What is the best form of interstellar communication?

CROP CIRCLES!!! After all that's what many claim on here aliens do with us, so why don't we do the same so we find a way to travel many light years and bend some grass on their planet, seems daft when you think about it.

The answer is quite simple.

We would communicate via parallel Universes. All we have to do is travel to a parallel Universe where we sent the same message 1000s of years ago and it had arrived already. Simply jump between Universes to find the one where we already did whatever it was we were going to try to do.

In fact, once we harness this power, we should just find the Universe where we already did all the crap we've been trying to do since the start of mankind, then just chill the hell out and stop worrying about advancing.

Another idea.

We put the whole of the Universe in a quantum superposition, and then use decoherence and the collapse of the wave function as a means of communication.

Okay, didn't like that one.

How about we use God? Send Christians to the other planet and get them to ask God to send us a sign on Earth conveying our message. We then ask God to send messages back. The only problem with this I can see is that God is a fairytale, but every plan has its flaws.

Originally posted by humphreysjim
Another idea.

We put the whole of the Universe in a quantum superposition, and then use decoherence and the collapse of the wave function as a means of communication.

Okay, didn't like that one.

How about we use God? Send Christians to the other planet and get them to ask God to send us a sign on Earth conveying our message. We then ask God to send messages back. The only problem with this I can see is that God is a fairytale, but every plan has its flaws.

The messages will probably sound like they came out of the book of Ezekiel. By the time we figure out what the fiery creature with the head of a zebra and six wings symbolizes it won't matter anymore.

I'm going to take a guess and say, definitely not SETI

I dont understand how we can be so arrogant as to assume other living things will communicate in manners that we employ.

Especially since there are millions of species on our own planet that use methods of communication we would deem odd, such as changing from one color to another, or rubbing antenae together at a certain speed....

Very simple problem, here (NIbiru) we are using Man of U.N.C.L.E pen-radio.

mmm... lexx marathon... syfy should have ran one during the superbowl


as far as something we could do right now, and it be lightspeed I read somewhere if you broadcast a radio signal thru a rotating magnetic field the emitted radiowave gets boosted to lightspeed

its a known thing, companys are already working on the antenna for doing so. I don't have any posts on it right off hand but im sure a search would provide lots of data on it

main thing they want it for right now is on cell phones, you would transmit directly to the satelite instead of to a tower


would also work for 4.5 lightyears if ya didnt mind waiting that long

reply to post by hisshadow

Radio works at the speed of light just fine. It doesn't need any help.

Originally posted by WhiteDevil013
I'm going to take a guess and say, definitely not SETI

I dont understand how we can be so arrogant as to assume other living things will communicate in manners that we employ.

Especially since there are millions of species on our own planet that use methods of communication we would deem odd, such as changing from one color to another, or rubbing antenae together at a certain speed....

I agree that SETI is wasting their time. It would be foolish for a civilization to broadcast its existence in a way that SETI can discover. For example, imagine two civilizations in close proximity - one noisy and one secretive. The secretive civilization could design their colonization strategy to encircle and contain the potential growth of their noisy neighbours. Eventually they might even exterminate their noisy neighbours.

Originally posted by cloudyday

Originally posted by WhiteDevil013
I'm going to take a guess and say, definitely not SETI

I dont understand how we can be so arrogant as to assume other living things will communicate in manners that we employ.

Especially since there are millions of species on our own planet that use methods of communication we would deem odd, such as changing from one color to another, or rubbing antenae together at a certain speed....

I agree that SETI is wasting their time. It would be foolish for a civilization to broadcast its existence in a way that SETI can discover. For example, imagine two civilizations in close proximity - one noisy and one secretive. The secretive civilization could design their colonization strategy to encircle and contain the potential growth of their noisy neighbours. Eventually they might even exterminate their noisy neighbours.

Are we talking Daleks here
We assume any other intelligent civilisation is as dumb as ours
Maybe they have gotten over themselves already and see the stupidity of self destruction

There's some very interesting and challenging ideas here, but with all the intellect on this site, i can't believe you've all missed the one method, guaranteed quicker than every single method mentioned.

Anything you want to pass on to the other world, just tell my wife...

...the entire planet over there will know in no-time.

Originally posted by cloudyday
How could these two civilizations communicate with a high enough data rate to share their ideas? Also how could they prevent other potentially hostile alien civilizations from discovering them?

edit on 5-2-2012 by cloudyday because: (no reason given)

They could develop a way to interfere with PULSAR or Long Gamma Ray burst to make a signal that would travel far and fast. The hard part is interrupting the pulsar energy beam to say SOS type codes. How do you interrupt the pulsar beam HIGH MAGNETISM PULLS ON THE BEAM ON AND OFF SO WE TALK WITH PULSARS...

