science

Lone Signal

Lone Signal is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Lone Signal rather than just read about it. In short: Lone Signal was a crowdfunded active SETI project designed to send interstellar messages from Earth to a possible extraterrestrial civilization. Founded by businessman Pierre Fabre and supported by several entrepreneurs, Lone Signal was based at the Jamesburg Earth Station in Carmel, California.

Key takeaways

Lone Signal belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Lone Signal to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Lone Signal from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Lone Signal was a crowdfunded active SETI project designed to send interstellar messages from Earth to a possible extraterrestrial civilization. Founded by businessman Pierre Fabre and supported by several entrepreneurs, Lone Signal was based at the Jamesburg Earth Station in Carmel, California. The project's beacon, which commenced continuous operations on June 17, 2013, transmitted short, 144-character messages by citizens of Earth to the red dwarf star Gliese 526, located 17.6 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Boötes. Gliese 526 has no known planets. The Lone Signal team hoped to earn US$100 million to construct a network of satellite dishes across the Earth's surface, which could beam messages to many regions of the Milky Way galaxy. The project ceased transmission shortly after it began, due to lack of funding, having operated roughly from June to August 2013.

Message components Lone Signal's message design had two components: a binary unmodulated hailing component and an 8-bit frequency-modulated message component, with each bit in the latter represented by a separate frequency. The hailing message was a sequence of prime numbers as used in Carl Sagan's Contact, and then a message based on the design of planetary scientist Michael W. Busch. The message is meant to be easily deciphered, and uses operators and symbols from mathematics and logic to give coherent statements about the laws of physics and Earth's location in the galaxy. It was also meant to provide a sufficient key to decipher the linguistic message component. The hailing message was to repeat on average three times in order to allow the recipient to decode it at any time when observation begins, with some parts repeating more often than others. The message component was to consist of brief, 144-character statements provided by the general public. These statements, with widely varying languages and contents, were posted from the Lone Signal website. Individuals who have signed up to send messages with Lone Signal, collectively known as the "beaming community", were permitted to send one message for free, and thereafter required to purchase "message credits" of $0.25 per message sent in order to fund the operation of the project. The content of messages sent via Lone Signal could be syndicated to the Twitter and Facebook accounts of beaming community members as desired. It was in this beaming community user space that an attempt was being made to extend the syntax used in the hailing message to communicate in a way that, while neither mathematical nor strictly logical, was nonetheless designed to be understandable given the prior definition of terms and concepts in the hailing message.

Potential dangers and detectability Various commentators have identified several dangers with messaging extraterrestrial intelligence, which chief scientific officer Jacob Haqq-Misra covered in a 2013 paper before joining Lone Signal. In his paper, Haqq-Misra stated that while ordinary communication which might involve inadvertent leakage into space would not pose a threat, the dangers of actively beaming messages to extraterrestrial intelligences, and hence a determination of whether or not such beaming activities should be carried out, are uncertain. Upon becoming an executive of Lone Signal, Haqq-Misra stated his belief that extraterrestrial civilizations probably already know of humanity's existence, and reaffirmed his position that the cultural impact of extraterrestrial contact is unknowable. He based this belief on the fact that various other radio sources have been broadcasting into space for decades, and would be detectable to any civilization with sufficiently large radio telescopes. At the same time, though, the previous messages from the most powerful beaming sources were intermittent, while Lone Signal aimed to establish the first continuous beam to space.

Notes

References

External links

Official web site Lone Signal Media Channel on YouTube Extending the syntax used by the Lone Signal Active SETI project Lone Signal's message: Don't wait for aliens to drop in, call them first Testing SETI Messages (Extended version)

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Lone Signal

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Lone Signal claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Lone Signal before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Lone Signal ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Lone Signal

In research: Lone Signal appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Lone Signal in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Lone Signal is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 2013 establishments in California, Defunct crowdfunding platforms of the United States, Interstellar messages, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Lone Signal outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Lone Signal in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Lone Signal means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Lone Signal out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Lone Signal in simple terms?

Why does Lone Signal matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Lone Signal?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Lone Signal.