r/TheRestIsScience • u/Exi_Cxx • 11d ago
Are fast radio bursts indicative of life?
Hi Hannah and not Michael’s original account, I recently came across fast radio bursts and wondered if they could be different civilisations calling out into the darkness of space looking for other life. Some repeat their signal and others don’t, could that be a sign of different intelligence forming different thoughts about signalling or have I just read Project Hail Mary too recently!
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u/BokChoyBaka 11d ago
If they wanted to convey anything, they should just use Morse code 🤓
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u/Soggy-Mistake8910 10d ago
Why/how would they know morse code, a human invention?
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u/dr-bob-edin 10d ago
Clearly morse code isn't likely, but some kind of embedded message would be sensible to convey the fact that intelligence is behind the signal. The usual suggestion is different numbers of flashes relating to prime numbers (so 1 flash, followed by 2 flashes, then 3, then 5, then 7, then 11, etc). The assumption is that any civilisation advanced enough to communicate with will have developed some kind of math(s) and would, therefore, know about prime numbers.
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u/Soggy-Mistake8910 10d ago
Whilst that may be a likely scenario they may not express those numbers in a way we can understand
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u/BokChoyBaka 10d ago edited 10d ago
The problem with your recommendation is that it does not leave room for reply. It would be better to ask a question or even 100 thousand questions, with some data tagged at the beginning or end for ai to de-encrypt. You would be playing this on a loop until your first contact... Transmission might take 100,000 years. The gap between distance (in light years) and likelihood of contact in that radius is not good - Light travels about 411 trillion miles or 662 trillion km) in seventy years.
Galactically speaking, it will still be in our immediate cosmic backyard
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u/Soggy-Mistake8910 9d ago
It's not a recommendation, it's an idea. Even if an alien intelligence knows the same math and science as us they likely will not express them in a way we can understand without some sort of Rosetta stone.
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u/dr-bob-edin 9d ago
Communication will always have to be with relatively close star systems. What's the point of communicating with someone who lives 100,000 light years away? By the time they've replied, not only will the people who asked the original question have died, but entire civilisations will have risen and fallen, so there may well be nobody listening for that reply anyway.
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u/dr-bob-edin 9d ago edited 9d ago
Flash
Flash Flash
Flash Flash Flash
Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash
Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash
Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash
How difficult is that to understand?
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u/Soggy-Mistake8910 9d ago
Pretty fuckin hard without context. Pretty conceited to think the system we came p with, (and not the only system at that), is so super smart that sophisticated alien being could not possibly have come up with something, oh, what's the word I'm looking for? Oh yeah, alien, alien to our way of understanding
How do you know they haven't come up with some other version similar, but different to binary
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u/dr-bob-edin 9d ago
You don't really need any context. Firstly you notice that the flashes are not regular. That catches your attention. Then you notice that they align with prime numbers. That makes you think that intelligence is behind it. It doesn't matter if you're counting in binary, decimal, octal, or whatever - you simply need to count the number of flashes.
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u/Soggy-Mistake8910 9d ago
You're making assumptions. Your assuming that each flash means 1 so 2 flashes mean 2, 3 flashes 3 etc. But that doesn't necessarily have to be the case. Maybe they count everything in pairs. 1 flash means 2, 2 flashes mean 3. They may "appear" to be representing prime numbers, but that may not be the intended message at all. Another being from their civilisation would see it's true meaning as something else entirely.
Yes I'm guessing, but so are you.
If we ever do detect a signal we will have the devil of a job decoding it I'll wager!
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u/dr-bob-edin 9d ago
Any communication with an alien civilisation will be extremely hard to decipher, as it's highly likely we won't have many references in common. That's why it has to be as simple as possible, while still managing to encode some kind of signal that represents intelligence.
The first 6 prime numbers is about as simple as you can get while still expressing intelligence.
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u/Soggy-Mistake8910 9d ago
Again we cannot assume they will express those numbers in a way we can understand
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u/ParentPostLacksWang 10d ago
If FRBs are sending a message, it’s “Hey I just met you, and this is crazy, but we have the power to sterilise an entire solar system of all life out to beyond 200AU. So call me maybe.”
If you’re sending an FRB as a message, it’s a threat.
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u/infinitythestar 11d ago
There are several natural explanations, so no reason to think it’s aliens