Post by Padre Romero on Mar 5, 2009 13:13:33 GMT -5
there's a big difference between "Efficient" and "size effective".
For instance, you can store all that biological information on the head of a pin, but how do you get it to where it needs to be, express mail? catapults? juicing even something as low mass the head of a pin up to the speed of light isn't nearly as energy-efficient as simply beaming the information on a radio wave, and a wave of something on the upper end of the spectrum, like a gamma ray, could actually relay almost as much information as you've described in a reasonably short message.
But the real obstacle to using anything but radio waves to talk is that both the sender and the receiver need to have a solid grasp of the medium. We obviously can't use any method that hasn't been invented yet, and the aliens aren't going to be able to intercept and decode anything on a medium they're ignorant of.
Radio communication is, therefore, just about the only method of communication available to us because, as a nearly ubiquitous phenomenon in the universe, astral travelers should have heard of it. It's hard to imagine talking to a being that had no knowledge of mathematics as we understand them or electromagnetic energy as we use it...we wouldn't be able to have much of a conversation. Which is why SETI keeps an eye out mainly for radio signals containing mathematical messages
For instance, you can store all that biological information on the head of a pin, but how do you get it to where it needs to be, express mail? catapults? juicing even something as low mass the head of a pin up to the speed of light isn't nearly as energy-efficient as simply beaming the information on a radio wave, and a wave of something on the upper end of the spectrum, like a gamma ray, could actually relay almost as much information as you've described in a reasonably short message.
But the real obstacle to using anything but radio waves to talk is that both the sender and the receiver need to have a solid grasp of the medium. We obviously can't use any method that hasn't been invented yet, and the aliens aren't going to be able to intercept and decode anything on a medium they're ignorant of.
Radio communication is, therefore, just about the only method of communication available to us because, as a nearly ubiquitous phenomenon in the universe, astral travelers should have heard of it. It's hard to imagine talking to a being that had no knowledge of mathematics as we understand them or electromagnetic energy as we use it...we wouldn't be able to have much of a conversation. Which is why SETI keeps an eye out mainly for radio signals containing mathematical messages