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One quantum transition makes light at 21 cm

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Re: One quantum transition makes light at 21 cm

#131

Post by cuttothechase »

spullara wrote: post #123
arghwhat wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sarcastically referenced the plaque itself, which is a convenient disc of a known size to anyone observing the drawing, unlike the space craft or physics riddles. Using quantum transitions is quite ridiculous in my opinion due to requiring not only the observer to have a perfectly compatible understanding of physics (even a more advanced understanding might not be compatible - maybe they don't categorize elements b…

Do you think that physics is somehow subjective? We absolutely would have decoded the message.

Our understanding evolves, course corrects, spins off etc., we can use some static value as purported from the dark ages or by newtonian or later einstenian points of view. They all are measurably correct for the problems that they are trying to solve for the people who lived during those times. A million years from now would these values still be relevant or be considered as having the same value of importance or will they be replaced by even more finer and precise and contextually different values that could be more precise and more accurate etc.,

Re: One quantum transition makes light at 21 cm

#132

Post by m4rtink »

arghwhat wrote: post #114
aylmao wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unsure what the tone of this message is, so I don't know if you're aware, but that's included too: > Behind the figures of the human beings, the silhouette of the Pioneer spacecraft is shown in the same scale so that the size of the human beings can be deduced by measuring the spacecraft. It's good to have redundancy, not just so someone interpreting the plaque can confirm their hypothesis, but also in case one of th…

I sarcastically referenced the plaque itself, which is a convenient disc of a known size to anyone observing the drawing, unlike the space craft or physics riddles. Using quantum transitions is quite ridiculous in my opinion due to requiring not only the observer to have a perfectly compatible understanding of physics (even a more advanced understanding might not be compatible - maybe they don't categorize elements b…

What if you end up with a picture of the record & everything else gets lost - that riddle will still work. Say the civilisation that found it collapses & leaves behind some garbled data, including a picture of the record.

Or even future human data archeologists digging through a mix of 20 & 21 century data heavily polluted by AI slop. ;-)

Re: One quantum transition makes light at 21 cm

#134

Post by [deleted] »

spullara wrote: post #123
arghwhat wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sarcastically referenced the plaque itself, which is a convenient disc of a known size to anyone observing the drawing, unlike the space craft or physics riddles. Using quantum transitions is quite ridiculous in my opinion due to requiring not only the observer to have a perfectly compatible understanding of physics (even a more advanced understanding might not be compatible - maybe they don't categorize elements b…

Do you think that physics is somehow subjective? We absolutely would have decoded the message.

[deleted]

Re: One quantum transition makes light at 21 cm

#135

Post by arghwhat »

petsfed wrote: post #124
arghwhat wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sarcastically referenced the plaque itself, which is a convenient disc of a known size to anyone observing the drawing, unlike the space craft or physics riddles. Using quantum transitions is quite ridiculous in my opinion due to requiring not only the observer to have a perfectly compatible understanding of physics (even a more advanced understanding might not be compatible - maybe they don't categorize elements b…

I submit that if the concept of quantum transitions is alien to whatever recipient of that probe (if ever), then any attempts to communicate are hopeless anyway. That is, if the recipient's physical reality is so different from our own that they can't at least get back to "oh, this distance means that transition, now the rest of the plaque makes sense", then no asynchronous communication will bridge that gap.

There is no relation between the ability to communicate and a shared understanding of our concept of quantum transitions - case in point, our invention of the technology we use to communicate with deep space far predates us learning these concepts ourselves.

I'd also hold that the only thing this plaque could ever give is clear sign of artificial creation, and by virtue the (possibly past) existence of some entity capable of creating it. Maybe they'll get a vague idea of what we look like, but if "their" culture does not commonly depict themselves in 2D as we do, or "they" have vastly different morphologies, even that would be unclear. The context needed to understand our attempt at showing our location might also be lost if the thing went far enough.

Re: One quantum transition makes light at 21 cm

#136

Post by [deleted] »

pdabbadabba wrote: post #129
arghwhat wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only we could somehow share a physical entity of known dimensions to reference together with the drawing so that we did not need to use a physics riddle to indicate scale...

Yeah. It would be pretty funny if an alien reader of the plaque concluded that 1 refers to the actual length of the line between the two circle thingies and concluded, therefore, that we're only a few cm tall.

[deleted]

Re: One quantum transition makes light at 21 cm

#138

Post by arghwhat »

m4rtink wrote: post #132
arghwhat wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sarcastically referenced the plaque itself, which is a convenient disc of a known size to anyone observing the drawing, unlike the space craft or physics riddles. Using quantum transitions is quite ridiculous in my opinion due to requiring not only the observer to have a perfectly compatible understanding of physics (even a more advanced understanding might not be compatible - maybe they don't categorize elements b…

What if you end up with a picture of the record & everything else gets lost - that riddle will still work. Say the civilisation that found it collapses & leaves behind some garbled data, including a picture of the record. Or even future human data archeologists digging through a mix of 20 & 21 century data heavily polluted by AI slop. ;-)

Making the data fault tolerant to the discovery by another civilization, its collapse and later rediscovery by another civilization seems a bit of a stretch goal. :)

Re: One quantum transition makes light at 21 cm

#140

Post by Calwestjobs »

petsfed wrote: post #117
wasabi991011 wrote: post #81

For those who feel weird about the whole "forbidden transitions being only possible with quantum tunneling" thing and want an alternative interpretation: It's only true that the transitions are forbidden under a given simplified model of the atom. It is very much possible to calculate the transition probabilities under a more realistic model, and the previously "forbidden" transitions are now just regular transitions…

I've never liked the definition of forbidden transitions as "transitions not predicted under the broader approximation", because its rare that anybody actually lays out why a given approximation is used, and therefore why that approximation is inappropriate for the "forbidden" situation. The reality is that with e.g. 21 cm Hydrogen, or 500.7 nm Oxygen (which I knew by heart, back in the day), its hard to keep a given…

laser, maser, like, other excitation / energy saturation does not work here ?
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