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Our civilizational message in a bottle, the Voyager Records and Pioneer Plaques will outlive their power sources by an incomprehensible amount. The record is es
by areoform 6y ago
Our civilizational message in a bottle, the Voyager Records and Pioneer Plaques will outlive their power sources by an incomprehensible amount. The record is estimated to survive for more than a billion years. The power source for less than 40 before it is rendered unusable.
The message will travel onwards forever, cloaked in dark, dashing the hopes of any recovery. Of bringing joy to alien beings. Of giving them certainty that they certainly weren't alone in the universe at some point in their past.
What if we could create something, some undefined means to generate a pulse ever X years for more than a billion years? Is it possible to make a billion year battery? Oxford's Electric Bell at a cosmic time scale? Could human ingenuity create a device that would make our next message in a bottle more discoverable for those beings who do not exist yet?
Is it possible for humanity, with current technology and scientific knowledge, to transcend its cradle and create something that functions for billions of years?
- wongarsu 6y agoSending pulses that are detectable for even just a couple light years requires surprisingly high power (unless it's a very tight beam, which would be rather pointless for this purpose). That would be a huge challenge with fitting it on an interstellar probe. Our best bet would probably a geothermal setup powering a radio beacon, located on Mercury or Mars; or maybe on a moon that is heated by high tidal forces. We could also try engineering something similar to natural nuclear reactors [1], powering up a radio beacon once water rises high enough every couple of years. That might run for a million years or so. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reacto...
- dublin 6y agoMaybe you don't use radio waves at all: https://patents.google.com/patent/US10361792B2/en?oq=US10361792 https://patents.google.com/patent/US10361792B2/en?oq=US10361...
- Something1234 6y agoThis certainly seems interesting, but I don't understand what it's saying. Is it a way of encoding a message into the motion of objects? How do you even make that detectable?
- dr_dshiv 6y agoWhy not use a passive solar heliograph, e.g. a spinning cubic or dodecahedron mirror? That should last for a million years or more.
- me_me_me 6y agoAt that stage you are having different considerations. And first contact is probably less scary if you can build mega structures in the orbit. Vanity mega structures if its sole purpose is to announce your presence to the universe.
- andbberger 6y agoYou can easily do periodically transmissions for infinitely long with a finite power source, as long as you transmit less often than 1/t. I imagine the tricky bit would be making a power source with no parasitic losses. Maybe a high-temperature super conducting loop.
- the_pwner224 6y ago> You can easily do periodically transmissions for infinitely long with a finite power source, as long as you transmit less often than 1/t. What does the 1/t part mean? As far as I can understand it means if your power source lasts 10 years, you need to transmit not more than every 1/10 = 0.1 years. Which doesn't make sense. More generally, periodic transmissions forever will emit infinite power so how could a finite power source power that?
- wongarsu 6y agoI think GP is trying to construct a geometric series by doubling the wait time after each transmission. Of course that doesn't work: If your battery holds 100kWh and each transmission takes 1kWh then you can make 100 transmissions, no matter how you space them out. However in the same spirit you could do periodic transmissions, but half your transmission power each time. Assuming no losses anywhere in the system that would allow you to make an infinite number of transmissions with a finite power source (since 1 + 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + ... = 2). Of course if you half your transmission power each time the transmissions quickly become pointless, so this is of somewhat limited use.
- plasticchris 6y agoIt's not infinitely divisible, quiescent power draw will limit you in any case.
- andbberger 6y agoJust a shorthand to indicate that it needs to decay faster than the harmonic series
- 6y ago
- kiba 6y agoWouldn't the microparticles wear away the record and plaques?
- tintor 6y agoMaybe a solar sail probe which slingshots from star to star?
- conjectures 6y agoTo draw on some well-founded sci-fi concerns, the dark forest hypothesis would be that it is not a good idea to announce one's presence to the cosmos without preparation. https://blog.usejournal.com/the-dark-forest-theory-of-the-universe-a52012529e0f https://blog.usejournal.com/the-dark-forest-theory-of-the-un...
- stevenjohns 6y agoI’ve never liked this reasoning: > A civilization that wishes to continue expanding across the universe will need to compete for the limited resources with any other intelligent life If a civilisation has the ability to travel across to different star systems, then going to war over a single planet’s resources makes little sense when they probably have the ability to manipulate and craft matter, at will, at the atomic level.
- nwah1 6y agoThe problem with crafting individual atoms at will is that eventually you run out of atoms.
- richardw 6y agoAny society whose primary mindset is competing for resources will off itself long before it gets to affect anyone else. If you don’t transcend that primitive instinct, you’re already doomed.
- wildpeaks 6y agoThing is, humanity (or whatever comes next) will need a way to survive the death of its sun. Yes we take the risk of stumbling on something so alien that it wouldn't perceive us as worthy of preserving, or that their means of communication could destroy us, but given the alternative is extinction anyway, it's worth a try. And let's say we're long gone and no other specie picks up where we left off, at least we give a fighting chance to the other species of our planet to get rescued by something else.
- RandoHolmes 6y agoThis gives me "The Inner Light" vibes, easily the best episode Star Trek TNG ever created.