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A Bracewell probe is a hypothetical concept for an autonomous interstellar probe dispatched for the express purpose for communication with (an) alien civilization(s). It was proposed by Ronald N. Bracewell as an alternative to interstellar radio communication between widely seperated civilizations. The interstellar medium (or ISM) is a term used in astronomy to describe the rarefied gas and dust that exists between the stars (or their immediate circumstellar environment) within a galaxy. ...
Ronald Newbold Bracewell (1921 – ) is the Lewis M. Terman Professor of Electrical Engineering, Emeritus of the Space, Telecommunications and Radioscience Laboratory at Stanford University. ...
Description
A Bracewell probe would be constructed as an autonomous robotic interstellar space probe with a high level of artificial intelligence, and all relevant information that it's home civilization might wish to communicate to another culture. It would seek out technological civilizations — or alternativly monitor worlds where there is a likelyhood of technological civilizations arising (see the Sentinal hypothesis) — and communicate over "short" distances (compared to the interstellar distances between alien "homeworlds") once it discovered a civilization that meets it's "contact criteria". It would make it's prescence known, carry out a dialog with the contacted culture, and presumably communicate the results of it's "encounter" to it's place of origin. In essence, such probes would act as an autonomous "local representatives" of it's home civilization and would act as the point of contact between the cultures. The interstellar medium (or ISM) is a term used in astronomy to describe the rarefied gas and dust that exists between the stars (or their immediate circumstellar environment) within a galaxy. ...
A space probe is an unmanned space mission in which a spacecraft leaves Earths orbit. ...
Artificial intelligence (AI) is defined as intelligence exhibited by an artificial entity. ...
Since it can communicate much faster, over shorter distances, and (if lying dormant waiting under the "sentinal hypothesis") over large spans of time, it can communicate with alien cultures more efficiently than radio message exchange might. The disadvantage to this approach is that such probes cannot communicate anything not in their data storage, nor can it's contact critera, or policies for communication be quickly updated by it's "base of operations".
While a Bracewell probe need not be a Von Neumann probe as well, the two concepts are not incompatible, and a self-replicating nature would greatly speed up a Bracewell probe's search for alien civilizations. A von Neumann probe is a specific example of a hypothetical concept based on the work of Hungarian-born American mathematician and physicist John von Neumann. ...
References - Bracewell, R. N. "Communications from Superior Galactic Communities," Nature, 186, 670-671 (1960). Reprinted in A.G. Cameron (ed.), Interstellar Communication, W. A. Benjamin, Inc., New York, pp. 243-248, 1963.
- McCollum, Michael. LifeProbe. New York: Ballantine Books (1983).
- Bracewell, Ronald N. "The Opening Message from an Extraterrestrial Probe." Astronautics & Astronautics, 11, 58-60 (May, 1973).
Fictional examples Sir Arthur C. Clarke Sir Arthur Charles Clarke (born December 16, 1917) is a British author and inventor, most famous for his science-fiction novel 2001: A Space Odyssey, and for collaborating with director Stanley Kubrick on the film of the same name. ...
The Fountains of Paradise is a 1979 novel by Arthur C. Clarke. ...
External Links - Biographical entry for Ronald Bracewell
- Bracewell probes at the The Encyclopedia of Astrobiology, Astronomy, and Spaceflight
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