Welcome to Encounter 2001 - Public Participation Space Missions
http://www.encounter2001.com/
� |-|-|-| � Both the 1999 Encounter 2001 transmissions
and the 1974 National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center
transmission from Arecibo, Puerto Rico used mathematical
and scientific concepts to communicate information about
Earth and humanity.
Both transmissions used "pictograms" to convey the
mathematical and scientific symbols that constituted
the messages. The pictograms are constructed using
a certain number of bits of information.
As in computer science, the bits can be thought of in terms
of "1's" and "0's." Transmitted across interstellar space, the
pictograms are designed to be easily reconstructed by any ETI
that might intercept the transmitted bits of "1's" and "0's."
When reconstructed, the pictograms form rectangular pictures
in which mathematical and scientific symbols appear, as well as
crude sketches.
While the use of mathematical and scientific facts and formulas
as an interstellar language necessarily limits the degree of
qualitative information that can be included in interstellar
transmissions, it is possible to convey at least some cultural
information using mathematical and scientific symbols.
In discussing the qualitative limitations of interstellar
messages that rely on mathematics and science as the
"language" of communication, Vakoch (1998) writes that
"extraterrestrials might be able to convey aspects of
their culture as abstract as their sense of beauty,
all the while using the language of numbers and physical
constants"
The Encounter 2001 transmissions use a specially
designed mathematical "alphabet" to represent
mathematical and scientific concepts.
Each transmission begins by defining symbols that
represent the digits 0 through 9. Then, using these digit
symbols, symbols for the simple mathematical operators
of addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and
exponentiation are defined. This is followed by symbols for
such mathematical constants as pi and the natural number
e, symbols for unknown variables (such as "x", "y" and "z"),
and symbols for simple logical operators such as the
negation symbol � and the logical "and" symbol .
Using these sorts of basic mathematical operators and
constants, the message goes on to define other symbols and
mathematical and scientific relationships, such as power,
temperature, time and the concept of repeating decimals.
Indeed, a total of twenty-three pictograms constitute the
first of four scientific messages included in the Encounter
2001 transmissions.
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