Slashdot Mirror
Strange Stars Pulse To the Golden Mean
An anonymous reader sends this excerpt from an article at Quanta Magazine:
What struck John Learned about the blinking of KIC 5520878, a bluish-white star 16,000 light-years away, was how artificial it seemed. Learned, a neutrino physicist at the University of Hawaii, Mnoa, has a pet theory that super-advanced alien civilizations might send messages by tickling stars with neutrino beams, eliciting Morse code-like pulses. "It's the sort of thing tenured senior professors can get away with," he said. The pulsations of KIC 5520878, recorded recently by NASA's Kepler telescope, suggested that the star might be so employed.
A "variable" star, KIC 5520878 brightens and dims in a six-hour cycle, seesawing between cool-and-clear and hot-and-opaque. Overlaying this rhythm is a second, subtler variation of unknown origin; this frequency interplays with the first to make some of the star's pulses brighter than others. In the fluctuations, Learned had identified interesting and, he thought, possibly intelligent sequences, such as prime numbers (which have been floated as a conceivable basis of extraterrestrial communication). He then found hints that the star's pulses were chaotic. But when Learned mentioned his investigations to a colleague, William Ditto, last summer, Ditto was struck by the ratio of the two frequencies driving the star's pulsations. "I said, 'Wait a minute, that's the golden mean.'"
A "variable" star, KIC 5520878 brightens and dims in a six-hour cycle, seesawing between cool-and-clear and hot-and-opaque. Overlaying this rhythm is a second, subtler variation of unknown origin; this frequency interplays with the first to make some of the star's pulses brighter than others. In the fluctuations, Learned had identified interesting and, he thought, possibly intelligent sequences, such as prime numbers (which have been floated as a conceivable basis of extraterrestrial communication). He then found hints that the star's pulses were chaotic. But when Learned mentioned his investigations to a colleague, William Ditto, last summer, Ditto was struck by the ratio of the two frequencies driving the star's pulsations. "I said, 'Wait a minute, that's the golden mean.'"
it's a very average star
Wikipedia says the golden ratio is related to 5 sided figures (pentagrams).
Clearly, we're seeing 5 stars in mutual orbit.
Yeah, wild guess.
But this is sort of thing that was the reason behind all the early mathematicians being batshit crazy. Math is man's model of the universe and it's always been a good enough model that you start discovering all sorts of stuff in math that exactly mirrors the world around us. You start to think maybe there's some hidden power there, that maybe math can predict everything. Then you form a cult and start attracting followers and have to be put down by the government of the time. Er, or something. And that's just some one-trick hack with a lever or a screw or something. Imagine what would have happened if one of those guys had stumbled across hyperbolic geometry. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure it was a very nice lever, but it didn't even go into the 4th dimension! I mean... er... what were we talking about again?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
...the Great Old Ones shall return. Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!
"kiss my massive black hole, humans"
Table-ized A.I.
"It's the sort of thing tenured professors can get away with." I'm thinking I need to rethink my career path right away and become a tenured professor.
Might as well face it I'm addicted to data.
Isn't the only noteworthy thing about the golden ration that it appears so often in our world? So what's surprising about it showing up in a different location of the same world?
CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
Similar claims have been made about how human anatomy allegedly conforms to mathematical constants. But when we make actual measurements of individuals, nobody fits the constants perfectly. What is the allowed margin of error? One can make just about any number be close to some "elegant" mathematical constant -- pi/2, pi^2, e/phi, whatever.
Similarly, today I just judged a paper about childhood obesity submitted to a scientific journal. Childhood obesity is confounded with low socioeconomic status, so how do we separate the two? Of course, children of lower socioeconomic status have poorer outcomes in terms of health, occupation, and mortality. (Incidentally, the children with the worst outcomes in terms of future health, income, and mortality are the underweight kids who look like walking skeletons. Most scientific papers on obesity exclude that population.)
I mean, a radio signal that's readily detectable by primitive civilizations like ours, assumedely the only reason to blast out a fantastically strong signal at all in all directions instead of a tightbeam, would take more energy than all of human civilization produces slammed into one radio transmitter just to be "heard" as it were. A huge engineering product just to say "Hello World" or "Hello Galaxy" as it were.
On the other hand, we already look at stars as it is, and all they do is blast out radiation. If you could fluctuate it to a noticeable degree that would save a lot of energy versus actually producing all that energy yourself, and besides all the energy being flung out by the star is going to be lost as it is. Might as well use it for something.
