Re: Sukhotin's algorithm

[Dennis <ixohoxi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jacques Guy wrote:
> 
> A  brute-force approach will not advance our  understanding
> of haute cuisine -- of  how to go about deciphering the
> next riddle, like when we make contact with extraterrestrial
> intelligent beings (which I hope to see in my life time).

	I was just thinking.  I'd better take Extraterrestrial 
Origins off my list of silly VMs theories.  At least
once 
Jacques used that possibility to justify our work.

	I too hope to see it in my lifetime.  Scientific 
American had an article that put the first real number
I've
seen on this.  On the wavelength most commonly
monitored at
Arecibo, there's no life within 50 light-years.

	A long time ago Science Digest (does it publish
anymore), 
they gave a possible extraterrestrial.   It was a
picture, expressed in bits,
at a very coarse resolution.  The number of planets
around their  sun was shown,
their own planet shown, the distance to their  sun was
expressed, as a binary number,
in hydrogen wavelengths.  A rough picture of ET was
included; ET looks humanoid, but more
squat.

	For an interesting take on contact through Arecibo 
and figuring out an extraterrestrial language 
(although 
they did have to go to the planet to figure it out), 
read *The Sparrow* by Mary Doria Russell.  

Dennis