Thank you Sir. Thank you very much for all the thoughts that, without you, I would never have had.
Tag Archive for 'Arthur C. Clarke'
Are there numbers that can’t be said?
My first answer was: “yes, a number with so many digits in a given base that a whole life can’t be enough to say it”.
I started trying to find an answer to this question thinking back to the old short story “The Nine Billion Names of God” written by Arthur C. Clarke.
Do you know another element of that set of numbers? A not trivial example would be appreciated. 
An artificial solar system made of six stars of the same kind placed to make a hexagon: this view is described in an old novel by Arthur C. Clarke (I’ve forgotten its title, sorry); the whole thing was made by an alien civilization before its extinction and, million years later, it still reminds the human explorer the greatness of its creators.
This story came back to my mind some weeks ago reading a well known article about what could survive our civilization in the long term (I lost the link, sorry again).
Our radio signal is larger than a century so its “sphere” will grow endlessly or something… but what about a more rock solid sign? I know we are not ready for an artificial solar system (we are on a budget and I guess some green warriors will try to stop the whole project :D) but what could we create, or what have we already created that will survive us in the long term? No, nuclear pollution doesn’t count :).
It’s funny that these kind of things are written on a blog whose name means temporariness :).