[ExI] Wrong frequency? Astronomers rethink where to hunt for alien signals

[spike at rainier66.com]

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of BillK via extropy-chat
Sent: Friday, 24 July, 2026 3:00 PM
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Cc: BillK <pharos at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [ExI] Wrong frequency? Astronomers rethink where to hunt for alien signals

 

On Fri, 24 Jul 2026 at 19:49, <spike at rainier66.com <mailto:spike at rainier66.com> > wrote:
>
> BillK…

 

> Once you have that answer, note that a signal can be sent by rotating a group of reflective objects, such as MBrain nodes.  It takes a while, but... if you don't need to say much and you have plenty of time... what's the big hurry?  For practical purposes, we should speak slowly but listen quickly.
>
> spike

> --------------------------------------------------

 

 

Perplexity AI says that we probably wouldn't notice such signals, as they would be lost in the noise of the universe.

BillK

 

 

 

 

BillK, it isn’t clear Perplexity understood the idea.  Think of the star’s spectrum as analogous to a carrier frequency for an AM radio signal.  Imagine an enormous swarm of nodes which can rotate a half pi radians in an hour.  A signal could be sent by turning to allow the star’s full spectrum thru, then an hour later every node is turned to block as much spectrum as it can.  Result: the star goes from full brightness to partially dim.  About one bit per hour could be sent that way.

 

Perplexity is right in that such a signal would probably be lost in the noise of the universe: we humans have only developed the technology to see or notice such a signal recently.  Also… good chance the maximum signal rate would be more like one bit per month.  But what’s the hurry?  If a civilization doesn’t need to send out a lot of signal quickly, it will not.  It will signal its presence perhaps by repeatedly sending out the signal 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13 (ja, I stole the idea from Sagan (but it is a good one (for it leads to an interesting question: what is the shortest message that would unambiguously indicate an intentional signal from an alien intelligence?))))

 

spike

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