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How To Talk To Aliens

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the not-a-phone-home-joke dept.

Frederic Friedel writes: "In their efforts to talk to alien civilizations human beings are currently engaged in sending pictures based on a rectangular array of dots, arranged from left to right and top to bottom. But is this stategy sound? For instance what if the aliens do not see in pictures at all, or if they think in vector graphics rather than bitmap? On ChessBase.com grandmaster John Nunn proposes sending them a trading machine instead."

2 of 525 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Prime Numbers by DrinkingIllini · · Score: 3, Informative

    They stole this idea from Contact. The first layer of the signal was a list of the first so many prime numbers.

  2. Re:What do they want to hear? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Your post reminded me of this funny little short story.
    http://www.terrybisson.com/meat.html