Mathematical culture appreciates what theorem is the language of communication with aliens.

What language should humans use to communicate with aliens?

Jacqueline Bernal, a British astrophysicist, recently pointed out at the Open Forum of European Science held in Ireland that we humans are likely to come into contact with aliens within 100 years. American astronomer Seth shostak even boldly predicted that he would come into contact with aliens in the next 25 years. In contact with aliens, the first thing you encounter is undoubtedly the question of what language to use as a communication tool. This problem has always been a hot topic for people to talk about, and it is also an important topic for scientists to study.

Galileo, an Italian philosopher and astronomer, said, "Mathematics is the language used by God to write the universe". Based on this idea, Carl Sagan, an American astronomer, is convinced that no matter how different the scientific and technological civilizations in the universe are, there is a language-mathematical language. Zhou Haizhong, a mathematician and linguist in China, pointed out in his classic paper Cosmic Language: Design, Transmission and Monitoring published in 2003 that mathematical language has the advantages of clarity, simplicity, compactness, universality, intuition, abstraction and logic, and is an ideal tool for interstellar communication.

Hans-Frodden Searle, a Dutch mathematician and astronomer, designed an artificial language based on mathematics in his classic book Universe: A Language Designed for Intercosmic Communication published in 1960. This artificial language expresses different meanings by emitting radio waves with different wavelengths. For example, short radio wave signals can be used to represent numbers, long radio wave signals can represent addition and subtraction symbols, and different combinations between them can be used to represent different meanings. Canadian astronomers Ivan Datie and Steven Du Masi improved Frodden Searle's cosmology. In 1999 and 2003, they sent their designed mathematical language information to distant space through radio telescopes.

In August 2009, Australian National Science Week launched an activity called "Greetings from the Earth" to send short messages to aliens. At the end of the activity, 25,876 people from more than 200 countries and regions in Australia, the United States and China wrote short messages. These short messages are converted into mathematical language and sent from Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex to Gliese 581D. It is estimated that the relevant information will not arrive until 2029.

However, Indian philosopher and physicist Senda Salekai believes that the mathematics of aliens may be very different from that of earthlings, and the same arithmetic basis does not necessarily lead to the same or familiar advanced mathematics. Therefore, he doubts whether it is feasible to communicate with aliens in mathematical language.

Mathematical language (1977) detected the mysterious radio signal "Wow!" )

Some scientists believe that image language can be used as the same language for interstellar communication. Image language uses digital dualism (i.e. 0 and 1) as coding, and divides an image into many small squares (i.e. many pixels), with the brighter squares represented by "0" and the darker squares represented by "1", thus turning an image into a digital signal and transmitting it by radio waves. When aliens receive this signal, they can change the content of the telegram into an image by replacing the signal "0" with a white square and "1" with a black square, so that we can know the content and meaning of the telegram according to the image.

1974165438+1October16th, American astronomer drake and others used the world's largest arecibo radio telescope (with a diameter of 305 meters) to send their own image language information to M 13, a globular cluster in the constellation Ursula, which is 24,000 light years away from the earth. The cluster has about 1 10,000 images. This "telecommunication" consists of 1679 binary codes 0 and 1, including the number of atoms in chemical molecules, the figure of people on the earth and the composition of the solar system. On June 12, 2008, British scientists used the radio telescope set up by the European Incoherent Scattering Association (EISCAT) in Norway to translate the advertising content of the famous snack manufacturer "Li Duo Duozi" into image language, and sent it to a planet in the orbit of Ursa Major, which is 42.4 light years away from the Earth.

On August 15 this year, the National Geographic Channel will use arecibo radio telescope to detect the mysterious radio signal 35 years ago in the form of image language-"Wow!" (Wow! ) Send Weibo information in the initial space direction (Sagittarius direction) as a human response to this alien signal; This work is now in full swing. In addition, American entry-level artists Scott Kildall and Nathaniel Stern are going to implement the "space drift bottle" plan, and will also send Weibo information to aliens in the form of image language; They said: "We plan to send the information of netizens from all over the world to GJ667Cc planet in the way of Weibo. This planet is 22 light years away from the earth and there may be aliens."

However, American anthropologist Ben Finley and historian Jerry Bentley believe that image language is powerless when it comes to culture. Imagine how we can express these propositions of "postmodernism" or "subculture" with simple binary.

Image language (information sent by arecibo radio telescope)

Some scientists believe that music language can also be used as the same language for interstellar communication. In March, 20001,the first concert dedicated to an alien audience was held at the Yevpatoria Observatory in Ukraine. What was played at the concert were all classic music works. In February 2003, the Observatory held such a concert again. The tracks follow the principle of gradual progress, from simple music that expresses the most basic feelings of human beings (such as joy and sadness, calm and restlessness, happiness and despair, etc. ) to complex multi-level symphony music. The works of these two concerts were performed by many Terman electronic organ masters, and the musical language information was sent to a planet around Ursa Major 47Uma through the improved radio telescope. The planet is 42.4 light years away from the earth and has a "greenhouse" environment similar to the earth. Scientists believe that it is likely to have aliens.

On February 4th, 2008, NASA sent "Across the Universe" sung by The Beatles members paul mccartney and John Lennon through the giant antenna in Madrid. Polaris is 43 1 light-year away from the earth, which means that even if it travels at the speed of light, it will take 43 1 year for the song to reach its destination. Interestingly, McCartney left a message on NASA's website: "Please convey my love to the aliens." Yoko Ono Lennon, widow of The Beatles's late lead singer John Lennon, also said in a statement that we will be able to communicate with billions of stars in the universe in the future, which will mark the beginning of a new era.

However, the practice of communicating with aliens in musical language has attracted criticism. Some scientists believe that music that people on earth find pleasant may be harsh and unpleasant noise to aliens. Barry Jones, a British astronomer and physicist, even thinks that the noise generated by music language may irritate aliens, thus putting the earth in danger of being attacked by aliens.

Music language (gold-plated copper sheet carried by Voyager probe)

There is still some controversy about what language to use to communicate with aliens, but at least, most scientists have reached a consensus on one issue, that is, mathematical language, image language and music language are the most economical tools for interstellar communication.

Besides language, scientists believe that we can also communicate with aliens in kind. On the American navigator 1 who left the solar system a few days ago, there was an alien's "business card"-a gold-plated copper plate engraved with various geometric patterns, and the detector recorded various sounds on the earth, in order to let aliens know that there is life on the earth; There is a "letter" sent to aliens in GLONASS -M navigation satellite in Russia-an aluminum disc engraved with information such as the earth, human civilization and education. However, this method has been questioned by some sociologists and philosophers; In their view, it seems a bit naive to send information in kind.

Scientists on earth hope that their colleagues in aliens can successfully decrypt the language information or physical information sent by human beings and correctly understand the relevant contents and meanings. But there is a basic premise that this kind of information can be received by aliens in the vast universe. (Author Chen Wenhao is at the Monaque Asian Observatory in the United States)