Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!nuchat!sugar!ficc!karl From: karl@ficc.uu.net (Karl Lehenbauer) Newsgroups: comp.cog-eng Subject: Re: Murmurs of Earth icons Message-ID: <6124@ficc.uu.net> Date: 11 Sep 89 13:31:51 GMT References: Distribution: comp Organization: Ferranti International Controls Lines: 50 In article , mef@dalek.silvlis.com (Mary Ellen Foley) writes: > eugene@eos.UUCP (Eugene Miya) brought up the pictures and sounds of > Earth that Sagan's group designed for Pioneers 10 and 11. I recall > being amazed at what they chose -- pictures of people in underwater > gear swimming around with the fish, for example. Even a small human > child can't recognize that that's a person in a mask and fins wearing > a tank with hoses, and will think it's some other kind of creature. > So how could they possibly expect an alien to understand? Any alien likely to find Pioneer 1x will probably understand tanks and hoses; a planetary impact is incredibly unlikely, and would be destructive. The point is well-taken though. > I also recall a pattern of dots that was "obviously" indicating the > moleculare structures of H2, CO2, etc. If I see a pattern of dots, > the first thing that leaps to mind is definitely NOT the molecular > structures of H2 and CO2. I don't think it was expected that the patterns of dots indicating the molecular structures of H2, CO2, etc would "leap to mind" of any aliens discovering the probe. Hopefully, though, after careful study, etc, they would figure it out. More below. > I vote with the people who've posted the opinion that there is no > such thing as a universal icon. But there could be useful "relative" icons to serve as a basis for others' careful figuring-out of *some* information from the icons. For example, on that Pioneer plaque was an image of the Pioneer probe itself. That shouldn't be too hard to figure out assuming the probe was mostly intact. As I recall, too, they had a number table where they counted up a ways in binary or something, then, too, they were trying to numerically show the scale of various things. The image of the spacecraft provided a baseline. (I saw a replica several years ago at the Boston Science Museum -- this is hazy.) They also showed a view of some stars from our solar system (?) and showed nine planets, circling the third one, etc. I think they worked pretty hard on it. I tend to agree with Mary Ellen that there aren't universal icons and that it would be very hard to figure out, but any discoverers of the probe are likely to have *some* stuff in common with us, like a technology capable of supporting space flight, implying a whole slough of understanding of physics, chemistry, etc, which would help a lot. I don't think a pre-tech group, even human, could figure it out at all. -- -- uunet!ficc!karl "Have you debugged your wolf today?"