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Comment by swilliams | Hacker News Reader

But is the frequency of the signals prime numbers?

I always thought an interesting experiment would be to fire off a handful of nuclear bombs in space. (Rather deep space, like well out of where they could do any harm to Earth.)

Then pace the time between detonations to different prime numbers...

Why exactly would you want to draw attention to us?

To show that we're bad-ass

IMO they already know. That's why they're waiting for us to evolve one more thousand years before contacting us.

Or waiting for us to evolve enough to provide good sport.

Nah, they're fattening us up to be the intergalactic version of Wagyu.

Or waiting for us to compute 42

Wouldnt 'they' have evolved 1000 yrs as well? By that time their own current state of evolution would look even less developed given the exponentiality of evolution.

no.. you're assuming that other species develop technology at a similar rate, and that our current progress will continue at the same rate. Both are things we don't know.

There may be hard limits that stop development of technology past a certain point. Like Moore's law coming to an end, but one day we may not have any viable alternatives.

…not if they're moving faster.

Perhaps we just need to stop being dangerous to other species and ourselves. Embracing the pursuit of collective goals would be a huge advance in our civilization level. Beyond that point athough less developed we could be accepted for not being harmful anymore.

I said it would be interesting, not that it would be wise. :-)

Curiosity killed cat.

That may not be a good way to announce peaceful intentions to the galaxy. But anyway, they would probably be too faint to detect by anyone.

Too faint? Is there something about the Drake equation you would like to share with the rest of us?

The Tsar Bomba test produced 5.3 yottawatts (about 1% of the power output of the sun) but only lasted 39 nanoseconds.

I wonder if that would be noticeable over interstellar distances?

1% of the Sun's output power seems really huge. Is this accurate? Any references?

According to this:

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2006/12/08/yottawatts/

Tsar Bomba - 5.3 YW

Sun - 386 YW

39 nanoseconds isn't very long (~39 light-feet).

~12 light-meters for our non-metrically challenge friends.

I was using feet to emphasise I was being silly ;-)

This is a core point in the Three Body Problem series of books by Liu Cixin (plus a little hand waving sciency signal amplification). As mentioned below it turns out to be a generally bad idea

I just discovered this trilogy and have just finished the first book. Truly what a great story

The second and third book are even better :) You're in for an amazing ride! Enjoy!

I disagree; I would stop at the second book. Death's End reads like Stephen Baxter/Greg Egan fan-fiction.

> Then pace the time between detonations to different prime numbers...

There is a problem though. Whose time ? Your time, observers time ? Are the bombs moving with the same velocity ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativity_of_simultaneity

> Are the bombs moving with the same velocity?

Relative to the speed of light, where these effects actually become appreciable?

Yes. Hell yes. Basically identical velocities. Signal to noise ratio issues will do in this idea long before relativity has any sort of impact; it's not even close.

Won't the ratios should remain the same? A change of inertial reference frame in SR is just a linear transformation.

Not really that deep at all, it turns out you can fire off nuclear bombs above about 80km up and they are essentially harmless to life, causing only electrical (i.e. EMP) effects.

Way to miss my point

"And tell Willie to break out the big boy!"

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