Calling mathematicians, physicists and other geniuses.

I have a request, to pick your brains. Not literally you'll be pleased to hear. I'll try to keep it very simple and not contaminate any thinking.

The computer game called Elite: Dangerous is about flying about in space, in spaceships. It's set in a 1:1 scale Milky Way. Meaning around 400 billion star systems, with associated planets, moons, and nebulae. All generated based on real physics etc. All of the known stars we [as in the real world] are included in their correct positions [mostly, some may have been tweaked for game reasons]. The game and this problem has made the news over here in the UK and can be found on the BBC web site, amongst others.

Currently Humans are the only sentient species in the game. Recently players came across an 'Unknown Probe' when 'scanned' it emitted a noise and flashed it's lights. The noise has been recorded and then put through a logarithmic spectogram, and it revealed an interesting image.

So what I am asking, is there any mathematical or other sciencey way of determining IF this image has any information at all? So I'll give you pictures of the Spec-graphs and a pic of a 'cleaned' image. Probably best to view them in a separate 'tab' or page.

OK, here are some quick thoughts and guesses:

What you've found is very likely the equivalent to the gold record that we sent on the first Voyager mission, and of course it's a puzzle that needs to be decoded.

The circular image in the middle is almost certainly a map to the world of origin if you could find a way to deduce the reference points. I wonder if there hasn't been information lost in the last sanitized version. It seems to me there should be some more star locations given, based on what was on the Voyager map, but maybe the hashes and curves around the perimeter contain enough information if they can be decoded.  

The bars and dots  around the edges are probably the first key to start decoding data. I'd assume binary counting to start with, but it's not obvious where to start. Reading up on Voyager's coding might be useful. This will almost certainly be different but may follow similar logic (that's how I'd build the puzzle if it were me...)

This "game" looks fascinating and more than a little dangerous.
Good luck!

As you may guess, many minds are working on this puzzle. I thought fresh eyes may provide a clue. The voyager disk has be mentioned, and various people have tried to equate the markings to binary, and to various other bases ie 3, 8 as well as 10. Unfortunately it's still all guess work, and with no definitive points of reference it's not going anywhere fast.

I was looking at it and wondering if the markings could be mathematical expressions, for example the line from the centre to the edge could be interpreted as PI, the two smaller lines at the bottom left of the circle could represent another aspect of maths etc.

I'm not certain the glyphs around the central image are directly linked to the circle, but then again perhaps they are. It possible they can be given values based on the central image. Or not.

[In game the probe points to a definitive planet, whether as a place or origin or destination or other is unknown] Trying to align the picture while looking at the galaxy is nearly impossible as you could use anything as a reference point.

There are a lot more questions than answers at the moment, so any idea is valid - even better if it's based on hard science.

Thanks for looking!

Pi wouldn't make much sense in this case because of the curved grid pattern within the circle. Pi is really just a conversion factor between the two different coordinate systems that we use all the time: the normal flat grid (Cartesian)  that gives us (x,y) distance coordinates from a defined reference point, and the polar coordinate system that defines the same point as a distance and an angle, (r, θ) from a defined reference point.  For any coordinate system to work, you need to figure out the reference point.

The curved lines seem to suggest some kind of 3D spherical map projection, but it's not any of our standard projections, and for now I don't see what use it serves unless there are some points identified on the grid.

As for "hard science" I'm not sure there's any such thing. It's all just a series of guesses and experiments all strung together over decades and centuries.

many minds are working on this puzzle.- Nagual

{{And thank Eru they are, and that NASA boffins, and scientist sorts, and lab coat wearers who play have put their sizeable minds to it. As left to my own devices I wouldn't have even have worked out there was a picture to made from the sound I'd just have gone 'oh, thats weird, and pretty, and odd. I'll take a picture of that for the album' then flown away. }}}}

Unfortunately my time needs to be applied to my own problems. But I've rubbed shoulders with people from the NSA who do nothing but solve hear types of hngs and could probably crack it n short order.

{{{Is that math problems or life problems? Either way I hope they are resolved to your satisfaction Halfy. Perhaps you could direct one of your NSA colleagues to the matter- they might enjoy the challenge of trying to solve it (and I wasn't kidding when I said people at NASA are working on this, at least one or two are anyway who play the game) }}}

I have read this entire thread and find myself none the wiser...

mathematicians? well I dont know the 3 times-table so I wont be much use.

halfwise wrote:Unfortunately my time needs to be applied to my own problems.  But I've rubbed shoulders with people from the NSA who do nothing but solve hear types of hngs and could probably crack it n short order.

Feel free to email them it...