I mean star..."
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Personally i prefer 80 proof. But for stargazing, a bottle of wine is sometimes more palatable. I like math and space. It can really give you a unique perspective, because how many people do you know that look up at the stars and see a mathematical pattern? I don't know anyone like that. Which makes this even cooler. Not as cool as linux is, if you know what i mean!!!
Contact. Let me be the first to disparage the new race fing prawns.
This is cool, but just imagine the fever that nutters would work themselves into if the pattern were close to the Fibonacci sequence.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Wonder if it's got a planet with loveable spiders? We should mount an expedition.
A species that advertises its existence to the unknown is not an intelligent species.
That even with the ability to change a star's energy levels, that that civilization does not have FTL, yet.
D r i n k m o r e o v a l t i ......wait. Dammit, not again!
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
We are still trying to understand, model and measure the variables in Solar/Star processes. It is not surprising that variable star's energy producing systems have similar cycles to my way of thinking. You can imagine superimposing two sine waves of different frequencies that could yield a golden mean ratio.
At first I was completely astonished that yet another (seemingly) natural phenomenon is related to the Golden Mean. It was a major epiphany in my mid-20's how nature follows the rule of irrationality, which still follows a pattern, and not simply rational numbers. It's sacred geometry in action.
The more I read, the more I realised that this is 'just another' verification of what I realized about nature and our universe. It's everywhere.. the design of snail shells, seashells, seed patterns in Sunflowers and so many other plant formations, spiral galaxy formations (Fibonacci spiral!), and now star illumination patterns. It's everywhere. It's a key to helping understand the nature of reality. Thanks for posting this!
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
trying to make a new ZPM module
Never antropomorphize computers, they do not like that
"Golden" Mean, and a space theme for the "cosmonaut" misunderstood lyric. Too bad.
Neutrino beams used on otherwise useless stars to serve as beacons doesn't, though.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
But we can still convince Jodi Foster to travel there and check it out for us right?
Time to shop, then. You're going to need a lot of chloroform, and quite a few condoms.
Oblig:
Dude1: You ever go camping?
Dude2: Sure.
Dude1: Hey, if you were butt-raped when camping, would you tell anyone?
Dude2: Oh, hell no!
Dude1: Wanna go camping?
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
“All this begs the question,” Ditto said, “what is fundamentally going on with these stars that they end up with a ratio near the golden mean?”
Yeah. What is fundamentally going on with miles and kilometers that they end up with a ratio near the golden mean?
Stating something is chaotic does not prove it is not used for communication. ETs may have used chaotic signals, why not, to command those robots sent out for whatever purpose. Or it's a part of some large scale computational device. Hopefully, its a beginning of intergalaxy "internet", and they are not using that strong cryptography yet. (Ah, yet another idea of my sci-fi novel went awry...)
You keep using that phrase. I do not think that phrase means what you think it means, as it were.
.
Golden ratios emerge wherever you have a relationship of T(n)=T(n-1) + T(n-2). Where the first two terms are 0 and 1, you have fibonacci numbers: but no matter what your starting numbers are, the ratio between T(n) and T(n-1) will approach phi (as demonstrated with 'brady numbers').
So it is not at all surprising that phi might crop up in seemingly strange places.
Prediction for end of Universe #42: Fencepost error in Quantum_bogosort.cpp
The two numbers Phi and Pi are actually related by trigonometry, so it is hardly surprising that they would show up in a ratio concerning the rotation of stars.
If you divide a circle into 5 sections of 2*Pi/5 each you will get the five points of a pentagon, whose dimensions are all based on phi relationships [i.e. the Golden Mean]. Thus one can state:
2 * cos (Pi / 5) = Phi or
2 * sin (Pi / 5) = sqrt ( 3 - Phi )
or even better:
Pi = 5 arccos (Phi / 2)
that is,
Phi = 1 - 2 * cos (3 * Pi / 5)
So it is not entirely strange that the simple harmonic motion of a star could be expressed as some ratio of Phi.
It's all numbers, numbers all the way down.
ETs would be far better off using primes or squares, rather than the Golden Ratio/Fibonacci Sequence, precisely because the latter manifests so often in natural patterns.
