Donate SIGN UP

Alien Maths

Avatar Image
ed2288 | 20:04 Thu 31st May 2007 | Science
4 Answers
If intelligent aliens exist, do you think that they would have developed a system of maths? Do you think it would be similar to ours? Would they have things like sine and cos, logarithms and exponentials, or would they have something else completely different?
Gravatar

Answers

1 to 4 of 4rss feed

Best Answer

No best answer has yet been selected by ed2288. Once a best answer has been selected, it will be shown here.

For more on marking an answer as the "Best Answer", please visit our FAQ.
If they have been around long enough then yes and maybe they have more maths than us as it is being developed all the time. The content will be exactly the same as mathematics is the universal language and is the way we will communicate with them once we achieve contact.
or they could be pieces of slime that have just mastered the 3x table...who knows
ed2288

Mathematics is a system of truths , it is not "invented".
Mathematical relations exist irrespective of there being any civilisation to utilise them.
The same mathematical rules apply everywhere: an alien civilisation will have different notation, but it will express exactly the same ideas as "our" mathematics.
Carl Sagan ( and others) postulated that any mathematically inclined ET would soon develop an understanding of prime numbers, 2,3,5,7,11,13...etc and might use them in signals across space to contact others.

These numbers have properties that would be apparent to any math whiz of any kind .

See "CONTACT" the Robert Zemecis movie starring Jodie Foster for further details

1 to 4 of 4rss feed

Do you know the answer?

Alien Maths

Answer Question >>