I'm not sure if it is true or not, but wasn't the television footage of Adolf Hitler making a speech opening the 1936 Summer Olympics the first television transmission that was powerful enough to escape into outer space?

It all escapes into outer space. Iirc London had at least experimental TV broadcasts by the late 1930's. They inerrupted Mickey Mouse for the outbreak of WWII.

It might be a tossup between Adolf and Mickey.:crazyeye:

Well, before 1936 there was already a basic TV program. The first real TV show was made by Dénes von Mihály in Berlin 1928, but only in a very little circle. A year later the radio station Witzleben sent first test images. The first real and regularly TV program was made by the TV station Paul Nipkow in Berlin beginning in 1935 (and lasting until 1944). Even before, in 1926 the first electronic TV test image was sent in Japan. The Japanese also tried to build up a TV network but ww2 stopped all plans, like the Germans. In Germany the first TV station could only be seen by a few hundred TVs in and around Berlin.
So my guess is, that even before Hitler was opening the games of 1936 a picture was able to be broadcasted into the space. So this first program should be the first pictures to be seen from Earth. However as the opening of the games was the first big event broadcasted, it will be very impressing to Aliens.

Adler

This is all provided the aliens can pick out these faint emissions, filter out the noise and then build a proper receiver. Some aliens.:)

This is assuming that aliens exist in the first place.

what an interesting thread......

at the end of the war when the bbc came back the presenter said " as i was saying before we were rudely intruppreted"

bit of an understatement, 40 million dead at least and europe and asia in ruins.

Apparantly the 1936 games were the first to be broadcast powerfully. It's likely they will be the first to reach other stars.

That said they wont have to wiat long to see that John Wayne saved the world and we're all OK.

That said they wont have to wiat long to see that John Wayne saved the world and we're all OK.

:lol: 10 char

Hitler, Mickey Mouse, John Wayne, doesn't matter who or what they see, it'll scare them away from the solar system for decades to come :lol:

Did you read it in Contact? I don't know the answer either.

at the end of the war when the bbc came back the presenter said " as i was saying before we were rudely intruppreted"

bit of an understatement, 40 million dead at least and europe and asia in ruins.

Which makes it funny ;) - "The world is for laughing, or else we must weep"- someguy, somewhere

Well, before 1936 there was already a basic TV program. The first real TV show was made by Dénes von Mihály in Berlin 1928, but only in a very little circle. A year later the radio station Witzleben sent first test images. The first real and regularly TV program was made by the TV station Paul Nipkow in Berlin beginning in 1935 (and lasting until 1944). Even before, in 1926 the first electronic TV test image was sent in Japan. The Japanese also tried to build up a TV network but ww2 stopped all plans, like the Germans. In Germany the first TV station could only be seen by a few hundred TVs in and around Berlin.
So my guess is, that even before Hitler was opening the games of 1936 a picture was able to be broadcasted into the space. So this first program should be the first pictures to be seen from Earth. However as the opening of the games was the first big event broadcasted, it will be very impressing to Aliens.

Adler

Sorry Adler!

In 1927 Baird transmitted a signal over 438 miles of telephone line between London and Glasgow. In 1928 Baird's company (Baird Television Development Company / Cinema Television) broadcast the first transatlantic television signal, between London and New York, and the first shore to ship transmission.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_television


And the first high definition, all electric system was made from Alexandra Palace in Harringey (just 2 miles from where I live, I often go runnig arround the park)


http://www.pectel-group.co.uk/ali_pali.jpg

You can see the transmition tower on the right, though the studios there have not been used since the 1960s, when they were used for the Open University.

Blue plaque on tower:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/0/0c/PLAQUE.JPG/180px-PLAQUE.JPG




:smug:

It doesn't matter, as one cannot learn anything about Hitler just by watching footage from the 1936 Olymplics. If they somehow extrapolate German from a few phrases and guess everything right about human body language, they will just think he is pompous.

True...so true :lol:

Happy Alex, I did not speak about TV signals, which were indeed many years before, but a TV show.

:p ;)

Adler

Happy Alex, I did not speak about TV signals, which were indeed many years before, but a TV show.

:p ;)

Adler



You can have a TV show without TV signals? :crazyeye:

You can have a TV show without TV signals? :crazyeye:

In the same way you can't have TV signals without a TV show ;)

Well, if you define a test picture as TV show, I have to agree. But for me that is not a real show.

