Para?noid on 27/10/2006 at 01:58
Considering that the Milky Way is almost 100,000 light years across this is like not doing the Drake equation many favours.
Cheers,
Martek
Martin Karne on 27/10/2006 at 02:31
Quote Posted by Agent Monkeysee
Well I don't think anyone's arguing that you can just plug the TV in and it should work, but presented with an unencrypted, uncompressed A/V signal it should be relatively straightforward to rig *something* up to interpret the feed properly. It doesn't really matter that it's alien technology, a waveform is a waveform.
The problem is the unencrypted, uncompressed part. We've been using radio communication for less than a century and already a significant portion of our broadcasts are encrypted and compressed and that sort of signal mangling is only going to increase. Within the next 50 years or so I suspect all our broadcast signals will be indistinguishable from noise, which puts us just barely 150 years after the invention of radio. That's 150 years, out of 5000+ years of civilization and onward into the future, that anyone listening in would be able to hear us.
Assuming alien races follow anything remotely like our technological progression that's an *incredibly* narrow period of time to pick up comprehendible radio signals. Unless this civilization is literally in lockstep with ours (which is pretty much out of the question) the odds are there's most likely no radio signals out there that we would be able to decipher unless they're
trying to get somebody to listen.
You see that is the problem, we use digital encryption, randomizing signals over several frequencies, such as spread spectrum techniques does, do you think you can tap those signals without the right key and hope to even see one single frame of data or image?
Nope, you can't.
I wouldn't expect less from an advanced alien civilization. We probably won't be able to tap in their telecomunication system and even hope to understand their digital TV standard.
So yeah if they are up to our current level of technology with their use of spread spectrum this is already not possible unless you know the system key.
Printer's Devil on 27/10/2006 at 04:27
Good point(s). But like the gold-plated copper phonographs carried by Voyager 1 and 2, specific alien transmissions would be as straightforward as possible (both records were packaged with needles and pictographic instructions, IIRC) as Monkey suggested. Remember, despite our understanding, even our own galaxy is inconceivably huge, both in time and space--why underestimate such a place after a mere hundred years of scattered research by a handful of people?
Martin Karne on 27/10/2006 at 09:31
You see, the voyager probes were intented to be accessed by foreign civilizations, our own digital TV encrypted system are not.
And besides back then we were only capable of doing very little processing of signals in the digital domain.
Merely PCM analog to digital (and viceversa) converters that were the pinnacle of technology back then and they had only a resolution between 12 to 14 bits.
Matthew on 27/10/2006 at 09:37
Is this not completely missing the point?
Martin Karne on 27/10/2006 at 09:57
Not by much, if you think that they could encrypt their transmissions to avoid noise and interefences and even prevent unauthorized access, they could do spread spectrum transmissions.
Military internal communications are done that way (for the USA at least).
[edit]
Not to mention cable modems, digital TV set top boxes, wireless routers and so on.
Matthew on 27/10/2006 at 10:55
No, I mean that from the OP the scientists are not seeking to view them, they're are only looking to detect them, which is a big difference.
Bjossi on 27/10/2006 at 14:27
I'm pretty sure scientists would also love to see what the aliens watch in their home world though. ;)
Schattentänzer on 27/10/2006 at 14:28
Oh god, what a stupid article.
Scientist: Our new radio-telescope array will be used to inspect the red-shift of quasar clusters.
Journalist: Uh huh.
Scientist: We will also record more precise data of solar activity and interspatial electromagnetic flux in general.
Journalist: Uh huh.
Scientist: It operates within a frequency range of 30 - 300kHz, which means a wavelength of 10 - 1 km.
Journalist: Uh huh.
Scientist: That's about the wavelength our own radio and television signals would have in a distance of, uhm, 1000 light years. So in theory, we could pick up alien sitcoms, haha.
Journalist: Wait what, aliens?? Tell me more!
Bjossi on 27/10/2006 at 14:44
Why watch alien sitcoms when you can watch alien porno movies? Yuck. :o
