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Guest
Guest
Jon Carroll, SF Chronicle, September 7, 2004
An article published in the journal Nature last week presented an interesting hypothesis: If beings from another planet were trying to contact us, they would not (as is generally supposed) send us radio waves containing prime numbers or relativity equations or whatever.
Nope: They'd send us a refrigerator.
This is all serious. The authors, Christopher Rose and Gregory Wright, did elaborate calculations on the relative costs and benefits of various methods of delivering information between star systems. Radio waves disperse as they go out from their source, and thus the amount of information arriving at any given point -- say, the Very Large Array of telescopes in New Mexico -- would be relatively small, and the chances of picking it out from all the radio noise relatively slim.
On the other hand, a refrigerator does not disperse as it travels, and it's real hard to ignore when it slams down in your backyard.
OK, I made up the refrigerator part. But the authors did say that a physical object of some sort could be delivered more efficiently than radio waves. There were all sorts of calculations involved, and although I understand the math, I wouldn't want to burden you with technicalities. But there are square roots and parentheses and Greek letters -- cool stuff.
Instead, I will steal an explanation from Dennis Overbye of the New York Times. I will fail to give him credit, and later I will resign in disgrace. That's what makes this column fun: "Although the result sounds counterintuitive, the problem will be familiar to anyone who ever spent time shrinking a digital photograph before trying to send it over the Internet through a dial-up connection. It would be much easier just to drive a truck of photo albums across town or put them in an overnight mailbox than to go through the process of scanning and shrinking each photo."
Think of it: Anything you find beside the road could be a message from another planet. Anything you pick up on the beach or buy at a garage sale or rescue from a recycling bin could be the key to the mysteries of the universe. Heck, some very intelligent super-race of communications-addicted beings could be shooting little hello bundles into the universe a thousand times a minute - - we may have two dozen of them just in California.
Scientists pooh-pooh this theory, and if you've ever heard a scientist say "Pooh-pooh," you know how arrogant it sounds. The SETI project, which spends its precious evenings scanning the sky for the intergalactic equivalent of "The Howard Stern Show,'' is not interested in looking around on the ground underneath its radio telescopes for dense little bundles of titanium-coated data.
But I think we should start looking. In what form would an alien civilization choose to package its message of peace and friendship? I think it's obvious: pretty little rocks. I'm willing to bet you have some pretty little rocks around your house right this minute. If not, go find some.
Now put one in the microwave. Will that unleash the power of the space-o- tron pod people? It's worth a shot. Take another rock and throw it into boiling water. Put another in the freezer. Grind up another one and eat it. This is all science, friends. Not some namby-pamby theoretical doodling, either: honest experimental science just the way Newton did it. But perhaps it isn't rocks! Perhaps it's weird plastic things that look like broken toys -- but aren't! Or it could be water molecules, water molecules with elaborate galactic histories burned into them using advanced nanotechnology devices. It might be good to start saving water now. You're going to need a lot of plastic jugs, so hurry.
See, this puts civilians back in the science game. No need for fancy equipment or advanced learning -- just a compass, a big canvas sack and plenty of free time. Your prize could be a ride on a space ship to a far-off planet where alien beings will admire your dental work.
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You might consider carrying your umbrella at all times because the universe is throwing golf balls at us. Why? Because it wants to be friends.
This sentence does not impeach Bush or contain a secret coded message from jcarroll@sfchronicle.com.
An article published in the journal Nature last week presented an interesting hypothesis: If beings from another planet were trying to contact us, they would not (as is generally supposed) send us radio waves containing prime numbers or relativity equations or whatever.
Nope: They'd send us a refrigerator.
This is all serious. The authors, Christopher Rose and Gregory Wright, did elaborate calculations on the relative costs and benefits of various methods of delivering information between star systems. Radio waves disperse as they go out from their source, and thus the amount of information arriving at any given point -- say, the Very Large Array of telescopes in New Mexico -- would be relatively small, and the chances of picking it out from all the radio noise relatively slim.
On the other hand, a refrigerator does not disperse as it travels, and it's real hard to ignore when it slams down in your backyard.
OK, I made up the refrigerator part. But the authors did say that a physical object of some sort could be delivered more efficiently than radio waves. There were all sorts of calculations involved, and although I understand the math, I wouldn't want to burden you with technicalities. But there are square roots and parentheses and Greek letters -- cool stuff.
Instead, I will steal an explanation from Dennis Overbye of the New York Times. I will fail to give him credit, and later I will resign in disgrace. That's what makes this column fun: "Although the result sounds counterintuitive, the problem will be familiar to anyone who ever spent time shrinking a digital photograph before trying to send it over the Internet through a dial-up connection. It would be much easier just to drive a truck of photo albums across town or put them in an overnight mailbox than to go through the process of scanning and shrinking each photo."
Think of it: Anything you find beside the road could be a message from another planet. Anything you pick up on the beach or buy at a garage sale or rescue from a recycling bin could be the key to the mysteries of the universe. Heck, some very intelligent super-race of communications-addicted beings could be shooting little hello bundles into the universe a thousand times a minute - - we may have two dozen of them just in California.
Scientists pooh-pooh this theory, and if you've ever heard a scientist say "Pooh-pooh," you know how arrogant it sounds. The SETI project, which spends its precious evenings scanning the sky for the intergalactic equivalent of "The Howard Stern Show,'' is not interested in looking around on the ground underneath its radio telescopes for dense little bundles of titanium-coated data.
But I think we should start looking. In what form would an alien civilization choose to package its message of peace and friendship? I think it's obvious: pretty little rocks. I'm willing to bet you have some pretty little rocks around your house right this minute. If not, go find some.
Now put one in the microwave. Will that unleash the power of the space-o- tron pod people? It's worth a shot. Take another rock and throw it into boiling water. Put another in the freezer. Grind up another one and eat it. This is all science, friends. Not some namby-pamby theoretical doodling, either: honest experimental science just the way Newton did it. But perhaps it isn't rocks! Perhaps it's weird plastic things that look like broken toys -- but aren't! Or it could be water molecules, water molecules with elaborate galactic histories burned into them using advanced nanotechnology devices. It might be good to start saving water now. You're going to need a lot of plastic jugs, so hurry.
See, this puts civilians back in the science game. No need for fancy equipment or advanced learning -- just a compass, a big canvas sack and plenty of free time. Your prize could be a ride on a space ship to a far-off planet where alien beings will admire your dental work.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You might consider carrying your umbrella at all times because the universe is throwing golf balls at us. Why? Because it wants to be friends.
This sentence does not impeach Bush or contain a secret coded message from jcarroll@sfchronicle.com.
