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I need to set the record straight about something: Papa D designed and sent the 1974 Arecibo message. Carl Sagan was one of several folks he tested the message on, but Carl did not send it. (1/?) https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/phenomena/2014/11/28/40-years-ago-earth-beamed-its-first-postcard-to-the-stars/">https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/p...
The reason I care is that the backstory is actually super interesting. Dad tested the message& #39;s contents on several colleagues -- he was curious about whether they could decipher it. He sent it to astronomers, chemists, biologists, others. (2/?)
As Dad recalls in his book, Carl deciphered almost all of the message -- but the chemistry eluded him. However, the chemists easily got that part and not some of the others. Same with other disciplines. (3/?)
Dad& #39;s take-home was that should we ever be lucky enough to receive a message from ET, we& #39;ll mostly likely need to marshal the collective expertise of humanity to decode it. No single person will have the knowledge to decode it on their own. (4/?)
(Unless they& #39;re basically Carl Sagan with a bit more chem knowledge!) But most likely, understanding ET will be a species-wide project -- and isn& #39;t that super fun? (5/?)
More broadly, the 1974 Arecibo wasn& #39;t so much a message to ET as it was a message to Earth -- same with the Voyager Golden Record, that magical time capsule hurtling toward the stars. (6/?)
That& #39;s part of why places like Arecibo are so meaningful -- they do as much to help humans on Earth as they do to amass knowledge about the cosmos. Both those endeavors matter. I& #39;ll end there, but here& #39;s a link to our 40th anniversary story again: (7!) https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/phenomena/2014/11/28/40-years-ago-earth-beamed-its-first-postcard-to-the-stars/">https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/p...
Add *transmission into the sixth tweet in the thread because my fingers forgot to type it at the time. (urgh)
