So while we may lament the electromagnetic junk being spewed into
the galaxy every second of every day since the early 20th Century,
the ETI equivalent of an anthropologist may be thrilled with the data.

Of course this may also explain why they haven’t contacted us yet,
either. :^)

I also like the idea of art and music being broadcast across the
galaxy like some kind of interstellar musac. It may not be the
most scientifically logical way to introduce oneself to an alien
culture, but at least it would hopefully seem a non-threatening
one – unless you transmit your work to a world full of art critics.

Carl Sagan asserted that, as well. Is there any empirical evidence that shows this?

Let’s take another life form that’s closer to home: my cat. She sure seems to enjoy singing along with me, much more than solving differential equations with me. And cats have been known to paint.

Of course my experiment could be skewed by the fact that I sing much better than I solve differential equations.

Eric

To illustrate the point, 3^5 is 243, close to 256 (0.9492), 3^7 is 2187, even closer to 2048 (1.0678), 3^12 is 531,441, closer still to 524,288 (1.0136), and 3^53 is 19,383,245,667,680,019,896,796,723 which is very close to 19.342,813,113,834,066,795,298,816 (1.0021).

I realize that this all sounds very much like pseudo-mystical mumbo-jumbo (and pseudo-mystics have made much of it, for thousands of years), but the fact remains that, in terms of human music, these relationships pragmatically keep turning up, across many cultures, including cultures to which the underlying mathematical theory is foreign.

When I first saw that article, I had the same reaction you did. One man’s art is another man’s trash. There may be some works of art that people seem to find universally pleasing, but I chalk that up to an appreciation of beauty and asthetics. You find beauty and asthetics in nature. As a matter of fact, some people have real problems distinguishing beauty in art from beauty in nature.

That’s when it hit me! I realized where the Discovery Institute had screwed up. They should have gone with the “artistic designer” (AD)–a designer who speaks the universal language. While IDiots and classical creationists have trouble explaining things like disease, parasites and junk DNA, the artistic designer is just expressing himself.

ps — Phil, it seems we have a similar taste in music. But as I sit here listening to Serenade for Strings, I can’t help but notice that both my CD and mp3 collections are heavily skewed against the Swedish quartet.

pps — I just read an article in the NYT today that attributes the shape of the Moon to “centrifugal force.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/08/science/space/08moon.html?_r=1&ref=science&oref=slogin

BTW another great story about alien art is History Lesson, by Arthur C. Clarke. Creatures from Venus develop space flight around the time that lift on Earth ceases to exist due to a massive Ice Age. Only a few artifacts are left in a stone enclosure on a high mountain. They eventually figure out that one of these artifacts is a film, a graphic representation of what life on Earth must have been like.
I won’t spoil the surprise ending for you because – well, it would spoil it…

Love the blog, keep up the good work.

The solution comes when some of the characters are exploring a ruined university and find an odd chart painted on the wall. It looks familiar to one of the explorers, so he gets the heroine to translate the numbers, and they realize that they are looking at the periodic table for the natural elements. Now, of course, they have a hook into the Martian languages- science and math, which express universal truths or close approximations thereof. They may one day translate a Martian Shakespeare, but will have to start with math and science textbooks from the university library.

Where can I apply for a grant?

James T. Kirk Foundation
c/o William T. Riker
Paramount Studios
Los Angeles, California

Where can I apply for a grant?

Schoenberg, (one of the 20th century’s greatest composers,) said there is actually no such thing as “atonal” music. (The term “atonal” is often applied to his compositions – even the “tonal” ones.) He is technically correct though musicians still use the term to describe music that doesn’t seem to have an immediately consistent functional key center.

Likewise, “centrifugal force” is a misleading term but still widely used by engineers.

“How do you like my centrifuge, Mr. Bond? When I throw this lever, you will feel centrifugal force crush every bone in your body.”

“You mean centripetal force. There’s no such thing as centrifugal force.”

“A laughable claim, Mr. Bond, perpetuated by overzealous teachers of science. . . .”

OK, so it’s completely irrelevant to the subject at hand, but I figured it would make a nice link the next time Prof. BA brings up the point.

This is a misleading wording, Phil. Usually when we talk about a linear dependency, it means a direct proportion. However, the peak wavelength emitted is inversely proportional to the temperature, not directly proportional.

As a mathematician Im surprised at the whole “fractal art” discussion. The “art” in the Mandelbrot set comes from people who add color to enhance the image – possibly to aid comprehension, but also for esthetics.

Human beings are very visual. We often make sketches and draw pictures of abstract things to help us comprehend a situation. For example, we advise students to “draw a picture” when solving calculus and physics problems. Are these drawings art?

Suppose aliens have other senses upon which they depend? Perhaps they would manufacture tastes to aid in comprehension. Perhaps they sense nearby changes in the magnetic field as their primary sense, thus create magnetic art. Perhaps they would have some yet unknown sense that we cannot imagine.