Talk:Arecibo message

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Contents 1 Old discussion 2 wavelength times number 3 Mirror Image Fix 4 Jumbled Nonsense 5 Chilbolton Message 6 Nucleotide encoding 7 Images 8 Signal Characteristics 9 Man 10 Nucleotides 11 Do they honestly expect aliens to understand this? 12 So, about Pluto 13 Sugar 14 Pictures are back to front 15 Some questions 16 Base 7?

[edit] Old discussion

1679 is not prime. The article says it has factors of 23 and 73. --Peacenik 11:29, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I think the explanation of the binary numbers requires more, uh, explanation. I understand binary, but I'm not understanding this encoding. Good job I'm not an alien. Metamatic 00:31, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Glad I'm not the only one!.. I can't make head nor tail of the binary numbers here, and it's not because I don't understand binary. The most sensible way of reading it would seem to me to be left-to-right, top-to-bottom, each number being a vertical strip of four pixels (white=1 black-0), and having a vertical strip of black seperating them for clarity... This way obviously doesn't work for a start, as there are white pixels on odd numbered columns... and attempting to read it in any method like what I've described gives nonsense. I don't see why it's written in such an unintuitive manner, as there's plenty of space there to count as far as 12 in binary using the method I've described. On the other hand, given that it was put together by the likes of Frank Drake and Carl Sagan, maybe I'm not not smart enough to get it. Anyone care to explain? Noodhoog 08:01, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Update! Found a good explanation of how to read it.. seems rather more convoluted to me than necessary, but what do I know of these things? I'm adding the info to the article Noodhoog 08:07, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Unfortunately the explanation of the numbering does not fit with the picture. Some dots are black even they should be white and vice versa. Maybe the picture of the message is not correct reproduced here. At least, the picture is different from that an the SETI homepage. Furthermore that picture of the SETI Homepage, fits to the explanation of the numbers on Wikipedia. Stefan_da

As noted by the above, the graphic should be changed. The picture is indeed wrong, as every version of the graphic that I've seen in print has those digits differently from the present graphic. In particular 4, 5 and 7 are wrong (but not 6, oddly). A similar review should be had for the other segments of the message, and the full message ought to be displayed 'upright', since the horizontal arrangement is decried as 'jumbled nonsense' right in the opening paragraph. -Cory

Again: I am disputing this page because upon further review, it's rather a mess. I suspect someone made the 230x730 png by hand to correspond to the messsage; first of all, 4,5 and 7 are wrong, as I said. Secondly, the last section which represents the telescope diameter is plain wrong: a string of 'ones' should be moved 'down' into the final row. I'm also shaky on the representation of Thymine and Guanine. This is an interesting topic, but it seems difficult to discover a proper 'basis' for the message with my limited means. An overhaul of the page should include the following things: a bit string of the 1679 bits, and an image of the message, at least vertically oriented. whether 'right-to-left' (as it is usually written) or 'left to right' doesn't really matter, but because the message is a sequence in time, we should also clarify WHERE the message starts and how to READ it. this orientation should be consistent throughout the breakdown of the message in the page. Someone should use at least two reputable print sources for the message; a lot of psuedoscience crops up around this topic, and frankly, many of the images not in print seem to contradict each other. Finally, a discussion may be warranted for errors in the extant message. -Cory

It appears that 4 is completely wrong, and 5 has been transposed with 7. -L

It's obvious, looking at the actual image from the SETI homepage, that the image in this article was partially mirrored, leaving the numbers section with an incorrect image. Why doesn't someone change it? --131.215.159.4 23:15, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The image was not correct indeed, so I've changed it. I also changed the binary numbers image and modified the text accordingly, but the other images should be also changed. Volunteers? --jbc 15:58, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Hello everyone. I found by my own means how are the binary numbers displayed:

1) all are "underlined" by a pixel. It's better seen at the 1-10 sequence.

2) some numbers are horizontal (in both ways), others vertical.

3) when a number is too long, it's wrapped at their right or up/down.

It's easy to decode this numbers if you are human and has strong computer experience. This numbering representation, anyway, is odd and complicate (for almost every human and most aliens, i think). A better disposition, more uniform, is easy to make. A pity, yes. - voet cranf.

