Mathematics An Alien Language?

[Alex K]

I think it's a splendid idea for a novel, the problem is if you make the story so specific that anyone can test that it is not true, it takes away a lot of the appeal.

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if the message is Pi, then its one hell of a long message .

At digit 10^..., it says: "or, in other words..."

[Smaug]

This seemed like a very appropriate place for this random science fiction-y thought: If the Universe ever comes under a simple but elegant numerical formula, could mathematics be revealed as a language that contains a message from a transcendent being or system, devils that our minds are not equipped to dance with yet exist in everything our minds conceive?

The message: infinities boundless, ineffable, all, nothing, plural, one.

If such message actually existed it wouldn't have been constructive enaugh to really bother about. All these words may be subjects to an extremely wide variety of interpretations which makes them technically useless in terms of information and any kind of practical use.

Speaking of Math itself, it entirely is a product of Human mind and thus has to have it's own principal limitations imposed not only by the structure of the Universe itself but also by human mind's unique features.

[I_am_not_mafia]

Maths is a tool created by humans, same as logic.

The reason some people think that it is something more fundamental than a made up tool is because it contains universal constants such as pi. But there are arbitrary assumptions being made in Maths and logic and there are fields that Maths is not suited to, such as emergent phenomena. If Maths and logic was anything more than a tool then we wouldn't have so many different versions such as statistics, geometry, fuzzy logic, predicate calculus, the theory of computation etc.

What I'd love to see is Alien Mathematics and find out how it differed from our own tool.

[Smaug]

Maths is a tool created by humans, same as logic.

The reason some people think that it is something more fundamental than a made up tool is because it contains universal constants such as pi. But there are arbitrary assumptions being made in Maths and logic and there are fields that Maths is not suited to, such as emergent phenomena. If Maths and logic was anything more than a tool then we wouldn't have so many different versions such as statistics, geometry, fuzzy logic, predicate calculus, the theory of computation etc.

What I'd love to see is Alien Mathematics and find out how it differed from our own tool.

To add to it, to ones who are even relatively distantly aquainted with modern Math it is clear that there are numerous problems that pose compelling difficulties. And I'm not even speaking of the so-called problems of the millenia. For example there is such thing as convergence of series. Series are widely used for finding and presenting analytical solutions in a vicinity of some point or a generating solution so problems of convergence are not uncommon in different analytical studies. And in most real-life cases it's not possible to solve said problems so the only option selft out for the researchers is numerical computation which has a lot of disadvantages such as drastically narrowing down the amount of data being aquired (analytical solution is generally speaking always better than a numerical one becase the latter doesn't tell nearly as much about the problem being studied). By the way, I'd say that the existance of numerical methods is one of the best examples of the limits not only of the means of computation but also of Math itself.

Alien math is a really interesting topic, indeed. My though is so that since Math to some extent reflects basic features of our Universe (such as the properties of space) it's safe to expect alien math to be at least somewhat equivalent to ours if they have the same laws of Nature as we do (not in terms of physical theories but in terms of actual structure of the Universe).

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I'm having a hard time imagining why ETs who could encode a mathematical message to us would take the trouble to do so.

Boru

[Smaug]

I'm having a hard time imagining why ETs who could encode a mathematical message to us would take the trouble to do so.

Maybe those are like phone pranksters on a galactic scale

Speaking seriously there seem to be no reason to do so other than fo the sake of scientific interest. Anyway, seing how there are no such signals coming from Deep Space it's safe to assume that there either are no such ET's in any reasonable vicinity or they don't care enaugh to look for us and to make a contact. To me it's more likely that there simply are no such civilizations within the reach of our instruments.

[Mudhammam]

I'm having a hard time imagining why ETs who could encode a mathematical message to us would take the trouble to do so.

Boru

Their Universe is about to die a heat death! One poor old alien genius knows a complicated formula that is key to tearing the fabric of spacetime and will allow them to join our realm, saving millions of alien lives, but everyone in their world thinks it is a crank. Instead it must devise a plan to communicate to us what must be done... using... NUMBERS!

0101000100001110001110011!

[Anomalocaris]

I'm having a hard time imagining why ETs who could encode a mathematical message to us would take the trouble to do so.

Boru

A somewhat more plausible scenario to me would be the aliens didn't so much encode the mathematical message for purpose of information transfer, but rather adopted numerous repetitions of one specific construct out of many possible for efficiency and ease in designing and manufacturing our universe. This would be sort of like using a standardized screw in a machine even when slightly larger or smaller screw might have served each use in that machine better. The purpose isn't to communicate to observers of the engine. It is to ease the design and manufacturing of the engine, as well as later tinkering.

[Alex K]

I'm having a hard time imagining why ETs who could encode a mathematical message to us would take the trouble to do so.

Boru

A somewhat more plausible scenario to me would be the aliens didn't so much encode the mathematical message for purpose of information transfer, but rather adopted numerous repetitions of one specific construct out of many possible for efficiency and ease in designing and manufacturing our universe. This would be sort of like using a standardized screw in a machine even when slightly larger or smaller screw might have served each use in that machine better. The purpose isn't to communicate to observers of the engine. It is to ease the design and manufacturing of the engine, as well as later tinkering.

Awesome, let's throw fractals in the mix

[Little lunch]

If aliens had their own mathematics, wouldn't it be based on how many fingers/tentacles they have?

I'd call the original idea science fiction because that's the genre it would be sold as if it was a book or movie.