Why We Keep Sending Music To Extraterrestrials (slate.com) 71
Music is an ideal medium for interstellar communication. From a report: Each summer for the past 25 years, tens of thousands of people have flocked to Barcelona, Spain, to witness Sonar, a three-day festival dedicated to electronic music, art, and design. To celebrate Sonar's 25th anniversary in 2018, the festival partnered with the Catalonia Institute for Space Studies and the nonprofit METI International to send a series of interstellar messages to Luyten's star, a red dwarf about 12 light-years from Earth. Although red dwarfs are the most common stellar objects in our galaxy, Luyten's star is remarkable for hosting GJ237b, the closest potentially habitable planet outside of our own solar system. No one knows for sure whether GJ237b hosts life, intelligent or otherwise, but if ET does call the planet home, Sonar wants to rock its socks off. Over the course of several nights in late 2017 and early 2018, a radar system in Tromso, Norway, blasted a custom message from Sonar toward GJ237b. Like any good correspondence, the message began with a greeting: In this case, the first 33 prime numbers repeated on two alternating radio frequencies functioned as a stand-in for "hello."
This was followed by a brief tutorial that the message designers hoped would teach ET to extract the music written by Sonar-affiliated musicians and embedded in the message. [...] The Sonar messages are unique insofar as they are the only interstellar transmissions to use songs designed by musicians specifically for communicating with ET. That the messages include a substantial information content places them firmly in the tradition of messaging extraterrestrial intelligences, or METI, a term coined by the Russian radio astronomer Alexander Zaitsev to differentiate the practice from other modes of interstellar communication. The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, or SETI, is focused on listening for ET signals rather than sending them, and "active SETI" is about creating beacons that lack information but signal to alien intelligences that we exist.
This was followed by a brief tutorial that the message designers hoped would teach ET to extract the music written by Sonar-affiliated musicians and embedded in the message. [...] The Sonar messages are unique insofar as they are the only interstellar transmissions to use songs designed by musicians specifically for communicating with ET. That the messages include a substantial information content places them firmly in the tradition of messaging extraterrestrial intelligences, or METI, a term coined by the Russian radio astronomer Alexander Zaitsev to differentiate the practice from other modes of interstellar communication. The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, or SETI, is focused on listening for ET signals rather than sending them, and "active SETI" is about creating beacons that lack information but signal to alien intelligences that we exist.
Well... (Score:2)
if we expect music to be as appealing to extra-terrestrials as it is to Terrans, then the net result will be a bunch of horny aliens looking to party
I'm good with it as long as there are some Kirk-approved alien chicks in the group
Piracy (Score:5, Funny)
Obviously we want to get them hooked and then sue them for piracy when they make copies. How else can we extort them for gain?
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There was a science fiction story I read awhile back called Year Zero where aliens kept listening to human music because it was regarded as the best in the Universe. However, they had a problem. They respected local laws and were copying the songs like crazy in violation of local copyrights. The resulting fees would bankrupt all alien civilizations. A team was dispatched to figure out how to get humans to allow them to copy the songs without bankrupting everyone.
Re: Piracy (Score:1)
Re: Well... (Score:1)
I'm good with it as long as there are some Kirk-approved alien chicks in the group...
So, alien chicks-with-dicks, then... after all, campy ole' Shitner hardly gives off a hetero vibe.
Re: Well... (Score:1)
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And the Judo-chop, don't forget the Judo-chop [martialdevelopment.com]
Re:Well... (Score:4, Funny)
Well, that would explain all the anal probing reports, wouldn't it?
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It is all bound to molecular harmonics so under similar life conditions, the music will be relatively similar, as similar as rhythm and blues it to 'C' rap. So still a broad range but probably broadly popular with similar environmental conditions and a nice thought, though that close to us and it would be unpopulated because of us, hey we need room to spread to become what we will become amongst the stars, one step up, from current one step up from chimpanzees. It is extremely unlikely for any habited plane
Great (Score:1)
Re:Great (Score:4, Informative)
So radio signals travel at 0.65 kph through space now? Good to know.
Re: Great (Score:2)
First, you have to determine your “Lead&rdq (Score:3)
If the target is 12 light-years away, are they aiming where it will be in 12 light-years, or is this just some whimsical feelgood project?
Re: First, you have to determine your “Lead& (Score:1)
Re: First, you have to determine your “Lead& (Score:2)
It's 12 light-years each way, so they actually need to aim 24 years ahead.
No. We need to aim our signal to the place the star and planet will be in 12 years, when our signal will arrive. If we want to receive a reply, we'll need to wait another 12 years and then point the receiving antenna at the place where the star and planet were whenever the extraterrestrials started sending their response. Of course, we don't have any way to know when they'll respond, if they ever do.
I question what kind of technology would be needed to receive a signal sent from Earth 12 light-years away.