Originally posted by GeordieLegend
There's some very interesting and challenging ideas here, but with all the intellect on this site, i can't believe you've all missed the one method, guaranteed quicker than every single method mentioned.

Anything you want to pass on to the other world, just tell my wife...

...the entire planet over there will know in no-time.

Of course the answer was staring us in the face all along
Best treat her nice then eh dont want her bad mouthing us to them there aliens

Originally posted by artistpoet

Originally posted by GeordieLegend
There's some very interesting and challenging ideas here, but with all the intellect on this site, i can't believe you've all missed the one method, guaranteed quicker than every single method mentioned.

Anything you want to pass on to the other world, just tell my wife...

...the entire planet over there will know in no-time.

Of course the answer was staring us in the face all along
Best treat her nice then eh dont want her bad mouthing us to them there aliens

I find it works even better if you tell them not to tell anybody else.

Originally posted by cloudyday

Originally posted by artistpoet

Originally posted by GeordieLegend
There's some very interesting and challenging ideas here, but with all the intellect on this site, i can't believe you've all missed the one method, guaranteed quicker than every single method mentioned.

Anything you want to pass on to the other world, just tell my wife...

...the entire planet over there will know in no-time.

Of course the answer was staring us in the face all along
Best treat her nice then eh dont want her bad mouthing us to them there aliens

I find it works even better if you tell them not to tell anybody else.

Yes like "Can you keep a secret dear" then in minutes she's on the inter stellar worm hole phone blabbing away about how you never close the toilet lid etc.
This is getting a bit sexist whats happening to me

reply to post by cloudyday


A form of particle tansportation would probably be the most efficient. We can already transport single particles. It would probably have to start as a primative moris code until accuracy and speed could be increased...at which point it could very easily be advance to more complex transmissions similar to that of fiberoptic without the cables. This is something that could be done with the tech we have now, imagine where it would be at that point in our future.

An article in popular science was recently discussing fiberoptic systems being developed in japan that have speeds of over 100 terabytes per second, an equivelent of downloading 3 months of hd video in one second. No reason the same principle being applied to light cannot be applied to a particle system.

Originally posted by artistpoet

Originally posted by cloudyday

Originally posted by WhiteDevil013
I'm going to take a guess and say, definitely not SETI

I dont understand how we can be so arrogant as to assume other living things will communicate in manners that we employ.

Especially since there are millions of species on our own planet that use methods of communication we would deem odd, such as changing from one color to another, or rubbing antenae together at a certain speed....

I agree that SETI is wasting their time. It would be foolish for a civilization to broadcast its existence in a way that SETI can discover. For example, imagine two civilizations in close proximity - one noisy and one secretive. The secretive civilization could design their colonization strategy to encircle and contain the potential growth of their noisy neighbours. Eventually they might even exterminate their noisy neighbours.

Are we talking Daleks here
We assume any other intelligent civilisation is as dumb as ours
Maybe they have gotten over themselves already and see the stupidity of self destruction

If two neighbouring civilizations are roughly equal in development then it would probably be mutually beneficial to share their different science, music, literature, etc.

On the other hand if one civilization is vastly more advanced intellectually than the neighbouring civilization then they might decide it is best to contain or even exterminate their inferior neighbours to provide more room for their own superior civilization to grow and develop intellectually.

Originally posted by cloudyday

Originally posted by Phage
High powered optical lasers would offer high bandwidth.
www.coseti.org...

What would it take for say 100 Mbit/sec? Could a laser send this information in a focused beam that would not spread beyond the receiver so it would not attract unwanted attention from hostile alien civilizations?

One big advantage of the laser system...given a laser that's powerful enough to send a reliable signal to a nearby star system (probably powered by solar power satellites or systems on or near Mercury, to get enough power), you really don't have to worry too much about 'unwanted attention'...your communications system will do double duty as a fairly effective system-defense platform. See also: The Kzinti Lesson (thank you, Larry Niven!).

reply to post by cloudyday


I guess I just see it differently:-
If a more intelectually advanced civilisation came across us - Maybe they would want to help us.
To mereley want to overun another beings space and spread one's own goes against Intelligence in my book
But heck what do I know

Originally posted by artistpoet
reply to post by cloudyday

 

I guess I just see it differently:-
If a more intelectually advanced civilisation came across us - Maybe they would want to help us.
To mereley want to overun another beings space and spread one's own goes against Intelligence in my book
But heck what do I know

Have you looked at history? Or at nature in general? "Merely wanting to overrun another being's space and spread one's own" is something that every single species on Earth that's been accused of having even the most rudimentary intelligence (Parrots, Primates, Whales, Humans, Politicians...) does exactly that. Empire building isn't "against" intelligence, you can make a fairly good argument that it's one of the signs of intelligence. Any alien race that we encounter (at least any comprehensible alien race) will probably behave similarly.