Radio messages we ’ve sent whizzing out into place over the years to seek to contact aliens may simply be too boring for special - terrestrial beings to answer , say a twain of Canadian astrophysicist . deadening bits of math , physics and biota normally on offer may just be intellectual spam to alien minds . Find out what boffins Yvan Dutil and Stephane Dumas suggest we should station instead after the leap .
Previous message beamed into deep space via receiving set - telescope by scientists have endeavor to demonstrate our intelligence activity by sending twit mathematics problems , a bit of chemistry , physics and biology , some data on what we look like and even where we ’ve come from . This may not , however , be good enough for their higher-ranking brains . Dutil and Dumas indicate that if any alien does decode a message containing essentially trivial data , “ after study it , they will be none the wiser about us humans and our accomplishment . ”
The really difficult bit is , of course , trying to work out out what would be interesting to an extraterrestrial . Dumas and Dutil advise that we should examine things that will be new and unlike to an alien , like Britney ’s last album Paris Hilton ’s sex tape “ social features of our society , ” or economics or sociology problems . These can still be described mathematically , which neatly catch around the problem of which language to habituate .
Who knows , aliens may even be concerned in our political issues , and so the starry - eyed Canadians have even begun attempt to explain our electoral procedure in computer code : “ We can excuse our method , and necessitate ‘ what do you habituate on your major planet ? ' ” You ’ve got to desire that the solvent is better than hanging Chad .
As Dutil also steer out , it might be handy to have a clever and interesting message to hand just in case an foreign race ever tries to contact us “ just to say ‘ we ’ll get back to you'”—followed presumably by “ get out some maths after the beep , and promise not to utilize your decease - rays on us . ”
[ New Scientist ]
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