Sep 12, 2008

A Galactic Internet?

Professor John Learned, a physicist at the University of Hawaii, has proposed that a 'Galactic Internet' may already be in place by an advanced civilization. Such a network could potentially use Cepheids, relatively rare variable stars, by making unnatural alterations in their dimming and brightening.

To send messages using a Cepheid, Learned and his colleagues suggest that extraterrestrials might change the star's cycle. A Cepheid becomes dimmer as ionized helium builds up in its atmosphere. Eventually, the atmosphere expands and deionizes, restarting the cycle.

Firing a high-energy neutrino beam into a Cepheid could heat its core and brighten the star early - "just as an electric pulse to the heart can make it skip a beat," Learned says.

Link

Something interesting to consider. One thing that we must have in common with any advanced intelligence is True, False, and Mystery. 0, 1, and 2. Any advanced civilizations must have developed some sort of win win governance, otherwise Game Theory predicts self destruction.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It's kind of a cool idea, but I don't see advanced intelligence bothering to do this. Rather, I think that intelligence tends to evolve beyond organic embodiment and shed the ordinary physical form altogether.

If they have an "Internet," I'd look for it at the basic level of the quantum substrate - which is the same place I'd look for "them." I think they would be embedded in their own cyberspace, so to speak.