In a message dated 2/27/99 12:54:05 AM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
writes:
> Earlier I posted the notion that Mersenne primes might be used to
> impress extraterrestrial civilizations. After thinking it thru, I think we
> can make a stronger arguement than that: Mersenne primes might
> be the *best* yardstick to *prove* a certain level of technological
> achievement, perhaps the most logical yardstick.
>
> Consider: Interstellar messages may be in the form of binary messages
> where the number of bits is the product of two large primes (call them
> M and N). Any mathematically oriented receiver would place the bits
> into an MxN array and color in the 0s (or 1s) and get a black and white
> picture. These pictures cannot be used to *prove* ones level of technology
> level for they could easily be faked. We could create a picture of a
> more advanced city that we currently have, for instance, from a model.
>
> But, the primes *cannot* be faked. You either have the computational
> ability to find them or not. We could send out a list of all known
> primes as a proof of computational prowess, but I would suggest
> sending only the Mersennes would prove our technology to any possible
> exocivilizations with far less power wasted sending all known primes.
>
> Can anyone think of any way to *prove* the level of sophistication
> of our current society, better than a list of Mersenne primes? spike
>
Anyone out there who has the radio to receive our message is smart enough to
talk to -- why rule them out if they're a bit mathematically behind?
If you just want to tag your message in an obvious way that says "NOT A
NATURAL PHENOMENON, A REAL MESSAGE" you don't have to send anything LIKE all
primes, just a few dozen will be plenty.
A picture formed by a MxN matrix of dots, where M and N are Mersenne primes,
is gonna be REALLY REALLY big......
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