We need a bigger boat... I mean, bigger radio (Score:2)
I question what kind of technology would be needed to receive a signal sent from Earth 12 light-years away. By the time it gets there, it will be hugely attenuated and degraded.
I've seen someone do the math on this and any radio signal we send would likely be too attenuated and degraded to reach even the edge of the solar system.
What might be able to get someone's attention is our light pollution. There's enough power in that where it might be able to be picked up from a powerful telescope on a planet in some relatively nearby solar system. Other things that might be powerful enough would be nuclear weapons tests in the atmosphere, but since that practice has been considered a b
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I vote we contract Elon Musk to cover Pluto with a programmable array of LEDs. You could even sell ad time on the planetoid, you're going to want to pulsate the LEDs somehow anyway. Even though no one could see it, the novelty would surely gather enough of a following to get a telescope pointed at Pluto and a livestream to see what message Pluto is sporting today.
"Well would you look at that! It says 'Eat at Joes'! Praise be to Science!"
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Maybe we could nuke Mars
Ah, I knew blindseer would bring nukes into it eventually.
Re: First, you have to determine your “Lead& (Score:2)
Re: First, you have to determine your “Lead& (Score:2)
The signal isn't a tightly-collimated laser, it's radio waves, the signal will spread significantly by the time it gets there; it'll blanket the entire planetary system.
And the power will decrease as the square of the distance.
Re: First, you have to determine your “Lead& (Score:2)
We heard you (Score:2, Funny)
Sincerely,
Your galactic neighbors
Re:We heard you (Score:5, Funny)
Needs more cowbell.
Re: We heard you (Score:2)
So we are sending you a large asteroid accelerated to near speed of light
How inelegant; why not a tiny blackhole?? (Ideally one just large enough for Msmash, who insists on blithely copy/pasting every bit of inane stupidity she/he/it comes across).
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Re: We heard you (Score:2)
The problem with shooting a black hole is that it would keep going through matter for a very long time.
Through it as well as around it; mass still attracts mass. Orbital mechanics and all that.
"Space Opera" been there, done that (Score:2)
My son got me "Space Opera" for my last birthday. The upshot is that your sentience is evaluated on the basis of your music, with a Eurovision-style contest once every year of some ET planet. Newly discovered species compete too, and if one of them comes in last, they're declared "not sentient" and obliterated. You never know the purposes to which your broadcasts may be used.
https://www.amazon.com/Space-O... [amazon.com]
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"Show me what you got! I want to see what you got!" [Originally in all caps.]
"Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING." Yes, and sometimes that's both intentional and appropriate. Some people worry that robots will enslave humans. I contend it has already happened.
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My son got me "Space Opera" for my last birthday.
I hope you mean "previous birthday" or "most recent birthday". Otherwise it would be very sad.
So stupid (Score:3)
Do you want an alien invasion? Because this is how you cause an alien invasion.
We sent fucking music. Along with a sophisticated code for how to decode it. Any intelligent species is going to try to find the message that was sent. They're going to try to find the language, understand what it means. They're going to put a ton of resources into communicating with the new aliens they just found.
And when they realize that it's just fucking music that some mad planet finds pleasing to listen to but which contains no useful information, we'd better hope that they have a fantastic sense of humor. Maybe, just maybe, we should have said hello first, and worked on the "hi aliens, what can we learn from you, and here's what you can learn from us" sort of things. One of those things being that some sonic waves make us happy.
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Do you want an alien invasion? Because this is how you cause an alien invasion.
We sent fucking music. Along with a sophisticated code for how to decode it. Any intelligent species is going to try to find the message that was sent. They're going to try to find the language, understand what it means. They're going to put a ton of resources into communicating with the new aliens they just found.
And when they realize that it's just fucking music that some mad planet finds pleasing to listen to but which contains no useful information, we'd better hope that they have a fantastic sense of humor. Maybe, just maybe, we should have said hello first, and worked on the "hi aliens, what can we learn from you, and here's what you can learn from us" sort of things. One of those things being that some sonic waves make us happy.
As soon as you develop a reliable way to effectively communicate complex thought with a dolphin or other highly intelligent creature here on Earth let me know. Otherwise there will be no communication with "aliens".
Why would you ever think that you could have a conversation with an alien when we can't even have a conversation with a chimp? No, the current progress with sign language doesn't count.
And no It isn't the intelligence level of the animals that is preventing the communication.
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> And no It isn't the intelligence level of the animals that is preventing the communication.
It's unclear that dolphins or chimpanzees have a capacity for generalized language. There appears to be significant brain anatomy changes tied to the evolution of language in humans-- convergence/connection of Broca and Wernicke's areas, tripling the area devoted to auditory processing, etc-- in comparison to our ape ancestors.
Presumably any alien species that develops radio will have some kind of generalized la
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Your assertion doesn't make it true.
