Science: Calling All Martians

How do earthlings go about striking up a conversation with the inhabitants of other planets? The British Interplanetary Society, which considers such questions with scientific solemnity, heard a lecture last week by Lancelot Hogben, F.R.S., author of 1936's bestselling book Mathematics for the Million.*

Assume, said Hogben, that the earth's "E.T.N." (Extraterrestrial Neighbors) can perceive or record radiation in some part of the electromagnetic spectrum (light, heat, radio waves, etc.) Also assume that the earth can send such radiation strongly enough to reach the nearest planets. After all, radio waves are being beamed to the moon as a matter of routine, and...

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