Interplanetary Messages

Few weeks ago Marconi startled the world by stating that he had often received strong wireless signals which seemed to come from beyond the earth. In a recent interview published in the New York Evening Post, Nikola Tesla, too, reminds us that he had made known to the world years ago the fact that extra-planetary signals were recorded in his Colorado Laboratory. That was in 1899, before the world dreamt of wireless.

Even today announcements such as the above are made light of by editorial writers and others of limited scientific perception. For the earth-bound layman still persists that intelligence can only exist on Earth. Such childish reasoning shows what sort of "intelligence" blossoms on this planet. It never occurs to these reviewers to question why Nature in her Wisdom should have singled out the little speck called Earth, on which to plant beings endowed with reason. Why should there be such an exception? Life in some form or other is certain of being found on myriads of worlds throughout the Universe. And if one world dies, all life does not die with it. Svante Arrhenius shows us how life-bearing spores are carried by the pressure of light through interstellar space, notwithstanding the absolute zero which prevails there.

In our planetary system, conditions for life, such as we know it, probably only exist on two planets: Mars and Venus. Life on the latter being more or less doubtful, due to its heavy water-laden atmosphere, there remains Mars, a body much older in evolution than the earth. Conditions on Mars we know by direct observation as well as deduction are favorable for life, and we may be certain that it exists there. And if we once grant this, we must also grant that it must have existed for hundreds of thousands of years prior to that on Earth; consequently Martian civilization must be thousands of years ahead of ours.

From this we must deduce again that the Martians probably signaled to us ages ago, when prehistoric man still roamed the forests. But why go so far back? Suppose the Martians had sent us radio messages only thirty years ago. We could never have received them, for we then had no means of recording them. Detectors and audions were undreamt of.

In all this warped logic, we presuppose wireless signals. But why should a civilization so far ahead of ours use — to them — obsolete radio waves, which, like as not, can never hope to bridge 35 million miles! If the Martians are signaling to us, you may be certain that they use an entirely different means than Radio. To be sure, it may turn out to be one of the many wave forms of the ether, but we can only make a poor guess at it today. Meanwhile Martian signals probably fly about our heads day and night, as they may have for thousands of years, but we are still deaf and blind to them. The Martian Wave Detector still remains uninvented. At that, the Martians probably have used many methods on us. It is not even impossible that they may have used reflected sun rays. Bell and Tainter in 1880 demonstrated a "wireless" telephone — the Photophone — by making use of a vibrating light ray falling upon a selenium cell. Speech was transmitted over many miles this way. With necessary refinements such a system might bridge interplanetarian space.

As to one planet understanding the other, that is of course child's play. Still, many humorous editorial writers have misgivings on that score. They are afraid that on Mars 2 + 2 might equal, perhaps, 5 or 3, so how could we get together, they ask.

A simple example might serve as an illustration. Suppose an American and a Frenchman, neither knowing the other's language, were connected by a long telegraph line. Both are ignorant of the code. But both have enough sense to tap the key. Suppose both have the desire to enter into communication, what will they do? Tap out dots from one to ten, of course. Thus . . . . . . . . . . etc. It will not take them many months, if they keep at it, to work out a sort of "international" language by means of dots. And the higher their intelligence, the quicker will they understand each other.

That is the basis of interplanetarian communication.

H. GERNSBACK.