Adler

Did you read it in Contact? I don't know the answer either.

That's exactly what I thought too.

Well, if you define a test picture as TV show, I have to agree. But for me that is not a real show.

Adler

Agreed

that was the impression I got anyways

Well, if you define a test picture as TV show, I have to agree. But for me that is not a real show.

Adler

He's not asking if the aliens will see a TV show. He's talking about whats the fist thing the see:

On January 23, 1926, John Logie Baird (of Scotland) gave the world's first public demonstration of a mechanical television apparatus to approximately 40 members of the Royal Institution at his laboratory on Frith Street. These were images of living human faces, not outlines or silhouettes, with complete tonal gradations of light and shade.

This clearly predates your Japanese test signal. (http://www.nhk.or.jp/strl/aboutstrl/evolution-of-tv-en/p05/)

http://www.tvhistory.tv/EarlyTVBaird.htm



Whatever the aliens see will be will be after the first thing they hear, and that will be a human face, depending, of course if the aliens have a spinning disk television set at the other end.

Anyway, will they see the stuff in chronological order? I mean, after the Berlin Olympic broadcast will it take 50 years for them to watch episodes of Miami Vice?

Not if they have FTL travel . . .

Assuming their technology level is sticks, stones, bones and plasma TVs perfectly set up to receive and show interplanetary alien broadcasts? They travel only by feet, except one guy who tried to fly tying batwings on his hands and jumped off from a cliff...

you also have to wonder if the aliens could figure out German...

you also have to wonder if the aliens could figure out German...
:lol: :lol: Priceless :lol: :lol:

It could be worse tho. It could've been french. :p

Anyway, will they see the stuff in chronological order? I mean, after the Berlin Olympic broadcast will it take 50 years for them to watch episodes of Miami Vice?
It depends on how far away they are. TV signals travel at the speed of light, so an alien who is 10 light-years away will receive 10-year-old signals.

How it worked in Contact was that it took 26 years for the signal to reach the aliens at Vega, and 26 years for them to send their message back to say they'd received ours. And all the subsequent messages sent by the aliens were actually 26 years in transit. So at the time when they actually did send the messages Jodie Foster's character, Ellie Arroway, was still a child. :)

:lol: :lol: Priceless :lol: :lol:

It could be worse tho. It could've been french. :p

Or English! :Shudder:

Adler

at the end of the war when the bbc came back the presenter said " as i was saying before we were rudely intruppreted"

bit of an understatement, 40 million dead at least and europe and asia in ruins.


That's British humour for you.

Is it true?

Unknown. The radio EM "photon density" of the transmission will be pretty light (the reciprocal of the cube of the distance and all that). A reciever at a distance of 24 light years may or may not get enough data to fall on the dish itself to pull a readable signal together. You could calculate the size of the dish or other reciever they would have to have to get enough actual photon "hit rate" needed to put together a message based on the emission profile of the original broadcasts and estimates of the ability of the frequency range in question to make it to any given distance (interference profile, etc.)

If they had noticed earlier test broadcasts, they might know to point a proper EM collector (radio dish?) in the right direction by then.

Well before they decide to decipher our radio signals, they might prefer to use a really powerful telescope to spy out earth. The first human they see depends on how far back they stand and how powerful their telescope is. I remember in Contact the aliens are able to communicate faster than light... After they travelled to that beach, the signal abruptly ended, it shouldn't have ended before 26 years after that event.

if u are on a planet 30 million light years from earth, and u look at earth with a telescope, u are gonna see earth 30 million light years ago(not that any telescope could be vaguely possible even with mystical alien magic engineering, not even.). Thats also how long the transmissions are gonna take to reach you. Unless these aliens live really close by, we wont have to worry about Hitler converting them anytime soon. The closest solar system is about 5 light years away, and that really close, the 2nd closest is much much further. theres no signs of anything from alpha centari, if they were sending any radio signals SETI woulda picked em up by now. Perhaps they are still in the feudal stage of their development, with knights killing samurai and mansa musa busying himself with building the sistiene chapel.
oh and the thing about needing a bigger dish and all...is not quite accurate. Their is an interesting 'watering hole' principle that Seti is designed on. There is a single particular range of wavelength, that radio waves can travel uncorrupted over practically limitless space...oh and EMR has nothing to do with photons...and there is effectively zero refraction. only proximity to, say, black holes, would mess things up.
but ok probably yes, actually they are gonna see that hilter first, loud and clear.There could be no life on a planet near vega. It emits too much radiation. That star would bombard even heavy elements and break them up in seconds, let alone the complex structures needed for lifelike things, like something equivalent to amino acids, protiens, etc. Did the movie touch on that issue at all?
If yr lookign for stars that might possibly support somethign liek life, then u cant have too much radiation, which breaks up everything into pure chaos, nor can you have not enough, where everything is too sterile to come together in complex ways. we have jsut the perfect balance, where complex chemicals can come together, and with an element of randomness, while being stable enough that a 'survival of fittest' way of initiating things and reproducing designs becomes feasible. I guess the nearest star that would seem somewhere in this range, looking at a chart right now if not alpha centauri (Which is a good one actually, althought being a double star complicates things), would be one called Tau Ceti, about 12 light years away.

