Wednesday, October 14, 2015

A STEM Exercise


Use biological organic chemistry language to translate the language of some ET asked to report on the chemical structure and function of:  a traffic intersection in a human city.
"The sapien exoskeleton conveyances alternate arterial traction (rubber-street friction) in response to controlling red and green frequencies emitted from the electro-signaling neurons."
In other words:  "Cars stop and go in response to traffic signals" (or "to robots" as we say in South Africa, where traffic lights are robots).  I may presume the ETs understand the sapiens have a molecular-mechanical interface ("steering wheel, gas pedal...") whereby said signalling gets implemented by motor action.

They'd have to catch examples, if only on slides, of "car crashes" resulting from some disconnect twixt the "red light" and the "brake" (an enzyme, embedded in the membrane twixt "passenger compartment" and "engine compartment").

Clearly quantum mechanical randomness was at work.

[ They (the ETs) would probably not have the science to figure out that the sapien going "against traffic" was talking on its "cell phone" (yet another neuronal network for meme delivery). ]

Now draw the diagram, then do the animation.  Of course the human translators are highly intuitive and their interpretations, though often quite similar, will have unique elements.

Our capacity to communicate with these ETs continues to improve.