Re: Is Larry Niven a super-cooled lifeform?

Anthony Frost wrote:
In message <h6hclp$pjg$3@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
mstemper@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Michael Stemper) wrote:

> In article <18bb4e8d50%Vulch@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Anthony Frost <Vulch@xxxxxxxxx> writes:
> >In message <slrnh8ncmo.enf.dbd@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> dbd@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (David DeLaney) wrote:
>
> > > (From things said in one or two of the stories, some of the probes had to
> > > look a while on a given planet before they FOUND their habitable point; this
> > > was one of them, I think. And nobody had thought to have them report back on
> > > the length of said interval...)
> >
> >They may well have thought about it but not have had the bandwidth in
> >the comms channel for a complex reply.
>
> "Bandwidth"? As far as I can recall, they simply sent back "Yes/No".
> Changing this to send back, say a 16-bit number indicating how many
> hours it took to find a habitable site wouldn't be too horrible.

At interstellar distances and with the mass and power available in the
ram robot, the comms package may come down to having a red laser and a
green laser, or more likely an infra-red laser plus optional frequency
doubler to turn it green to save mass, turn on the appropriate colour,
and hope it's spotted from earth before it breaks or the power runs out.

Having not read any of the stories for a while, may I propose what the
world-finder probe actually does is self-destruct in a fashion
detectable from Earth? For instance by slamming into the planet or
sun while releasing an element unusual in nature, whose spectrum will
show up? But taking care that this doesn't happen accidentally.
Okay, maybe you carry another element, and if you're accidentally
destroyed then both elements are seen in the flare, but if you're
deliberately signalling then first you jettison that element sample,
it doesn't go in with you.

Information could be encoded in this act by carefully choosing the
time to do it. 00:30 Los Angeles time means "habitable but cold".
23:30 means "very hot". But what about humidity and so forth?
Well... we won't have to do this for real for a while. We can take
time to plan the best way. :-)
.

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