communicating with the future

[Capt Jack]

a thought provoking article (http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=160)I found on another site I frequent.

I picture the ancient egyptians pondering the same questions

as the site says....damn interesting

[Freaky Tiki]

That was a very interesting article....

Makes me wonder how long our culture as we know it is going to last.

Kind of depressing really.

[Capt Jack]

depressing? 10k years is a pretty good run for a culture historically. Im more concerned as to what is in its place.....if anything...not to mention what turn of events got it there.

[Moonliner]

That is just too cool, I gotta visit the site and dig up some of the time capsules. :D

Besides, I doubt the area will need to last all that long anyway. All you need is a stable fusion reactor and you can break all that waist down into harmless particles anyway.

There have also been theoretical studies involving the use of fusion reactors as so called "actinide burners" where a fusion reactor plasma such as in a tokamak, could be "doped" with a small amount of the "minor" transuranic atoms which would be transmuted to lighter elements upon their successive bombardment by the very high energy neutrons produced by the fusion of deuterium and tritium in the reactor. It was recently found by a study done at MIT, that only 2 or 3 fusion reactors with parameters similar to that of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) could transmute the entire annual actinide production from all of the light water reactors presently operating in the United States fleet while simultaneously generating approximately 1 gigawatt of power from each reactor.

[innerSpaceman]

This reminds me of the attempt at extraterrestrial communication that went sailing (slowly) to the stars with the Voyager spacecraft.


The thing that bugs me is why they think the "universal" symbol for radiation will still spell "radiation" in the far-flung future. Why not a symbol of the atom, with comic-book energy waves coming from it? Pictograms are, I believe, the most reliable communicators.

[blueerica]

I get the feeling that they're overthinking this a bit. They're really looking at the possibility that we're ALL completely dicimated and that an alien culture is coming down to us, because otherwise, there's a way for stories to be carried on. Even as we look back at the caveman paintings, ancient egyptian scripts, we can decipher a lot, though their cultures are so different from ours... so lost. A culture with the capability of traveling to a desolate, decimated earth will likely also have the ability to figure things out like language, and will hopefully have the kind of fore-thought required to determine whether an area is safe, or at least not jump the gun. If they're not such a kind, thoughtful culture, perhaps it's best that they jump right into the radiation, know what I mean?

;)

[Moonliner]

This reminds me of the attempt at extraterrestrial communication that went sailing (slowly) to the stars with the Voyager spacecraft.


Not to quibble, but that was NOT an attempt to converse with ET. It was an attempt to legitimize the concept that intelligent extraterristials might exist in the eye of the scientific establishment. A very controversial idea back then. Dr. Sagan was using it as a publicity campaign to promote/legitimize SETI not to chit-chat with ET.