Re: How do you say 'Hello' to an alien?

Quoting Nik Taylor <yonjuuni@...>:

> Andreas Johansson wrote:
> > I think the compositors of the Arecibo message assumed any repicients would
> be
> > familiar with binary notation, and therefore likely to recognize it. I
> shan't
> > try to guess the odds of an alien civilization as a whole being acquainted
> to
> > binary numbers, but merely pessimistically note that positional notation
> seems
> > to come anything but naturally to many humans I know.
>
> Surely any alien life form with computer technology would be familiar
> with binary notation, even if it's only an historical curiosity, because
> their computers have long since advanced beyond binary.
I wouldn't be sure of that, and there's no guarantee that an alien who
receives the message has computer technology.

> But, why does it matter if they know what the message means?  Isn't it
> enough that it's artificial?
Had those who composed the thing thought like that, I expect they'd not
crammed that many more or less interesting factoids into it.

But as John said, it's primarily symbolic.

                                                             Andreas

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