Number Explaination: The numbers are not in binary format. They are in binary coded octal. The major indicator is that 8 is shown as 10. 10 in every number base equals the number base. So, 10 in base 2 is 2, and 10 in base 10 = 10, and 10 in base 8 = 8. To show 9 as a binary coded octal value, the 9 is represented by 11, (1*8 + 1), and the 11 is what is shown in binary. The value 10, is represented by 12, (1*8 + 2), and the 12 is shown in binary format. That is consistent with what is shown in the picture. Of course, if the numbers were staight binary representation then 10 would be shown as 1010 and 9 would be 1001. The fact that the numbers are in octal and not hex is what I find so fascinating. I really didn't realize how popular octal was in the 70's or how much influence the computers at that time had in number representation. Then again, it could have been that there was only a limited amount of space available to represent the numbers and octal does take up less room than hex in the context of the message. --Bry703 03:41, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

I think we should addthe above explanation in the article. But in the blob below, the one giving the five atoms in DNA, two digits are not represented the same way as in the digits on top. There are other instances where this numbering system seems inconsistent. (I wonder what the aliens will think of us when they get this message...) - Redmess 23:26, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] wavelength times number

How shall aliens figure out they're supposed to multiply the given number next to the human with the wavelength of the radio message to get the height of a average human? --Abdull 23:12, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Well that's the thing, you don't have a lot of room to explain these sort of things, and even if you did there's no way to really explain a unit of length when you're starting out from absolutely nothing. So the assumption is that a sufficiently advanced species would understand this quandry too, and realize that the wavelength of the message is a convenient unit of length that can be inferred from the message. In the case of the height of the man, it's clear that the blue line next to him is meant to be a ruler, since it's the same length as the red stick figure. THe number in the middle of the blue line clearly has something to do with its length and therefore the height of the human-figure. It's a stretch to infer that you're supposed to multiply that number by the wavelength, granted. But you have to make other assumptions when making these messages, one of them is that the recipient will analyse it thoroughly and fully. (Think how much effort would go into analysing such a message here on earth if we found one.) So you have the components needed to express the intention of height: a pictoral figure, a ruler, a number implying a measurement. YOu just have to connect the idea that this number is based on some relative length unit, which can be anything. Using the wavelength of the signal puts the length in the right ballpart, so it's not unreasonable to hope that an intelligent species would eventually figure that out. Rhomboid 04:40, July 29, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Mirror Image Fix

I fixed all the images. Hoo-rah! It was fun. Thanks for the wonderful time. So uh, what else do we need to fix now? The original image is from Cornell, so that should be fine. --StargateX1 11:07 PM, 2 Aug 2005 (PST)

Thanks StargateX, now it looks much better! -- jbc 10:19, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

The series of numbers in binary format now appears to be decreasing from 10 to 1 instead of increasing from 1 to 10 as it should be. That is why I do not think that the images were wrong. Put the images back as they used to be, please! --Staseman 21:32, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Is there any ground for saying if the image should be read from right to left or vice versa? And is there any info on how the scientists thoughtthe aliens would be able to decipher this message? - Redmess 23:26, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

There's discussion above about image flips, but the current image on the right side of the page is flipped (at least as of 05 Oct 2006). (???) It doesn't match the text description. And it doesn't match the clipped images embedded in the text.

[edit] Jumbled Nonsense

The information arranged the first way produces jumbled nonsense, but if arranged the second way it forms an image containing information about Earth and the human race.

Does anyone have an example of what it looks like arranges the second way?

I made a small program to rearrange the image just like that. The resulting image can be seen at Image:Arecibo shifted.png. User:Aadnk 19:24, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Even properly decoded. How many humans would be able to understand the message without prople pointing out the details. Even putting aside all the possible other formats it could be decoded into. And looking at the small percentage of humans who could figure it out... how many extraterrestrials would be shaking their head? Naturally making a language free, culture independant message is hard.. but there has to be a better way.. if we get to the point where we send a binary or waveform encoded message that everyone on earth can understand like "duh, of course it means that" then we'd at least be one step closer to having other civilizations understand it as well. But as stands, we need a better message, hehe.

