Lincos (language)

Lincos (language)

Lincos (an abbreviation of the Latin phrase "lingua cosmica") is an artificial language first described in 1960 by Dr. Hans Freudenthal in his book "Lincos: Design of a Language for Cosmic Intercourse, Part 1". It is a language designed to be understandable by any possible intelligent extraterrestrial life form, for use in interstellar radio transmissions. Freudenthal considered that such a language should be easily understood by beings not acquainted with any Earthling syntax or language. Lincos was designed to be capable of encapsulating "the whole bulk of our knowledge."

Concepts and range

The Lincos "dictionary", intended to be transmitted first before any additional messages, begins with a simple pattern of pulses intended to establish the terminology for natural numbers and basic arithmetic (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division) in base two. The concepts of equality, comparison, variables and constants are also illustrated by a series of examples, and then finally propositional logic, set theory and first-order logic. The next section of the Lincos dictionary establishes vocabulary for describing time, introducing means for measuring durations, referring to moments in time, and talking about past and future events. The third section is perhaps the most complex, and attempts to convey the concepts and language necessary to describe behavior and conversation between individuals. It uses examples to introduce actors speaking to each other, asking questions, disapproving, quoting other people, knowing and wanting things, promising, and playing. Finally, the fourth section describes the concepts and language relating to mass, space, and motion. This last section goes so far as to describe physical features of human beings and of the Solar system.

A second book was planned but never written that would have added four more sections to the dictionary: "Matter", "Earth", "Life" and "Behavior 2". Other researchers have since extended the language somewhat on their own (see, for example, CosmicOS).

No actual transmissions have been made using Lincos; it remains largely a theoretical exercise in Communication with Extraterrestrial Intelligence.

Examples

An example of Lincos from section 3 of Freudenthal's book, showing one individual asking another individual questions:Note the difference between "good" and "bad" as compared to "true" and "false"; 10/4 is a true answer to the question, so "Ver" ("true") would be a valid response, but since it wasn't reduced to lowest terms, it wasn't what Hb wanted and so he responded "Mal" ("bad") instead.

Another example, showing meta-conversation:

Popular culture

In the motion picture "Contact", SETI astronomers receive a radio transmission from space that has a Lincos-like dictionary embedded in the message.

See also

*
* Alien language
* SETI

References

* cite book
last=Freudenthal
first=Hans
authorlink=Hans Freudenthal
coauthors=
year=1960
title=Lincos: Design of a Language for Cosmic Intercourse
publisher=North-Holland
location=Amsterdam

External links

* http://www.brunobassi.it/scritti/lincos.html


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужно сделать НИР?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Lincos — (abréviation de la phrase en Latin phrase lingua cosmica) est un langage construit décrit en 1960 par le docteur Hans Freudenthal dans son livre Lincos: Design of a Language for Cosmic Intercourse, Part 1. Il est destiné à communiquer avec une… …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Lincos — *Lincos (language) (an abbreviation of the Latin phrase lingua cosmica ) is an artificial language first described in 1960 by Dr. Hans Freudenthal and described in his book LINCOS: Design of a Language for Cosmic Intercourse . *LINCOS is a… …   Wikipedia

  • Lincos — Projektautor Hans Freudenthal Jahr der Veröffentlichung 1960 Linguistische Klassifikation Konstruierte Sprache Plansprache Lincos …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Alien language — is a generic term used to describe a language originating from an alien species. The study of such a language has been termed xenolinguistics, though alternative terminology such as exolinguistics and astrolinguistics have found their way into… …   Wikipedia

  • Constructed language — This article is about the creation of planned or artificial natural languages. For information about the linguistic field of language planning and policy, see language planning. Artificial language redirects here. For non natural languages, see… …   Wikipedia

  • Communication with extraterrestrial intelligence — (CETI) is a branch of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence that focuses on composing and deciphering messages that could theoretically be understood by another technological civilization. The best known CETI experiment was the 1974… …   Wikipedia

  • Search for extraterrestrial intelligence — The search for extraterrestrial intelligence is sometimes abbreviated as SETI. For other uses, see SETI (disambiguation). Screen shot of the screensaver for SETI@home, a distributed computing project in which volunteers donate idle computer power …   Wikipedia

  • Drake equation — This article is about Frank Drake s equation. For the Tub Ring music album, see Drake Equation (album). The Drake equation (sometimes called the Green Bank equation or the Green Bank Formula) is an equation used to estimate the number of… …   Wikipedia

  • Extraterrestrial life — For fiction, see Extraterrestrials in fiction. For other uses, see Alien (disambiguation). A 1967 Soviet Union 16 kopeks postage stamp, depicting a satellite from an imagined extraterrestrial civilization …   Wikipedia

  • Active SETI — A representation of the 1679 bit Arecibo message. Active SETI (Active Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) is the attempt to send messages to intelligent aliens. Active SETI messages are usually in the form of radio signals. Physical… …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”