I hear crickets.....
Okay. We'll start with the basics, the first being a relatively painless revisit to your 8th grade geometry class. Pi is the mathematical symbol for the ratio of the circumference of a circle to the diameter of the circle. It is represented by a symbol that looks sort of like Stonehenge (how ironic) and it is ALWAYS THE SAME VALUE...it is always equal to 22/7 or 3.1416. Look at the first three numbers: 3....1....4 or 3/14...March 14....got it? okay...cool..
Being as old as I am is sometimes a blessing because I actually lived through things which the current generation, and even my son, now refer to as "ancient history". Well it's not all that ancient when the space race with the Soviet Union was launching (pun intended) itself straight for the moon and talk of conquering space, exploring distant worlds and looking for intelligent live in the universe was the hot topic of conversation at the local coffee shops and late night road trips with your buddies....well, my buddies anyway.
Here's where Pi comes in: There were people who argued at the time that the rather costly and dangerous proposition of sending expensive hardware and human bein
gs into space was wasteful and unnecessary. They proposed that if we really wanted to see if there was any intelligent life in the universe there was a much easier way to do it.It was a well-accepted scientific proposition that the radio and television signals we were sending out even at that time would escape the earth's atmosphere and travel unimpeded through space forever. While the strength of the signal would diminish, it would still be discernible to anyone (or anything) who might care to listen. Hence, there was a program launched called "Pi in the Sky". It was absolutely elegant in its simplicity.
There was a radio antenna set up which beamed a constant numeric signal. I'm sure I'm simplifying it but it was a simple series of pulses that were something like: *** * **** * ******
3 pulses, 1 pulse, 4 pulses, 1 pulse, 6 pulses...3.1416.
Brilliant. Humans have known about Pi for a couple of thousand years. Any civilization advanced enough to build devices to detect a radio signal, would be advanced enough to get the significance of the pulses. Neat huh?
Okay if you're not a nerd like me I forgive you.
But what if somebody had actually picked up the message? Would they have cautiously tuned in to find out more about us?
That brings up a terribly disturbing thought....if an alien being listened in to our electronic communications going out over satellite or radio/TV tower, what would they think of us? How would they perceive us?
Would they consider us to be deficient in science or technology?
Would they consider us to be warlike and aggressive toward not only one-another but to anybody who was "different?
Or, would they, like the magnificently warped and creative mind of Rod Sterling portrayed it, consider us as LUNCH?
I may write more on this later. There is a rich field of inquiry to be farmed here.