What makes you think that the first images they see are the first images we send?

That is a very unrealistic assumption.

They are far liklier to see the fonz first, as more images of the fonz were broadcasted over the years.

What makes you think that the first images they see are the first images we send?

That is a very unrealistic assumption.

They are far liklier to see the fonz first, as more images of the fonz were broadcasted over the years.

in that case there is hope for peace! Eeeeeey!

if u are on a planet 30 million light years from earth, and u look at earth with a telescope, u are gonna see earth 30 million light years ago(not that any telescope could be vaguely possible even with mystical alien magic engineering, not even.). Exactly, but why set limitations on it since it is magic? Any technology sufficiently advance would seems like magic, i never watched the movie, but read the book, the aliens seems very magical like indeed.

oh and the thing about needing a bigger dish and all...is not quite accurate. Their is an interesting 'watering hole' principle that Seti is designed on. There is a single particular range of wavelength, that radio waves can travel uncorrupted over practically limitless space...oh and EMR has nothing to do with photons...and there is effectively zero refraction. only proximity to, say, black holes, would mess things up.

I was thinking more on the density of the radio signal. I'm thinking packet loss rather than outright interference. Get far enough out and you are getting a small enough amount of the signal that you might not actually be able to put the original transmission together without estimation... You can't read radio unless it reaches the receiver.

It should be a function of the power of the transmission and the distance of the reciever. It might not be significant within 50 light years so it's probably a moot point, but I have never seen anything on it...

And I did have it backwards. Photons are the basic component of EMR, not the other way around. It should have no bearing on the question unless you are REALLY REALLY far out. By then, communication is out of the question in any case. Just musing at the limits here.

Well to tell the truth if aliens did git the first telivision image it would be of felx the cat, not hitler.the reason is becouse he was aired on a collage campious every day for thirty minutes in 1928 if I rember correctly but icould be wrong about that date.

If we end up travelling to visit the aliens in person, we will also have to explain how the guy in the image also happened to be the first leader to devote a great deal to the technology of rocketry, which eventually gave us the ability to come and visit them in the first place.

"Oh, and he also happens to be one of the most depraved members of our species to have ever drawn breath."

Won't they think us weird?

in that case there is hope for peace! Eeeeeey!
Let us pray that the aliens that find it are not a highly advanced form of Jukebox's.

Hey like I said there is no need to worry he will be the second ... ok well the second visual refeince from us and up intill then all they would be hearing us speak in english. So "Felix The Cat" will be the first images that they see not hitler. I actualy fell sorry for them, but then again we would just be receving there first Broudcast's also UNLESS they were less advanved than us or any of many other factors.

I always asssumed the aliens would have cable. They can get their fill of Hitler on the History Channel.

Won't they think us weird?

We are weird. But anyway, we won't know the answer for a long, long time, if ever. Unless the images have made their way over there already. After 80 years, those aliens must be pretty close.

This is assuming that aliens exist in the first place.

Well if you mean something from another planet, ya they exist. we have evedince on earth of anchent orginisums from mars and one of jupters moons more than likely has life. ;) well no one ever said intellagent for that you would have to use "THE EQUATION".

