury it on Earth. Anything but crop circles. Did you read the second part of my post?

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No, what's the message of the Nazca Lines here on Earth?

I don't understand the rationale of wanting to communicate a message, then saying it doesn't matter what is meant to be communicated.

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The crop circles are just to be small enough to not mar the appearance much but still big enough to attract attention and show the viewer that such things are possible.

The second part of the OP was what (short) message or information would you like to send to a future inheritor.

I claim the message iself and the conotation about us that it sends as the message I want to send. I also claim the idea of sending a diagram of a telescope, E=mc^2 and and illustrating that the Earth is not the center of the universe as my messeges too. The message you want to send, well I guess you've already illustrated that.

It doesn't matter what a meaningless message means.

There is not enough data to know what they mean. They are not a mathematical message. There is enough data to know that they don't mean that an advanced spacefaring inteligence has passed this way before. They may be that but they don't show that. The data indicates that they were created by inteligences less advanced than all inteligences that have documented them.

Fourteen spots on the moon in the proper arrangement would mean that.

As to (arguably) possible messages to us from an advanced inteligence from the past. Have you ever noticed that the continent of Africa has the appearance of the profile of a (Nearly) human scull.

To be fair, if we found a gene bank hidden on the far side of the moon I might want to clone some out of scientific curiosity. But I think I would want to keep such a creature in a cage.

aastrotech's failure to acknowledge that he was mistaken about primes is noted.

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Nothing beautiful was ever made from gravel.