cosmic Schelling points

Anton Sherwood (dasher@netcom.com)
Mon, 10 Feb 1997 20:57:15 -0800


T0M writes--
: So I'm led to ask: Were you an intelligence wandering free and lonely
: in the galaxy, where would you head to meet others? What, in other words,
: constitutes a universal Schelling point?

: I offer a tentative answer: The point where gravitational forces of the
: universe sum to zero--galatic center, if you will.

And if that happens to be a black hole, well that's just too damn bad.

: Lastly, I note that if we can figure out the universal Schelling point, we
: might discover that our alien peers have already started meeting there.
: Anyone have access to a decent-sized radio observatory?

In another dimension, if PBS is to be believed, it was decided decades ago
that the narrowish range between the H+ line and the OH- line in the radio
spectrum is a Schelling point.

Anton Sherwood *\\* +1 415 267 0685 *\\* DASher@netcom.com