Steve Allen wrote: >So it seems that when it comes to communicating a span of time >to a civilization other than our own the solution that the best >minds have produced is an astronomical one.
I've read quite a lot about WIPP. It forces one into a refreshingly unusual viewpoint. In addition to the phenomena you mentioned, one of the proposals for WIPP would have used the shapes of constellations to identify time periods. They have chosen this mechanism because the astronomical phenomena are culture-independent, robust across fall of civilisation, easily observed, and change visibly over the right timescales for WIPP. Precision and linearity are, of course, not relevant considerations. (The plans for a pulsar-based timescale would achieve some of these features in a precision timescale. They're not easily observed, but given sufficient tech level would allow recovery of precise time across a fall of civilisation.) > but this does provide an interesting viewpoint on how posterity >might interpret the actions of the ITU-R, whether they abandon or not. Not particularly, I think. WIPP's choice of timescale is optimised for this most unusual communication situation. Future civilisations are unlikely to use polar precession as a day-to-day measure of the passage of time, and would not expect us to have done so either. Posterity will interpret ITU-R's decision as a response to the contemporary needs of this culture. -zefram