[Greg Boyles]

imatfaal, on 9 December 2011 - 06:40 PM, said:

Morris Code - nope lost me there (morse?) - the whole point of using primes is that we cannot at present see it as anything but artificial and with an intelligence behind it - most mathematical sequences could be natural

You all keep saying this, but no one has cited an example of any specific natural process generating any form of number sequence.

Some of you have only cited generalities like the 'number of tranmitters doubling' etc.

This post has been edited by Greg Boyles: 10 December 2011 - 08:04 AM

[Schrödinger's hat]

Greg Boyles, on 10 December 2011 - 08:03 AM, said:

You all keep saying this, but no one has cited an example of any specific natural process generating any form of number sequence.

Some of you have only cited generalities like the 'number of tranmitters doubling' etc.

My logic was more along these lines:

Simple equations pop up in nature easily
Sequences related to exponentials can be generated by simple equations
If we want to avoid being mistaken for a natural event, we should avoid such sequences

Something else relevant:

Pulsars emit radiation on various bands in an extremely regular manner. There was some speculation when the first radio pulsars were found that they might be some kind of signal.


For something a bit more complicated/speculative, consider a pulsar that was losing rotational energy to its environment at a rate proportional to its speed -- something that happens in small scale phenomena, quite a lot. I don't know the exact situation for a real pulsar, and in our observations this process is very slow, but this is a plausible for the type of thing you'd see naturally (if not a specific example).

It would be governed by the equation
Which has the solution
As such the time between the pulses would be a geometric series.(something along the lines of 1 2 4 etc, but more likely 1, 1.0324, 1.0324^2, and so on)

For anything more specific you'd probably have to talk to someone who does a lot of radio astronomy.

This post has been edited by Schrödinger's hat: 10 December 2011 - 08:22 AM

[Greg Boyles]

Schrödinger, on 10 December 2011 - 08:18 AM, said:

My logic was more along these lines:

Simple equations pop up in nature easily
Sequences related to exponentials can be generated by simple equations
If we want to avoid being mistaken for a natural event, we should avoid such sequences

Something else relevant:

Pulsars emit radiation on various bands in an extremely regular manner. There was some speculation when the first radio pulsars were found that they might be some kind of signal.


For something a bit more complicated/speculative, consider a pulsar that was losing rotational energy to its environment at a rate proportional to its speed -- something that happens in small scale phenomena, quite a lot. I don't know the exact situation for a real pulsar, and in our observations this process is very slow, but this is a plausible for the type of thing you'd see naturally (if not a specific example).

It would be governed by the equation
Which has the solution
As such the time between the pulses would be a geometric series.(something along the lines of 1 2 4 etc, but more likely 1, 1.0324, 1.0324^2, and so on)

For anything more specific you'd probably have to talk to someone who does a lot of radio astronomy.

Pulsars emit an unvarying pattern of energy pulses. Even a pulsar whose rotation is slowing would not emit pulses that could not be interpreted as numbers.

A number sequence would require the pattern of pulses to be significantly irregular in same way so that it makes it possible to delineate one number from the next in the sequence. A slowing pulsar would not generate suffient irregularity as far as I can see.

[Tres Juicy]

Airbrush, on 8 December 2011 - 08:01 PM, said:

A series of prime numbers is not the only way an ETI could signal their existence. (BTW, why would they? It's like saying "Here we are, come and bother us.")

Many mathematical number sequences could do the same job, such as some kind of Morris Code.

(BTW, why would they? It's like saying "Here we are, come and bother us.")

Um.... Thats what we did...