[edit] Chilbolton Message

We have no prooves, that Chilbolton Message was a "joke", maked by some group of "circlemakers". It is impossible to do such a precission work during 1 night, using a board with rope. Methinks, that judging it as a "joke" is in valid with Wikipedia neutral point of view policy.

PS. Sorry for mistakes in english, but i do not know that language very well ;) 82.139.160.143 13:36, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

The burden of the prove is on those who pretend its origin is extraterrestrial. The most likely cause by far is the one stated in the article, a joke, and a very funny one if I may add :) You will probably enjoy reading the article on cropcircles as it may help you understand how this "impossible" things are done. jbc 03:07, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Since we have no proof that ETs exist, but we have plenty of proofs that "jokers" exist, I'll bet that Chilbolton is a joke. --Gspinoza 20:37, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Nucleotide encoding

I can't work out how the nucleotide formulae are encoded. Anyone care to enlighten me? 143.252.80.110 15:24, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I've just updated that section. I hope it is more clear now! jbc 03:56, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Images

To those watching this page: there's some confusion about the copyright status of the images in this article. Some of them are tagged as fair use, other as public domain, some as GFDL, which is highly implausbile. Rather than forcing this through Wikipedia:Images for Deletion, I'd rather work with those editing this page. I don't believe that any of these are uncontestably in the public domain. Fair use of some of them is of course acceptable. If you would, please choose two or three that you really need to illustrate the article, tag them using {{fairusein}} (i.e. {{fairusein|Arecibo message}}) and include a statement on the image description page saying why they are necessary to illustrate the article. I'll delete the ones you don't need. I'd really appreciate your cooperation in this; thank you. Chick Bowen 21:44, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Just a thought, but why use images at all? For example, the numbers part can be coded as:

I'm sure there's nicer ways of doing it with a bit more tweaking. Or alternatively, it wouldn't take much time to recreate the images using a 72x23 canvas, which could be scaled up by Mediawiki as needed. Mike Peel 14:37, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Signal Characteristics

There is nothing in this article about the signal itself. Questions I have after reading it are, what was the power of the transmission, how were the 1s & 0s modulated. Also maybe something about how that modulation will be affected by its travel through space, i.e. likelihood of intelligible reception. I have found some info on the power on the web, but I have been unable to find out how the signal was modulated was it pulse lengths like morse code kind of with continous wave, or something more complicated? If I can find any of that, I'll try and add it, but I've been unsuccessful so far.

[edit] Man

Is the graphic of a "man", or of a human being? Is it showing the average height of a male of the species, or the average height of all humans? Who is being sexist here, the people who created the message, or the people who wrote this article? :) Savatar 03:40, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Since it's extremely unlikely that the stick figure would be recognized as anything by an alien species, it really doesn't matter. To our human eyes it's clearly supposed to resemble a stylised human being, but for someone who's never seen a human being this could be extrapolated to just about anything. How are they supposed to know we have heads, for example? And what if the aliens have no eyesight, so "visual" information means little to them? They might be able to decipher the information as a grid, but the "images" will be meaningless or completely misinterpreted. And so on, and so on...

To answer your question, however, the article states that the image represents "a graphic figure of a man and the dimension (physical height) of an average man". The figure quoted (1.76 m) is indeed the (or rather "some") average height of a man, not a human being, which would come out lower. So the authors of the message are to blame for this bias, although, as I said, it really doesn't matter much. 82.92.119.11 20:04, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm guessing the graphic is meant to represent a human being in general, so I changed it in the article. As for the height, it might actually represent the closest value you can get to the average human height, in increments of the wavelength (.126 m). I also removed the parenthetical hex value--I can't see how that has any relevance. BryanD 03:26, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Nucleotides

Referring to the nucleotides section, User:68.72.38.125 asked on the main article page:

Can anyone explain this differently or better? I understand everything but the way to draw the pictograms of elements with binary. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.72.38.125 (talk • contribs) 20:03, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Mike Peel 20:50, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

They are supposed to be written as chemical coding, with the first number representing the atom number, and the second the amount of atoms in a molecule. I dont know more details however, it seems rather confusing to me. - Redmess 23:40, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Do they honestly expect aliens to understand this?

