Cyber Heroes

"Clue? The clue is stupid." Ingrid shook her head and handed her notebook to Xiang Shan: "The computer has counted the most common symbols. You can take a look for yourself."

There are ten... or three different sets of symbols on Ingrid's notebook, which are a solid circle, an empty circle; four arrows pointing up, down, left, and right. The main part of the arrow is an equilateral triangle, and behind it Followed by a line segment perpendicular to the base; four arrows pointing in the diagonal direction. The main part of the arrow is an isosceles right triangle, and the most common base is perpendicular to a line segment.

It's all handwritten.

"This is?"

"If my guess is correct, then the solid dots and hollow circles represent the 'start' and 'end' respectively, and the 'arrow' is the 'direction of reading'. In other words, these things can not only move left and right, but also Read it up and down, or read it diagonally," Ingrid said.

Xiang Shan grinned: "It's so troublesome...won't you faint?"

"Everyone speculates that these symbols are not natural languages, but symbol systems similar to high-level languages ​​or assembly languages ​​that facilitate humans to operate machinery."

Xiang Shan looked at the symbols: "So you think these things are... mnemonics? Something like that?"

"It's very possible." Ingrid nodded: "These things are highly graphic. But if you look at it by the standards of hieroglyphics, the number of characters is too small, only more than a hundred. But if you look at it by the standards of letters, , this is too much. And such...such complex and difficult-to-guess symbols really don't seem to be read by aliens - of course, this is in terms of human thinking. Aliens' concept of language , may be based on a completely different physiological basis."

"oh……"

"But after all, there is something like 'if you study science, you will definitely understand'. First draw a few geometric figures, and then draw a schematic diagram of a hydrogen atom to show that we can understand mathematics and physics, and then label the symbols of the numbers When you come out, you are stronger than anything else." Ingrid continued.

Xiang Shan nodded: "Indeed."

"These symbols are for machines, not living things."

Xiangshan thought for a moment: "Actually, that's not the case. I feel that these words must all correspond to a human vocabulary that has "one and only one natural semantics." Each symbol points to a "well-defined" concept."

"Clear concept..."

"Registers, accumulators, memories, adding, sending..." Xiang Shan waved his hand: "Of course, this is also based on human computer technology. In fact, the computer architecture of aliens may be completely different from this set of It doesn’t matter. But there are always concepts like ‘addition’, ‘transmission’ and ‘dislocation’.”

Ingrid quickly wrote down in her notebook: "It's true..."

"And it must contain their numerical symbols. Have you found any symbols here that are similar or identical to the symbols marked on the steel beams outside?"

"The computer is counting, and the current data shows that not only do those symbols exist, but the number is not small."

"So have you figured out where '0' and '1' are?"

Ingrid shook her head: "It's not finalized yet, what's wrong?"

"If I guess, there must be an area with a lot of 0s and 1s... Well, it could also be 0/1/2 - maybe aliens will use ternary computers, but generally speaking, binary is more likely. "Xiang Shan said: "If it is as you think, these symbols are similar to mnemonics, then there must be an area where the set of 'mnemonics' can be matched one-to-one with the set of 'machine instructions' Get up, in some form." Xiangshan said: "The machine must first be able to convert mnemonics into mechanical instructions before it can work through these mnemonics."

Ingrid nodded: "Indeed, I should have thought of it - if there is any progress in deciphering, I will include you in the report. But why are you so sure it is binary?"

"This involves the question of 'In which base system can we use the fewest symbols to represent the most numbers?'" Xiang Shan said: "For example, let's take the range '0~99'. The binary 99 is 1100011, a seven-digit number, so if we want to represent any number between 0 and 99, we will prepare two states for each digit, namely seven 0s and seven 1s, a total of fourteen symbols. Ternary 99 is, well, 10200, a five-digit number. To represent all numbers in this range, we need five 1s, five 2s, and five 0s. Quaternary requires sixteen symbols, quinary, and six The base and hexadecimal systems have fifteen symbols, eighteen symbols and twenty-one symbols.”

"If you extend '0~99' to 'any number', then you will find that in the end, the 'most economical' result falls on the natural logarithm e, which is the least economical in base e. And e is not an integer , it is an irrational number, and its approximate value is 2.7182. At least in engineering, the base can only be positive integers, so it is either 2 or 3."

Ingrid nodded: "Then wouldn't the ternary system be better?"

"From the perspective of information storage and calculation, this is correct." Xiang Shan sighed: "But, the costs of 'components with two states' and 'components with three states' are different. Three Compared with binary, the advantage of binary system in storing information is quite limited, the difference is probably only a few percent. However, under the current technology, the cost of ternary components is much higher than that of binary components, and the difficulty of integration is even more ——Of course, this is only based on human understanding. Maybe on the alien side, things are the other way around. But I think the physical laws of the universe are consistent, and the same should be true for aliens."

Ingrid thought for a moment: "It's a matter of cost... But look, you just said that these aliens 'regardless of cost'."

"Ah..." Xiang Shan was startled, obviously convinced: "It makes sense..."

If those aliens really uphold the religious belief of 'as long as they are as close to mathematical theory as possible'...

During the meal, Ingrid and Xiangshan told Yawgmoth and David these words.

As a result, Yawgmoth rolled his eyes: "I won't comment on the computer part, but 'regardless of cost'... Have you ever thought about another possibility? The home planet of the builder of 'Ogun' is far away from his own The star is very close, very close, and the energy is very abundant. Even the ocean is filled with organic fuel formed after the decomposition of plants - it is a planet where even animals can photosynthesize. In this extremely resource-rich environment, Their idea of ​​'resources' is certainly different from ours."

Xiang Shan and Ingrid were stunned.

Yawgmoth raised his fork and pointed: "Anthropocentrism."

David thought seriously for a moment: "Can evolutionary pressure really give rise to intelligent creatures in this environment... The optimal evolutionary strategy in a place like this should be to spread the leaves as large as they are, right?"