Actually, the link between the Golden Ratio and the Fibonacci Sequence is quite possibly a key to understanding this phenomenon, since it is a ratio between two frequencies. The Fibonacci sequence is produced by a sequence of additions. And when frequencies are mixed, they produce both a subtractive and additive result. (A good example of the subtractive result is in shortwave radio, where the subtractive output is what causes heterodynes, those whines that one hears when receiving two adjacent signals. For example, signals on 7340 kHz and 7342 kHz produce a difference frequency of 2 kHz in the receiver that then comes through as an audible 2000 Hz tone.) It is conceivable that factors related to the star's variations are mixing and somehow producing additive frequency results that parallel the Fibonacci sequence, thus being close to the Golden Ratio in relation to one another.
I'am not sure about this story. I have my reservations, the names of the two main scientists raise questions.
Even if it is possible, the energy still has hundreds or thousands of years to reach the surface. Killing all the "high" frequencies in the process.
An already seen movie
Besides that, I just noticed that it's a 6+ years old article.
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
When you do a hyperspace jump of any worthwhile length, the navigational inaccuracies accumulate, and you come out somewhere that you don't know exactly where you are. How long will it take you to work out where you are and get a position accurate enough for the next jump? Could be days if you are looking around for stars, trying to match their absorption spectra against a database, observing long enough to determine their real motion, etc etc.
What you need is a lighthouse. Preferably two-three so you can triangulate. Get a position in minutes.
We humans, setting out to use the trackless seas of our planet, with crap navigational instruments - one of the first nav aids we built were lighthouses, for instance the Pharos at Alexandria, more than 2,000 years ago.
I wonder if this star is anywhere near a hazard? That would confirm it in my mind.
"Cock Up Your Beaver" does not mean what you think. This sig is intended to clog filters and annoy do-gooders
Hmm...when I hear the William Tell Overture decoded from a star's signal in stunning surround sound, then I'll believe in aliens. Until then, it is just the Greek guy with the electric hair peeing in the wind again.
He seems to be coming from a long line of Learned men.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
A learned professor called Professor Learned! Ba-dum tish! :D
It's Dark Matter !!! We've found out what Dark Matter is!!! We're going to be rich, I tell you. Book a flight to Europe, honey! Wait, what? Ohhhh. It's Dark Energy !!! We've found out what Dark Energy is!!! We're going to be rich, I tell you. Book a flight to Europe, honey!
Were they not also deemed as artificial at one point?
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
That's Manoa, not Mnoa.
The hawaiian language is not stingy with the vowels.
If you could fluctuate the luminosity of a star to announce your presence, then it would make more sense to make it flash prime numbers. Or encode such a message by varying the frequency, or by stopping and starting the device that produces the effect. Well, maybe they are doing just that, and I suppose that a pulsing star or the machine that makes it pulse doesn't exactly stop on a dime, so it may be worth keeping an eye on that thing for a couple of years, and watch for changes.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Do prime numbers work in something else than base 10 or are we simply assuming all other intelligent beings in the Universe use base 10 too?
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
If we could find three more stars in our galaxy with similar-ish repeating patterns we could have a navigation system. With four points you could get your X, Y, Z and speed. Kind of like our GPS constellation.
Misleading summary. From the article: " . . . the blinking of KIC 5520878 is almost definitely natural after all . . . "
So...a number that commonly appears in nature...appeared in nature. I'm not saying it's aliens, but...
I for one welcome our new neutrino beam bearing star signalling shark overlords!
-- Each tock of the Planck clock is a new world and here we are still life. --
Reminds me of the trees in hitchhikers guide that grow spanners
If you could fluctuate the luminosity of a star to announce your presence, then it would make more sense to make it flash prime numbers. Or encode such a message by varying the frequency, or by stopping and starting the device that produces the effect. Well, maybe they are doing just that, and I suppose that a pulsing star or the machine that makes it pulse doesn't exactly stop on a dime, so it may be worth keeping an eye on that thing for a couple of years, and watch for changes.
If it flipped between primes and golden mean, THEN we'd have something undeniably artificial.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
Scientists can be very selective in how they see intelligence. For example, when looking at the complexity of life, they see no intelligence behind it, but only random chance. Yet, in this case, rather than random chance, they see intelligence behind the phenomenon.
If you are annoyed by the sound of construction next door, turn on any Pink Floyd prior to "The Dark Side of the Moon", only slightly louder than the construction noises. Then it becomes music!
So, remember that episode of ST:TNG where the Enterprise is in a time loop, and they manage to send a message (the number "3") into the next loop, where it appeared all over the place, in an attempt to break out of the loop?
I sometimes wonder if things like the golden mean or the Fibonacci sequence popping up everywhere is real life being stranger than fiction.
make it FUNky