Even I can barely understand it. Show it to some guy from the midwest, and they won't understand any of it. The only thing that is obvious to me is the shape of a human, but to an alien, that shape is just as meaningless as the rest of the garbled graphics. Malamockq 15:53, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Apparently, yes, they do expect aliens to understand this. They presume that aliens who get this message and are intelligent enough to investigate, will investigate it, and try anything to understand it. Just what we would do, I guess. But this way, we can only presume they think the same of alien civilisations and messages as we do. - Redmess 16:48, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Here's the problem. First out of all the life out in our galaxy, there has to be life out there. Then out of all that life, there has to be intelligent life (see the pattern, the probability is getting worse). Then out of all intelligent life, they would have to interact with their world in a physical way (if they were intelligent rocks, then their technology wouldn't be physical). Then out of all intelligent life, it has to have technology that's capable of recieving and decoding radio messages. Then out of those, they have to be lucky enough to intercept our radio message. Then out of those, they have to be able to communicate visually (They might not be able to see, let alone be able to communicate by seeing. They might communicate through scent for all we know. If they sent us a "scent" message, would we be able to understand it?). Then finally out of those, they have to somehow figure out that garbled mess these scientists call a message. Take a person from good ol planet Earth, and they fit all these categories except the last. Not even the average person on Earth can understand this message. The chances an alien would understand it (let alone recieve it in the first place), are just about as likely as getting a monkey to recite the Declaration of Independence. Malamockq 20:51, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Let's say we receive a message like this, or with greater complexity, from an alien species. Would we pass it over to some guy from the midwest, or would we distribute it throughout the scientific community/top military minds + consultant scientists (depending on who received the message), who would then do a thorough (hopefully) scientific investigation on it. If we're used to receiving messages like this, then we'd be even better and quicker at deciphering it. Add to that the fact that it's been designed for people who understand maths (most likely the only form of communication we'd have with an alien).

It does assume the ability to receive it - i.e. a radio telescope of sufficient sensitivity pointed in the right direction - but that's unavoidable. If you've got something capable of receiving it, then odds are you'll also have someone scientific enough to decipher it. Scent could never be used for a message through space - it has to be some part of the EM spectrum (or gravity, or particles, or some as-yet-unknown method, but the best we can do atm is the EM spectrum). Mike Peel 21:38, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I was just using the scent thing as an example of a form of communication we would never understand. Aliens could utilize a form of communication that we can't even sense at all. If it's an intelligent cloud like being that communicates mentally, how would we understand a message it delivers? The chances that an intelligent alien that would be so similar to us are utterly remote for the reasons I stated in my last post. This is why some scientists believe communication is probably impossible between two intelligent species. Now, even if aliens were congruent to us that they can recieve the message, and see it, then probability gets worse because then they have to understand it. Who's to say an visual alien reads from right to left? Even I don't read from right to left. Does an alien even understand what right and left are? What if they don't see color? What if their visual resolution is magnified so much that they only see minute details. This message we sent doesn't make that micro pixel in the top left corner very significant. See what I'm getting at? Not even other animals on OUR OWN PLANET see the world the same way we do visually. Does a fly see the same stuff we see with it's compound eyes? How about a chameleon? How about a bat that uses echo location?

This message was designed by humans, with the assumption that aliens are UTTERLY similar to humans except they don't speak our language. And like I said, even then, most humans don't even understand it. Malamockq 13:52, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

The point of the Arecibo message isn't to be able to communicate with any kind of aliens that might be out there. The point was to put together some sort of message, parts of which might be decipherable by an advanced civilization thousands of light-years away from here/now. As the article explains, the message is nothing more than a 1679-bit number. (Bandwidth limitations make it impractical to send a longer message, and the chances of a longer message being fully received would be reduced.) If the bit sequence is received some day in the future, we should assume that they have some understanding of mathematics, physics and chemistry, or they would not be able to build a radio. Thus we might also assume that they might have experience with the idea of binary digits, rows and columns as these are all fundamental pricinples of math. It's probably also reasonable to assume they could figure out that the top part of the sequence is describing a counting system. They may have much more trouble interpreting the chemistry lesson, but at least they can try! Above all, the receiver of the message would presumably be interested to know someone else is out there.

