Last Saturday was the first break from humid summer weather, so I went out for a run. I don’t need to run with my iPod, since my mind provides its own soundtrack. Unlike my iPod though, there’s no variety – the only tracks to choose from are “The Side Stitch Blues”, “Are We There Yet?” “Wow Am I Slow” and “Are We There Yet (Extended Remix)”.
When I do run with my iPod, I usually put on an episode or two of This American Life (a talk show on NPR), since music would still allow my mind’s soundtrack to run.
The episode Saturday ended with a short story informing me there is actually a committee of what our first message to extraterrestrial life would be, should we ever find it. Okay, I know first impressions count, but that’s a little strange. Then they announced what the committee said the message should be. NUMBERS! Yes, MATH is going to be our first message to a different life form. Well, that’s a message I can get behind.
The logic is this: we can’t send them anything that requires context. The Constitution won’t mean anything to them because they a) probably don’t know English b) won’t be able to understand its significance. After all, with no knowledge of our history, it would be like tuning in to a movie mid-plot.
Some argue we should send music as our first message, but again, it’s all context. To us, the beautiful sounds of Vivaldi might be the alien equivalent of fingernails on a chalkboard.
But a binary message composed of all zeros and ones is a message apparently everyone can understand. (Everyone except most people on this planet. I love math and even I don’t speak binary.)
What amused me most was this: imagine what these aliens would think, receiving our binary code? Can’t you just picture them all sitting around the alien equivalent of a well-decorated coffee-shop, speaking in their native tongue, which happens to sound like the most sublime harp music you’ve ever heard, and they can’t stop talking about how they finally reached out to us, and we sent them…math?
It’s funny enough to take my mind off my side stitch.
