New Mars Forums

Official discussion forum of The Mars Society and MarsNews.com

You are not logged in.

Announcement

Announcement: As a reader of NewMars forum, we have opportunities for you to assist with technical discussions in several initiatives underway. NewMars needs volunteers with appropriate education, skills, talent, motivation and generosity of spirit as a highly valued member. Write to newmarsmember * gmail.com to tell us about your ability's to help contribute to NewMars and become a registered member.

#1 2022-09-15 18:27:13

Mars_B4_Moon
Member
Registered: 2006-03-23
Posts: 9,282

How to send a Letter or Email after 1000 years of Lost Contact

In 10 Thousand years’ time, the human of another generation even understand the language written on our ‘keep out’ signs? There are legends of Lost Continents and  the Roanoke Colony was a real life attempt by Sir Walter Raleigh to found the first permanent English settlement in North America

I guess this falls into the area of speculation and science fiction like Stargate....Stanislaw Lem suggested growing plants with warning messages about the Nuclear Biohazard repository encoded in their DNA, Bastide and semiotician Paolo Fabbri developed what they called the “ray cat solution” cats which become a future beast of burden and lighthouse warning sign, genetically altered to glow when in the presence of radiation. Moron criminal thieves in Brazil stole a source of high-level radiation from an old abandoned hospital and  people who were handling it had their hair fall out and Within weeks, they were dead, Chlorine-36 has a half-life of 300,000 years and neptunium-237 a half-life of 2 million years.

I'm not even sure what I'm writing about, imagine you communicate with an old Civilization you were once part of these people helped them go there, but you are not sure what they speak there today is something similar to an old language Latin, Korean, Hebrew, Ancient Chinese or Ancient Egyptian, Dutch, Spanish or Greek? You sent a ship out hundreds of years ago, you expected a response but then some more hundreds of years pass, perhaps even dangerous stuff was sent to this far off world, experimental atomic designs, nano bots, new biohazard chemical experiments, maybe 'Art' itself would be the communicator, give warning signs, how would you tell a colony coming out of a bunker hundreds of years later 'Do Not cut this Wire' or 'Don't Dig Here Hazardous Waste' if you found a voice responding but displaced by time would an AI machine be your translator?

10 Thousand year Ear Worm
https://web.archive.org/web/20201108130 … positories

Permanent Markers
https://web.archive.org/web/20210126152 … onPlan.pdf

Offline

#2 2022-09-15 18:35:07

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,946

Re: How to send a Letter or Email after 1000 years of Lost Contact

A rosette stone comes to mind as you will need a language translating capability.

Offline

#3 2022-09-15 18:49:59

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 17,287

Re: How to send a Letter or Email after 1000 years of Lost Contact

For Mars_B4_Moon re new topic...

Your new topic awakened memories of science fiction works I've encountered over the years ... various authors have attempted to imagine the very scenario you have painted.

The most recent that comes to mind is a long running series, in which the author paints a remarkably detailed picture of the descendants of a huge human space vessel that crashed (gently) on an Earth-like planet after engagement with an alien race.  The "trick" that allowed for continuity of language over many generations was the AI systems that were well developed at the time the flight ended on the surface of the planet.

The descendants dispersed over the entire planet, and they adopted very different customs, but the common thread of the AI devices kept the descendants from straying too far from whatever the human language was at the time of the flight end.

On Earth, humans dispersed over the entire planet from (it is thought) a small nucleus in Africa, and because they had no AI assistance, the created thousands of languages.

You've certainly created a topic with a lot of potential for development.

(th)

Offline

#4 2023-06-14 13:58:25

Mars_B4_Moon
Member
Registered: 2006-03-23
Posts: 9,282

Re: How to send a Letter or Email after 1000 years of Lost Contact

Finland's plan to bury spent nuclear fuel for 100,000 years

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/2023 … burying-it

Finland is on the verge of becoming the first nation to bury spent nuclear fuel rods deep underground for the long term.

a newmars topic on the very subject

'where will we be 100,000 years from now?'
https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=839

In regard to warning with image and sound

Aliens chatting by sound and color in a movie 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind'
the movie is a fictional setting but it has an interesting message.

The movie is not pure fiction, it has some inspiration from reality, Jacques Fabrice Vallée an Internet pioneer, computer scientist, venture capitalist, author, ufologist and astronomer.

I was actually thinking images and 'music' could be a communicator for example picture of sky, water, green, sun and smiling clouds, do something wrong or bad you get rewarded with human animal skull shapes and insect sound, lots of blood red and discording snake poison colors. Artist and music people they have explored unique strange ideas and even do whale elephant dolphin sound or music for cats and dogs these days to make your pet 'relax', a pleasant sound gives a feeling of reward. Perfect Fourths, Fifths, the Major key, the unpleasant sound can be Minor for example or a bunch of major Seventh wanting to Resolve, the 'Devils' Tritone, animals do have reaction to masks so the idea of sharp teeth and horns is probably 'scary', a bunch of minor second half tones stacked on top of each other, maybe a Ambulance Police non musical sound or screechy Hollywood Cello and Violin horror movie sounds.

Of course there might be some math explanation as to why a music sound seems naturally nice or bad, the Octave is a double of the frequency,  the Perfect Fifth which covers most 'chords' or Power Chords is a natural 3:2 ratio and a fourth its tonal intonation corresponds to a pitch ratio of 4:3, for some reason our brain seems to make this calculation super fast and know some chord sound is nice and another sound is 'disturbing', unless you are tone deaf, plus there is another element to discuss your cultural upbringing a tonal movement and a beat or certain sound can be culturally programmed into you, Psychoacoustics a fringe-ish branch of psychophysics involving the scientific study of sound perception, the mind and mood and audiology, culturally you can be brought up by tv or movies to see and feel a chord as a mood, to sound 'nice' while another might think it 'bad', a clothing animal dress costume might be seen as cool by one culture but demon ghost devilish by another, its possible different cultures might hear a chord differently or more alien or exotic or 'good'.

Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2023-06-14 14:21:56)

Offline

#5 2023-06-14 14:19:53

Terraformer
Member
From: Ceres
Registered: 2007-08-27
Posts: 3,821
Website

Re: How to send a Letter or Email after 1000 years of Lost Contact

I say we bury it in concrete, deep underground, and then leave no trace anything of interest is there. A sign that can't be read is worse than useless because it tells future humans "something valuable is buried here". Instead we should try to make it so that they'll only find it if they're advanced enough that they can decode the warnings.


"I'm gonna die surrounded by the biggest idiots in the galaxy." - If this forum was a Mars Colony

Offline

#6 2023-06-14 16:28:34

Calliban
Member
From: Northern England, UK
Registered: 2019-08-18
Posts: 3,448

Re: How to send a Letter or Email after 1000 years of Lost Contact

Terraformer wrote:

I say we bury it in concrete, deep underground, and then leave no trace anything of interest is there. A sign that can't be read is worse than useless because it tells future humans "something valuable is buried here". Instead we should try to make it so that they'll only find it if they're advanced enough that they can decode the warnings.

This is a non-issue.  The shorter the half-life, the more dangerous, not the other way round.  Long-lived actinides are produced by nuclear reactors in tiny amounts.  The higher actinides produced by a 1000MWe reactor in 1 year would fit in a suitcase.  This will be a negligible problem for future generations.  Its rather like worrying about the toxicity of gold entering the water supply.  In theory, someone, somewhere could be negatively effected by this.  It isn't a disease vector that anyone with half a braincell worries about.


"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."

Offline

#7 2023-06-14 21:57:58

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 17,287

Re: How to send a Letter or Email after 1000 years of Lost Contact

For Mars_B4_Moon and topic ...

In reflecting on your topic, and the responses members have contributed, it crossed my mind that we actually have ongoing experience with this challenge.... we have maintained active memory of writers and artists who lived not just 1000, but thousands of years ago.  It takes investment of time and thought and a lot of energy on the part of folks who find within themselves the motivation to keep ancient writers and poets and scribes "alive" in the present day.

There was a time when it was considered "normal" for an educated person (usually a male in those times) to be able to read and perhaps even write Greek and Latin.  The American academic structures gradually allowed themselves to be swayed away from that ideal.  I read recently that Calvin Coolidge was the last President raised in that tradition.

I'd like to see us (human race) make an attempt to return to preserving those ancient sources in the modern brains when they are able to learn multiple languages.

Recently, in discussing how to use ChatGPT to enhance our working memory, members  of a local tech group suggested a memory renewal session on the Greek alphabet (important for mathematicians and some scientists, and perhaps a few engineers).

The idea could be extended to learning an entire language and then reading works of ancient authors.

(th)

Offline

#8 2023-06-15 03:36:11

Terraformer
Member
From: Ceres
Registered: 2007-08-27
Posts: 3,821
Website

Re: How to send a Letter or Email after 1000 years of Lost Contact

Ah, so we put the Catholic Church in charge of nuclear waste repositories? That could work.


"I'm gonna die surrounded by the biggest idiots in the galaxy." - If this forum was a Mars Colony

Offline

#9 2024-02-23 06:38:13

Mars_B4_Moon
Member
Registered: 2006-03-23
Posts: 9,282

Re: How to send a Letter or Email after 1000 years of Lost Contact

Suda - The Painting Elephant
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foahTqz7On4


There were values and given knowledge seen in ancient art and sculpture and also vinyl, weather and the environment will damage a medium that records and broadcast, electronics fail over time, how quickly VHS dies and do old cassettes degrade.


Meet the Super DVD: Scientists Develop Massive 1 Petabit Optical Disk. Kiss your storage woes behind thanks to a new technique that houses data in 3D.
https://gizmodo.com/meet-the-super-dvd- … 1851272615

Offline

#10 2024-02-23 08:37:41

NewMarsMember
Member
Registered: 2019-02-17
Posts: 1,259

Re: How to send a Letter or Email after 1000 years of Lost Contact

For Mars_B4_Moon re #9

Thanks for the report of progress in data storage!

(th)


Recruiting High Value members for NewMars.com/forums, in association with the Mars Society

Offline

#11 2024-02-23 09:13:44

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 17,287

Re: How to send a Letter or Email after 1000 years of Lost Contact

As a follow up to Mars_B4_Moon's discovery of the welcome news of higher data storage density ...

The current generation of storage devices (that I know about) all use the surface to hold data, and storage density has been increased by placing more bits per linear measure, at the surface.

The new technology appears to allow for a large number of layers to be stacked below the surface, and (somehow) reached using a (very precise) laser beam.

The number of layers (apparently) planned for the first generation of this new storage device is (on the order of 100).  I expect that number will increase.

(th)

Offline

#12 2024-04-05 17:13:21

Mars_B4_Moon
Member
Registered: 2006-03-23
Posts: 9,282

Re: How to send a Letter or Email after 1000 years of Lost Contact

NASA Figured Out Why Its Voyager 1 Probe Has Been Glitching for Months
https://gizmodo.com/nasa-voyager-corrup … 1851390354
Engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory believe the Voyager 1 spacecraft has been sending nonsensical data due to corrupted memory hardware in the spacecraft’s flight data system (FDS). “The team suspects that a single chip responsible for storing part of the affected portion of the FDS memory isn’t working,” NASA wrote in an update.

Offline

Board footer

Powered by FluxBB