Chances are an alien species would not have simplistic eyes, ect. If they are technologically advanced to build a radio telescope, then they should be technologically advanced to understand binary, the most simple way of expressing information. It's also highly unlikely they would have evolved with no eyes or compound eyes, ect. As a species gets closer to intelligence, their structure changes to go with it. Note how humans, dolphins, chimps, dogs, cats, ect all have highly developed sight, sound, and communication while flies and chameleons do not. With that aside, an alien civilization isn't going to give this message to a "guy in the midwest" to decode. It would go to top scientists. I'm certain that mathematically inclined graduates from universities on Earth that know binary and the wavelength of the message would eventually decode it. A collective group of people would have a binary singal done in a matter of days.67.11.141.177 03:14, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Too many assumptions. Who's to say they can see at all? They could be intelligent living beings that live in oceans of liquid nitrogen with no eyes at all. All your assumptions are based on how life works on Earth, which is the problem. What if they are silicon based? What if they are extremely intelligent but communicate through telepathy? It's entirely possible. It could be an intelligent plant, or fungus. What then? The message, as I understand it, is not a serious attempt at communicating with aliens, as such it shouldn't be taken as such. Malamockq 04:58, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

does anyone have any sort of proof that shows we are not alone in this universe?

[edit] So, about Pluto

Is it too late to remove Pluto from our list of planets in the message? --64.86.141.133 19:00, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

It is. See also the Voyager Golden Record and the Pioneer plaque, which feature Pluto. 86.134.213.12 21:53, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Just send out another message, record, and plaque saying "Sorry, we fudged on the last message/record/plaque. It's eight planets, not nine. No really, we do know how to count." Bwhack 08:17, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sugar

I don't understand where it shows? PS: And why information about number of nucleotides was incorrect? --Valodzka 20:56, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pictures are back to front

The main picture on the top right corner of the article, which shows all the messages is orientated to read left to right (so the top row shows 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10).

Where as all the pictures in the explanation section are oriented to read right to left (so the picture in Arecibo_message#Numbers shows 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1)

All the pictures in the explanation section are orientated right-to-left. The text describs the message as something that is to be read right-to-left.

So the opening picture being read left-to-right is very very very confusing, especially when one looks at it while reading the opening paragraph.

I'd assume if the picture is being sent as a binary signal, there is no right orientation. We're relying on the aliens out there to put the thing together correctly.

But for the sake of the article, i say we orientate the pictures so they all face the same direction. Because looking at the pictures under the "explanation" section after seeing the opening picture is quite confusing.

So, can someone either flip the opening picture, or flip all the explaination pictures? --`/aksha 11:01, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Some questions

Here are some questions I would like to see answered in the article (and I will research them myself if I have time):

1. What was the 'strength' of the signal? How strong will it be after being dissipated across 25,000 light years? Will it even be detectable by any reasonable means?
2. How exactly was the signal encoded/modulated etc? How long is the message (temporally)? Was it just sent once or multiple times?
3. Looking at the space about the earth... what 'percentage' of the sky was the message sent to? I.e. was it beamed out in an arc/cone covering X percent of the sky or just a 'point'?

Cheers -- FP ^{(talk)(edits)} 13:31, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Base 7?

Would it be worth mentioning that the numbers at the top might be interpreted as a base 7 numeral system? The 8, 9, and 10 look like symbols for 10, 11, and 12 (the left side being 0, 1, and 2 respectively, and the right side a 1 in each case). Roger 03:53, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Well that's called base-8. But then, should we also mention that the no. of nucleotides is in base-65536 and the human population & telescope diameter in base-64? Also won't laymen get confused when we say binary as well as base-8, unless we give some explanation. -- Paddu 07:06, 27 December 2006 (UTC)