ASK ASTRO
Universal Language, Earth without a Moon
Q: The Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft launched in 1972 and 1973 carried plaques with pictorial messages from Earth. Since then, has any progress been made in developing a "universal language?" George Krimsky, Washington, Connecticut
A: Although a great deal of effort has been spent in thinking about how we might detect extraterrestrial societies, considerably less cranium power has been expended in concocting a scheme for interstellar communication. Perhaps that's because understanding may be a daunting task if the aliens are thousands of centuries more advanced than we are. Or perhaps it's because detection of a signal is the first priority of enterprises such as SETI. Getting the associated message, if there is one, requires far more sensitive equipment. Understanding the message is yet further in the future.
The best known attempt to devise a universal language was made by the Dutch mathematician Hans Freudenthal. He described his language, called LINCOS, in a 1960 book of the same name. LINCOS begins with simple syntactical statements based on mathematics and physics (rather like the first alien messages in the movie Contact). However, the language gets considerably harder when used to describe social structures or behaviour.
A more straightforward approach was taken with the Pioneer plaques and Voyager records. These famous spacecraft, launched in the 1970s, carried easy-to-decipher sounds and images of earthly society. And indeed, it may be that in communicating with E.T., a picture is worth a thousand mathematical symbols.
Seth Shostak, SETI Institute
Uit: Magazine Astronomy, July 1999
It's a familiar problem. You've finally managed to contact that alien civilisation. Things are going great. You feel like your world will never be the same, that whole new realms of possibilities are opening up before your eyes. Then, inevitably, a hint of strain starts to creep into your relationship. You find that you don't really have all that much in common. Heck, sometimes it feels like you're not even in the same galaxy. It's as if there is this vast gulf between you, making communication almost impossible. You're not even sure you'd understand each other no matter how physically close you become. What do you do?
You design a language for cosmic intercourse. Hans Freudenthal made a start at one in his book, Lincos, published in 1960. I think it's time for version II, the all-new action-packed sequel guaranteed to have you on the edge of your seat, which is a specific structure with a flat surface perpendicular to the pull of gravity, which is a thing that, oh never mind.
Lincos, the operating system for cosmic intercourse. Anyone interested? Contact [email protected]. To be honest, I have other purposes in mind for this that have nothing to do with communication. Cosmic intercourse just seemed a good way to get the attention of search engines.
www.ai.mit.edu/people/paulfitz/cosmic.html
Extraterrestrial Intelligence: Communication
by William Sims Bainbridge
Attempts have been made to create rudimentary CETI languages, including Astroglossa, by Lancelot Hogben in 1952, and Lincos, by Hans Freudenthal in 1960. Lincos is rooted in mathematics and symbolic logic, augmented with a number of new symbols and three-letter words, often derived from Latin, like cur 'why' and enu 'counts' (from enumerat). Freudenthal shows how each word or symbol could be defined through a series of logical examples.
For example, the message on the right shows how the concept of variable (X) could be introduced, through a series ofequations featuring binary numbers.
100 +111 = 111 + 100
100 + 1 = 1 + 100
100+ 1101 = 1101 + 100
100 + 11 = 11 + 100
100 + X = X + 100
In: The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, edited by R. E. Asher (Oxford: Pergamon, 1994) Volume 3, pages 1200-1203.
LINCOS a german site Bruno Bassi