The LONGEST DX? Possible Alien Signal from Proxima Centauri

I just about lost a job doing that, running SETI on the office computers.

 

Nowadays we just run safe and approved Software ...... Like Solarwinds.....

 

Think like an alien: https://www.mit.edu/people/dpolicar/writing/prose/text/thinkingMeat.html

 

In Shannon’s information theory it cannot distinguish functional or message bearing sequences from random or useless ones.

For example, the strings “xk 5i!y txbj ytr ” and “I am not a robot,” each have 16 characters (including spaces) in them, and have characters in certain positions, but only one of the strings produces a specific effect or “specified” information. For this reason, information scientists say that Shannon’s theory measures the “information carrying capacity” as opposed to the functionally specified information or, “information content” of a sequence of letters or symbols.

It is the sequence of characters or arrangements that can produce a “specific effect” that has significance in information theory That is, we must distinguish information-carrying capacity from functional information.

While we may have available information that is high in quantity, this information must also be high in “specified effects,” or functional specificity.

I am sure SETI has information theorists on staff but how will they know how any sequence of bits or patterns have the functional specificity in order to gain any understanding of those pieces of information?


Pheel

 

Wow!!! I like your explanation.....Deep stuff here

 

Pheel,

The emphasis is on detection, and the information content is only a 'switch' in the detection protocol. IOW, if there is no modulation--that is changes that cannot be explained by natural causes--then the switch fails. If there is modulation, another switch gets lines up looking for information content.

A 'carrier' is always assumed, to first look, as indicative of a natural process.

Pulsars are heavily modulated--'AC stars'-- but the process is lacking in information content and could be explained as a natural process (rotating neutron stars).

You get in situations where SOME switches are set off, and others are not. The default is that life and intelligence are (as you might have guessed) never the Occam's Razor hypothesis.

The best analogy to this is the 'detection' (or lack of it) of Martian life from Project Viking in 1976: pass on biological reactions but fail on detected organics.

BLC-1 is likely to be of terrestrial intelligence or a scaled up natural process, like Jovian/Io decametric radiation on steroids.. it was a mistake to leak out info without an actual presentation of data as a follow up. Now EVERY news outlet is discussing this front and center, with no data in the immediate offing.

IMO bad, bad, bad, anyway you look at it.

73
Chip W1YW

 

Thanks I am familiar with the Stellar physics of Neutron stars and neutron binary stars to produce X-ray 'bursters' and millisecond pulsars as well.

By consulting astronomical data and the direction of pulsars (light emitting pulsars), X-ray emitters (detected with Chandra), and known satellite orbitals, the source of the signal can be eliminated.

I, too, believe the signal will be found to be either of terrestrial origin or an older satellite.

Pheel

 

Bet you guys were a hoot at parties... Scientific Hypothesis discussions on alien life = Chick Repellent...... And although I don't spin on gays street, bet the repellent works on that side as well.

But all is not lost.... The professor on Gilligan's Islands was well respected island dweller, despite wearing an IBM white button-down shirt for eight seasons. Additionally, the show "Bing Bang Theory" has recently restored the "cuteness" factor to those prone to dinner table discussions of astrophysics. So there is hope

At least you have a cool nickname, "Chip" from "My Three Sons"

 

Not sure what provoked this response. Chip was also the name of the dog in Land of the Giants, too. And the reason TV allusions are relevant is....?

Pheel is a retired physicist and a nice person. Dunno or care about his orientation.

I am a straight astrophysicist. I couldn't care less about anyone's sexual persuasion. I judge people by the merit of their actions and the content of their character. Those are usually sufficiently fascinating to sustain party banter. But-- if you want to keep me off your party list, that's really quite OK.

Pheel and I are both 'old guys'. A little lower than the angels, as they say.

Hope that helps.

Enjoy the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn tonight. Lotsa people discussing that right about now. Sometimes astrophysics is a bit hard to ignore, don't you think?

73
Chip W1YW

 

Well . . . I don't think it was burritos they were cooking since burritos were not invented as long ago that the signal had to be originated,

 

My post was completely satiric in nature, my apologies for any offense taken.. I was in poking fun at our collective hobby, self-included...

I too was part of the high school tortured sub-class knows as:

NERDS




Speaking of Land of the Giants: My coveted fifth grade lunchbox:



Second in standing only to my 4th grade Prized "Rat Patrol" Box-thermos set. Tully, Moffitt, Hitch, and Troy being my childhood heroes......."Let's Shake it"

Relevancy of Retro Tv programs to the current topic, Plenty... Considering I am a member of the recently created US "SPACEFORCE", loosely patterned after (including the logo) a 1960's TV show, the relevancy is absolutely spot on.

 

You certainly have spent some time at a number of interesting dishes!

Have you heard the stories about the many radar arrays that caught fire through the years? Pretty amazing ;-) I always wondered why the dang things had those huge water towers!

Hope you make it to 3W next year...seems everyone has had to skip a full calendar :-(

73,
Chip W1YW

 

I spent some brief time at several military early-warning Phased Array Radar Sites, those are deadly antennas. Full 850KW into a 2-degree beamwidth, visitors are escorted fully from the entrance to exit to prevent someone from wandering into the hot zone and morphing into a Turkey Pot Pie.

Interestingly the concept of operation is not unlike how amateur radio operators steer patterns with vertical antennas using phase adjustments. The Phased Array, despite its awesome power, is nothing more than thousands of simple dipoles that are phase-shifted to create the pattern sweep.

We will definitely make it to 3W this year, we go every year to visit the XYLs relatives. We had to skip 2020 due to COVID, our first missed year in over a decade. Viet Nam has an interesting Amateur radio licensing scheme, the fee structure is based on the bands utilized. I am licensed in Viet Na, to operate on 40M, 20M, 17M , and 2M/70cm with an annual cost of $200, roughly $50 per band; interesting how people in the US complain about fees when their brothers in other countries are paying a small fortune to operate.

 

Roger that.

BTW Eli Brookner is a colleague. I have some understanding of how the arrays work. Nuff sed;-)

 

"He who truly knows has no occasion to shout."

Leonardo da Vinci