Electronics for aliens

We are surrounded by displays with millions of colors and hundreds of pixels per inch. And the sounds of ultra-high accuracy from our point of view realistically reproduce the real world.

Of course, in fact this is not the case - we rarely think about how electronic systems are adapted to the limitations of human perception. In this article, let's consider the question: “What can aliens think about human technology?”. Imagine a creature that feels the world in the same way as we do, but with improved perception capabilities, and therefore we will call it Okulako.
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We will begin consideration with almost dead CRT monitors. The following video shows an image from a TV shot at 10,000 frames per second.



Our limited visual perception system responds slowly to change. Video continuity occurs at about 15 frames per second. As a result, the lines on the CRT screen merge and create one continuous picture. But Okulako processes the visual information much faster, and instead sees the line passing across the screen. Such an organism may not recognize the display in this device at all.

Even if he gets around the limitation with a slow update, he will see strange groups of red, green and blue dots. People perceive the world through these three overlapping regions of the electromagnetic spectrum with wavelengths from 400 to 700 nm.



In the world of electronics, sources have been developed that emit light with specific wavelengths. Therefore, we imitate the work of the human eye by mixing three wavelengths, so that it seems to the eyes that they see one color.

Such a vision is not peculiar to animals. Dogs see only green and blue. Butterflies see colors ranging from ultraviolet and including red, but they also have a set of additional receptors that allow them to better distinguish colors .

But all this is nonsense compared to the abilities of the rotapod crustaceans . They distinguish UV better than we do - the whole spectrum. They have 12 types of receptors (4 times more than people), and the best vision among all known to science (although it is unlikely that they so well dispose of such rich information). [ It is also the only known animal that distinguishes the spiral polarization of radiation - note of trans.]

But suppose that Okulako sees even better, and his receptors are spectrographic . They sense wavelengths with an accuracy of less than a nanometer. His high-resolution eyes see individual pixels on our screens, and he only sees a strange, changing mosaic without much meaning.




LCD screens under the microscope

LCD and LED displays look a little better, at least Okulako will see the whole picture, but the mosaic will remain, and the screen updates will go from top to bottom, merging one with the other.

If Okulako sees a modern DLP projector, he will be surprised. Unlike LCD, the projector mixes colors temporarily. You can watch interesting videos about how micromirrors work in this projector:





Simply put, DLP contains an array of thousands of micromirrors that reflect light differently to produce a picture.



Mirrors can only be in the "on" and "off" modes, so additional technologies are used to obtain color and change intensity. The brightness of the pixels is set by frequency modulation - when the mirrors are quickly turned on and off, it seems to the eye that the picture becomes brighter or darker. To create different colors, light passes through filters on a rotating color wheel. As a result, there is a quick change of red, green, and blue pictures, which our slow vision blends, and then sees a color picture.

To create realistic images, mirrors have to switch thousands of times per second. But Okulako's vision perceives all the switching.

In any case, Okulako incomprehensible flat pictures from this mosaic. In the manner of a Lytro “light field” camera, Okulako’s eyes see the intensity and direction of the light entering them. Therefore, he can reconstruct the three-dimensional representation of the world more accurately than our stereoscopic vision, and better than the images created by three-dimensional TVs and virtual reality helmets.

What is this noise?

Suppose our displays are obscure. But surely the sound must be heard well? Unfortunately, this is not the case. The best ears of people are limited by the perception of frequencies below 20 kHz. Other animals overtake us greatly. Some are able to perceive sounds in the hundreds of kilohertz . Therefore, our speakers for Okulako should sound low and boring. The natural sounds of bubbling water will also be impossible to recognize, for they will be cut off. With such a complex hearing, Okulako may even be able to transmit complex data through sound.



Our world will be incomprehensible for Okulako. It is easy to be misled and assume that other organisms, terrestrial and extraterrestrial, can see our user interfaces, even if they do not understand them. But a small review of the technologies developed by us in the field of audio and video shows that they are strongly limited by our set of feelings.

Conversation with aliens

What about our attempts to connect with real aliens? The most famous, of course, will be the golden record from Voyager .

This artifact, remarkable in itself, resembles a regular vinyl record made of gold. On one side are drawn pictures with instructions for working with the recording, and it is explained how indentations and protrusions are used to store information on a disk.

Along with audio recordings that can help aliens learn how to talk , the disc also contains color data . Surely they also suffer from the problems described here. Improved systems of perception, such as those that are characteristic of rotapod crustaceans, do not necessarily go together with enhanced intelligence and the ability to understand complex messages. Therefore, the data may remain unrecognized.

However, the task of creating a mechanism of communication between different species is extremely difficult. We do not know another rational form of life, and even more so, what sense organs it may have, and besides, in the 1970s we were severely limited in technology. Considering the progress of the last 40 years, how would you personally design today's golden record?