right. Suppose his math is different, even more advanced than ours. If they were passing right now, would we be able to identify their communications? We have seen that the efforts of search programs as SETI extraterrestrial intelligence are currently focused especially on signals whose frequencies fall in the range of multiples of the emission line of hydrogen. But if the mathematics of CETs are very different, perhaps the aliens can not see anything special in these frequencies and have no meaning for them. This, however, is a minor problem. Even assuming that issued in the above frequencies, these signals should be encoded in some sort of mathematical language. How to recognize, then? Would it be possible to decode?
SETI efforts are doomed to failure if its scientists can not distinguish a broadcast of another artificial natural. Physicists have shown that if you send an encrypted message in an efficient and optimal means of electromagnetic waves, then a receiver does not know the coding system would find the message indistinguishable from a typical black body radiation, the radiation emitted by any object The simple fact of being at a certain temperature.
advanced CETs If they really want to acknowledge them, must encode their messages so that we may recognize and artificial, without any doubt. A signal containing pulses distributed in accordance with any obvious pattern (the first numbers cousins, or similar) would not leave room for doubt. Now if we managed to detect a message, how would we know decrypt and access your content? Consider, for example, in the famous Voynich manuscript. Believed to have been written sometime between the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries. However, has not yet been deciphered. Appears to contain information on herbology and astrology, among other things, but nobody is sure for sure.
Whatever the information contained in the text, the truth is it was written by a human being like us, with our own feelings, emotions, cultural background, etc. And yet, wrote a book that we can not to decipher and understand. If this happens to a member of our own species, what can not happen with an inhabitant of another world completely different from ours?
If aliens exist and once we managed to get a message from him, most likely be our most lasting feeling of a terrible frustration at not being able to understand. It may take hundreds or thousands of years without that we could succeed in deciphering their content.
What keeps all this relevant with respect to the Fermi paradox ? We have seen that a possible scenario is that they have realized CETs long ago that interstellar travel is impossible and have decided to communicate through coded electromagnetic signals efficiently and optimally. Have lost interest in contacting young civilizations like ours, so that only detect black body radiation, indistinguishable from other natural astronomical objects. We could be facing a new explanation or solution to the paradox, but again it is a prediction that can not be tested.
On the other hand, if we detect a source signal clearly artificial, even though we could not decipher, it could infer the existence intelligent extraterrestrial beings. Therefore, we must separate the question of the understanding of their messages from their mere existence, as the former is not relevant in providing a solution to the Fermi paradox .
