Slashdot Mirror
Physicists Call For Alien Messaging Protocol
schliz writes "Researchers have called for the development of a messaging framework that could increase the probability that our interplanetary messages are detected and deciphered – assuming Orson Scott Card's vision of telepathic buggers doesn't come true. The trio of postgraduate astrophysicists suggest a Messaging to Extraterrestrial Intelligence protocol (METI — PDF) for signal encoding, message length, information content, transmission method and periodicity. The protocol could be tested via a website that allows users to create, retrieve and decrypt sample messages that conform to the protocol — which also demonstrates communication across human cultural boundaries, they say."
Let's not get ahead of ourselves now. Before we do this alien thing, why not try to see if we can solve this problem here on Earth first? (I watched way too much MythBusters).
For example, I am Chinese. And pretend I don't know a single English word and the alphabet, write something and make me understand. Anything at all. It can be a hello of some sort even. Not easy isn't it. How about trying it on some isolated tribes? Remember, no interaction, no eye contact, nothing. Pure pencil on paper.
In theory, but then look at practical reality... our fastest space probes would take something like 70000 years to reach the nearest star. We don't have a clue how to build machinery that lasts that long, any interstellar craft is still on the highly speculative "if we get a fusion / anti-matter drive" level. It doesn't matter how long time we have on us, today's Earth tech couldn't do it even if we accepted that travel time.
There's zero economic incentive of doing it, the chances that an interstellar colony would produce anything valuable for earth is extremely unlikely. At best it's information if we managed to establish cutting edge science somewhere, but the round trip on any communication is a decade or more.
Seriously, ask yourself how far humanity would have to advance before we'd actually start doing it - not just in the theoretical "if we throw all our resources at it we might" but in practical terms would. I mean we haven't even been to the moon in ages. We know Mars is probably within reach if we spend billions. But we don't, and neither would we spend trillions to colonize some rock 1000 years down the road.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Instead of musing about a message protocol, they should rather spend their time learning and improving LINCOS. Freudenthal's system is still the de facto standard for communication with aliens but has only occasionally been worked on by enthusiasts and NASA employees. LINCOS is in dire need of an overhaul, including a more modern transcription notation, and the second volume has never been finished. The original book is hard to get and it takes a substantial amount of time just to get into the framework, and that's probably why they don't use LINCOS.