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How to examine an alien artifact with 1970s technology | |
| veryboringperson
Offer Upgrade  User ID: 52739063  United States12/09/2016 03:26 PM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | I did not write this, have permission to post it. If you have any questions I can get in touch with the author, they don't go on the internet anymore: "Suppose we had stumbled upon some alien technology back in the 1970s. How would we figure out how it worked? How would we get it to do anything at all? Here are a few thoughts on an approach that might be taken using the tech available then. To start with, alien tech is about as black box as you can get so that means we don’t know what it’s for, what it does, or where the inputs or outputs are, or even what counts as an input or output. Since we have no notion of what this thing can do, it’s best to approach it with extreme caution. The initial stage of examination would probably be passive observation, without trying to open the device. Though if you did have what looked like exposed circuitry this examination would be a little easier. How to open up an unknown device made of unknown materials is another problem. Is the object emitting any radiation or sound at any frequency or energy? Is it radioactive? Is there an unusual temperature gradient anywhere on the device? Is there a pattern of electrical potential or magnetism across the object’s surface? Since electric current produces a magnetic field, certain magnetic patterns could indicate functioning electric circuits. Sound could indicate mechanical motion inside the object or result from high frequency vibration. For example, the vibration of the plates that the wires are wound around in an electrical transformer is caused by alternating magnetic fields in the plates which in turn are caused by the alternating current through the wires. The next stage might be more interactive. Shine various frequencies of light on it or bombard it with various sound frequencies and record any emissions or reflections. The stage after this could involve attaching probes to the device and stimulating it through them. Any patterns gleaned from the previous stages could be used to suggest contact points for the probes and possible circuits inside the device. The basic idea is to attach as many probes as possible to the device, covering it with probes. Each probe would double as a transmitter and a receiver and allow fine grained voltage stepping on each probe. The procedure might be, after all probes are attached, to send a signal at some low voltage to one probe and record any results on all the others. Repeat the procedure at a slightly higher voltage. After all voltages have been tried, send signals to two probes and record any results from the others. This would be repeated until all probes are actuated with all voltages combinations. The reason for the variable voltages is that some devices only respond when a voltage threshold has been reached, and by extension, devices only respond when the proper voltage configurations are applied to the right pattern of probes. Transistor switches are a simple example of this, but any electrical device can be viewed this way. This would require a computer attached to a probe assembly capable of multiple voltages on each probe, and each probe would be designed as a transceiver. This kind of hardware was technically possible in the 70s and 80s in the form of test machines for digital circuit boards. Basically they were computer driven multi-probe comparators which were programmed with a model of a correctly functioning circuit board. The board to be tested was hooked up to this machine and set running as it was designed to, but driven by the computer program. The resulting board outputs were then compared to the model and of there was a match then the board was deemed to be working correctly. We know how our own circuit boards work and so we know what voltages and patterns to start with. With alien tech we don’t know anything about how they work so a voltage control device would have to be inserted between the comparator and the probe assembly. And each probe would have to have a fast response current limiter to avoid blowing the device up. This all assumes that the alien tech contains circuitry somewhat like what we know about. If it was organic in some sense then this approach might still reveal something, or it might fry some alien "brain", like electro-shock treatments. Maybe we should hook up an EEG machine as part of the passive examination? As to how to open up the alien device and look inside, that's a topic for another day." Last Edited by veryboringperson on 12/09/2016 03:28 PM bor·ing bôriNG/adjective |
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