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I'm worried that they will screw up and send it towards a civilization that uses sonic weapons and thinks this is an attack.
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I'm worried that they will screw up and send it towards a civilization that uses sonic weapons and thinks this is an attack.
Then they'd better use Britney Spears and finish them off in the first shot.
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I'm worried that they will screw up and send it towards a civilization that uses sonic weapons and thinks this is an attack.
Then they'd better use Britney Spears and finish them off in the first shot.
I was thinking more like dubstep.
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Have you ever read "Blindsight" by Peter Watts? Because you just have described its plot.
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"After an extensive analysis of the communications, we have determined that the planet contains no intelligent life."
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We could use a good old-fashioned alien invasion right now.
Considering that we can't even begin planning an invasion of our own at this point, it is unlikely that we will successfully fight one off from a technologically superior foe. Considering that Spanish conquered Aztec [wikipedia.org] with just a few ships, decimating population by 90% and effectively ending Aztec civilization, imagine what a space-faring civilization would do to us.
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There are laxatives, you know...
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That's almost exactly the plot of Blindsight [wikipedia.org], by Peter Watts (though Watts adds several additional twists). About the author [rifters.com]: "Whenever I find my will to live becoming too strong, I read Peter Watts. —James Nicoll".
That particular story is also written in kind of a minimalist style, in which the people in the story take for granted things the person reading the story doesn't know, so there's a lot that takes some effort to figure out. I found the story engrossing. It definitely meets John Campbell
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No it's not: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luyten's_Star [wikipedia.org]
I'm fine with this (Score:2)
Well.... (Score:1)
Well at least they're not beaming Blondies' Rapture to them....
This is a dubious idea (Score:2)
Since even close relatives, like chimpanzees, don't share our taste in music, this is a quite dubious undertaking. Perhaps if they sent studies in Pythagorean music it would be intelligible, if not interesting, to a non-human intelligence, but most human music is tuned to resonate to human specific patterns. Try to even get your dog or cat to think your taste in music is good. Your dog will be willing to put up with much of it for the sake of rewards, say treats or petting. Your cat will show, at best,
Re: This is a dubious idea (Score:2)
Music is ideal because... (Score:1)
Seen on SETI this morning (Score:2)
This file has been removed due to a copyright claim by SME.
How long until... (Score:2)
How long until an alien civilization comes over to tell us to stop.
"Envia més Chuck Berry!" (Score:2)
If you're not familiar with a truly classic SNL sketch from 1978, start watching at about 2:55 in....
https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/next-week-in-review/3008107 [nbc.com]
Music defines us (Score:2)
Music is major factor in human societies. It is what brings us together and keeps us together. We seem to have evolved specifically to enjoy music and to make music. Music is what defines us. We are music. We'd be nothing without it. If we're going to shout out to aliens, doing so with music not only makes sense, it is the most logical choice, regardless of how irrational it is.
Note that music also plays a major part in the lives of other animals on our planet, ranging from insects to whales and from birds
Re: Music defines us (Score:1)
Earth music? Are we mad? (Score:2)
Oh boy, this is inviting them to send a Deathstar to annihilate us.
Jokes aside it does make sense to do this because it will clearly indicate our IQ .. so maybe they'll have pity on us.
No GJ237b (Score:2)
There is no GJ237b.
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Really [exoplanet.eu].
Planet GJ 273 b
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Extremophiles, particularly thermophiles.
The upper limit for life had been widely recognised as 113 Celsius, thanks to a microbe called Pyrolobus fumari that was discovered in 1997 inside a single hydrothermal vent in the Atlantic Ocean, 3650 metres below the surface.
However, a microbe collected from a vent in what’s known as the Faulty Towers neighbourhood, 2400 metres down in the Pacific Ocean, has upped the ante.
It survived – and multiplied, scientists say – during a 10-hour blast in a 121 C autoclave, an oven used to sterilise medical equipment. Researchers finally managed to kill the hardy microbe by cranking the temperature up to 130 C. It’s been given the preliminary name of “Strain 121” and is in the same family as Pyrolobus fumari.
We don't know the upper limit because we don't have a natural environment that has reached 3000 F yet.
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Luyten's star [u-strasbg.fr] is a single stellar object of colour M3.5V, with a parallax of 268.98 milliarc-seconds (which is high, and gives a dist
Have none of these people read "Three Body Problem (Score:2)
Of course (Score:2)
I got a better idea (Score:2)
At best compeltely pointless, at worst... (Score:3)
Its is almost certain that this is a complete waste of effort.
On the extremely tiny chance that something is listening, then its completely F##### stupid. We've told them where we are, but nothing about us except that we like sending what is essentially random data into space.
What on earth are people hoping will happen? Most of the non-null scenarios don't sound very appealing to me.