**Giorgio Comai** @g@fed.giorgiocomai.eu · Aug 04, 2020, 20:33

**Giorgio Comai** @g@fed.giorgiocomai.eu · Aug 04, 2020, 20:33

Giorgio Comai @g@fed.giorgiocomai.eu

Aug 04, 2020, 20:33

Giorgio Comai @g@fed.giorgiocomai.eu

This is part of a message sent by astronomers in 1999, addressing aliens in the Cygnus constellation. They felt this could be sufficiently universal that it would be understood.

Can you figure out what this means?

I'll give the correct answer in the reply to this message

a68ba6686049dc6b57f6405158c328a7474517f66c4f45baca7f106ae6df5d84.jpg

**valleyforge** @valleyforge@qoto.org · 2020-08-04T21:41:12Z

valleyforge @valleyforge@qoto.org

@g I see the center portion and immediately think that's binary but I'm in computer science so I'm going to see binary when I can. Maybe the idea is that aliens could figure out binary pretty simply so everything should be based on that.

Aug 04, 2020, 21:41 · · · ·

**Giorgio Comai** @g@fed.giorgiocomai.eu · Aug 05, 2020, 13:47

**Giorgio Comai** @g@fed.giorgiocomai.eu · Aug 05, 2020, 13:47

Aug 05, 2020, 13:47

Giorgio Comai @g@fed.giorgiocomai.eu

@valleyforge yes, basically the idea is that in order to communicate with aliens, you need a common language. Their starting assumption is that the only real "universal" language is math, so they build a vocabulary using math concepts, and then use them to talk about the rest.

I took it from here: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v42/n12/nick-richardson/we-re-not-talking-to-you-we-re-talking-to-saturn

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