Stupid question:
Let's say that a Sagan's Contact-type scenario occurs, and ayy lmao's send us blueprints for cool new technology, what units of measurement would they use?
Other than describing things in terms of "X-atoms in width", is there an objective way to reference dimensions in a manner that could be understood by anyone with knowledge of mathematics or physics?
They would use inches, the most scientific unit of measurement.
Well if we're talking about inches you might as well say the 'scientificest'.
aliens don't know what an inch is
Speed of light divided by atomic vibration frequency
They'd send along a scale based on the distance between our galaxy and Andromeda.
Brainlet civilizations who haven't calculated this distance to the required precision don't deserve their technology.
Plack lengths, but not for the reason popsci brainlets will tell you.
obviously fucking light years
yeah light years are totally logical if they send blueprints to make something on a human scale.
That's why we do that
They would use algebraic lengths with the ratios that are important. Anything that must be constant would be defined by some natural length such as the distance between two atoms of a certain molecule.
1 inch = 1/12 light nanosecond (approx)
>light years
>that thing that's based on the human construct known as a "year"
user don't leave me hanging
Which one of these is the best?
Either the wavelength of a specific atomic transition or the frequency of the message itself.
>the frequency of the message itself.
oh that one is clever, good idea
Here's your spoon-feeding. Open wide, big boi. :^)
en.wikipedia.org
sure they do, it's 1/500 millionth of the earth's polar diameter.
or at least as accurate a measurement of it that the meter is a measure of what it claims to measure
most of these constants are ridiculously large or small numbers. A good unit of length would be around 21.1 cm
en.wikipedia.org
Imagine aliens faces when they realize human's think light has a speed limit.
Read the book. They spend time discussing that problem. For the things that needed to be precise ratios of physical constants were used. Other things were left pretty vague leaving them to fill in the gaps.
When they finally get to the "Grand Central Station" at the end they notice how there are docking ports all over the station for different sized wormhole-pods. They speculate some of the vagueness was there because you can't know how big all these ayy lmao races are going to be.
Also the point of The Message is that its a Puzzle for races on the cusp of developing. The point is that if they get the message and build the machine, it requires global collaboration, and encorages a unity that "accidentally" gives the planet a few years of world peace and an economy and industry not geared for war.
Oh, Garfield!
-1/12*
>an objective way
>knowledge of mathematics or physics
What makes you think math and subsequently physics are objective? What makes you think reason is objective? We can describe the universe using them but that doesn't mean the concepts exist universally.
user, your dick length is too small to be used as an universal measurement, we wouldn't be able to get solid numbers for things
Presh Talwalkar here.
en.wikipedia.org
>The element on the left (in the image) indicates the average height of an adult male: 1.764 m (5 ft 9.4 in). This corresponds to the horizontally written binary 14 multiplied by the wavelength of the message (126 mm).
Well, absolute 0 is the same everywhere, so all they have to say is 0 ayyhots = 0 kelvin, x ayyhots = melting point of material made out of an atom with y protons.
Oh yeah, the number of protons in an atom is also the same in every language.
Circles are also the same everywhere, so they can just say how many ayydegrees are in a circle.
Also, this might be a bit too far, but the black hole at the galactic core is also a massive landmark that is the same to everyone. If 11 ayy units are the diameter of Sagittarius A*, then one AyyU is 4 million kilometers, for example.
This thread proves this place is in the shitter
>What makes you think math and subsequently physics are objective?
you serious bruh
are you implying universal constants, are local constants?
>are you implying universal constants, are local constants?
No. I'm implying that we don't know that our perception of the universe is anything more than our perception.
Yes and they would use slugs as their unit of mass
What if they never got Maxwell's equations and went a totally different route. God only knows man.
we can measure it
it's demonstrable
>What if they never got Maxwell's equations
Then they wouldn't understand electromagnetism
I agree. We can measure it and we can demonstrate it to ourselves. I'm not implying that reality is a figment of our collective imagination. I'm only not assuming that reason (and, perhaps, perception) is universal.
that's a really fucky line of thought
experimental method dawg
Not yet