Were asuming they are as advanced as us now what if they were still in their Pre-WWII Tech. stage of development assuming all races go through some simular order as we did. then they would just be able to get the image or hear the sounds or else we would have been hearing them long before they heard us, that is unless they developed quicker but for the sake of argument lets say all races develop about the same pace. We had a loss and a junp in technology so I would say we are even with the normal development and could use us as an example.

then again this is all guess work and theory on my part

Like someone else previously said, there's is no reason to assume the first transmissons from Earth that aliens pick up will be the TV coverage of Hitler's speeches. If aliens are even bothering to look in our direction, and when they choose to do so, the first signals could be I Love Lucy, or Chairman Mao's speeches, or a cheesy episode of Dr. Who (and the Daleks), or Ronald Reagan's "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that Wall!", or a Star Trek episode, or a Godzilla movie on TV, or Anime from Japan, or some boring weather channel, or the world wide coverage of 9/11, or The Golf Channel, or - horrors - pornography! :blush:

Um, maybe better not dwell on it too much - I'm afraid we have too many embarassments on TV and radio...

Well, I don´t think that that broadcast wast powerfull enough in order to be received at very long distances. And even in that case they could have a really hard time triyng to diference it from simple "noyse" and not to speak about deciphering it.

As an example: todays radio telescopes could detect a human like radio- emiting civilization from a distance of more or less 200 ligth years, thats not much if we take into account that the Milky Way (our Galaxy) is more than 100000 light-years wide. So imagine how far a transmision of 1936 would reach.
There is no radio emiting civilizations in at least 40 light-years around us, probably more, so it is not very probably that they are going to see Hitlers boroadcast. (assuming that the fact that there is nobody emiting means that there is nobody listening).

Of course the galaxy is quite old, thi would mean that if there are extraterrestial civilizations out there, statistically it is more probably that they are older and because of this more advanced than us, but even taking into acount their tecnology, they could probably have it very hard in order to receive and understand it. Te only use they would make of it is to find us.

Actually, being older than us doesn't necessarily mean more advanced. For over 100,000 years of being modern humans, we were hunter-gatherers; it is only in the last 8000 years that we developed farming, and everything else came fairly rapidly. But the development of farming came from factors out of our control, so it is quite plausible that we or any other race would have continued as such for many more thousands of years. The idea that lots of time necessarily means technological progress is not really borne out by human history.

Earlier broadcasts were less powerful and might not be detected.
And even if they were detected, there would likely be signal loss.

I think that it would be much easier for aliens to assemble
picture frames than to translate an unknown language.

A very frequently repeated advertisement which would be
received many times, albeit each time with heavy loss, would
be statistically reconstructable by alien AI and is in my humble
opinion likely to be their first viewing of humananity or human art.

Earlier broadcasts were less powerful and might not be detected.
And even if they were detected, there would likely be signal loss.

I think that it would be much easier for aliens to assemble
picture frames than to translate an unknown language.

A very frequently repeated advertisement which would be
received many times, albeit each time with heavy loss, would
be statistically reconstructable by alien AI and is in my humble
opinion likely to be their first viewing of humananity or human art.

Unless they already know about us for a long time :crazyeye:

It's not like they'd know what he was saying anyway or who he turned out to be.

Let us pray that the aliens that find it are not a highly advanced form of Jukebox's.

In that case, we're all screwed;

http://img165.imageshack.us/img165/3638/1243364169wb8.jpg

Actually, being older than us doesn't necessarily mean more advanced. For over 100,000 years of being modern humans, we were hunter-gatherers; it is only in the last 8000 years that we developed farming, and everything else came fairly rapidly. But the development of farming came from factors out of our control, so it is quite plausible that we or any other race would have continued as such for many more thousands of years. The idea that lots of time necessarily means technological progress is not really borne out by human history.

True, but I was not refering to an extraterrestial inteligence, i was refering to an civilization which can receive radio signals, which necessarily means that they have some form of technology.
Not only, it is true that we only know farming since the last 8000-10000 Years, but we are speaking of the universe, which is quite old (some 15 billion Years (american billion)) while our planet is really young (some 5 billion years). That leaves a space of many years during which other planets could have developed life while our planet didn´t even exist.
Because it is very improvable that any complex species survives such long time the only way this could happen is through the development of a technological civilization.

This also leads to the following conclusions:
a) Intelligent life has only apeared on other planets recently. (statistically wery improbable)
b) Intelligent life apeared on other planets long ago but it didn´t create a civilization, which would mean they are probably extinct.
c) Intelligent life apeared long ago and has survived until today thanks to the use of technology.


As a sidenote: This last option leads to some interesting questions which deal with the existence of inteligent life in outher space known as the Fermi Paradox (http://www.seti.org/site/pp.asp?c=ktJ2J9MMIsE&b=179284).