Overall analysis and summary

Day 1 information (audio)

We received an audio message that appeared to warn us about the dangers of global warming in the future – in particular, the methane clathrate emissions caused by climate change, and a series of technological catastrophes. There was disruption to the signal, perhaps because the bandwidth was too large for all of it to pass through the wormhole, or perhaps because the signal was distorted as it travelled through the wormhole, causing different parts of the signal to arrive at different times. Either way, bridging the gap between two separate points in time caused the message to be fragmented and we had to work to understand what little information we had.

Day 1 analysis (audio):

The clathrate gun hypothesis refers to the idea that an increase in global temperature will lead to the melting of permafrost in the seabed, which releases large volumes of methane clathrate compounds, which then break down to form methane which rises into the air. Methane, being a powerful greenhouse gas, will cause temperatures to rise even further by absorbing infrared radiation, which is reflected off the Earth’s surface, and trapping heat inside the atmosphere. This would lead to even more rapid ice melting, causing a negative feedback loop and making climate change almost impossible to prevent. Increased levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, causing ice to melt, are likely caused by the combustion of fossil fuels and engine fuel, both of which release carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide, the farming of cows, which causes a rise in methane levels, and deforestation of trees, which causes an imbalance in the carbon cycle and prevents carbon dioxide from being removed from the atmosphere.

Day 1 information (graph) At 11.00, we received new data which contained a message and Python code. The message addressed us as “scientists of the past”, suggesting that we were being contacted by humanity in the future. The python code described a graph of temperature and human population against time, with one of the lines of code, axis.set_facecolor, being encrypted by a Caesar shift cipher of 25 (although why this is, we do not know. Perhaps the message was distorted by a temporal shift as the data travelled through the wormhole, decreasing ASCII values by 1). The graph is shown below:

Day 1 analysis (graph)

The graph shows that temperature continued to rise, most likely because of the emission of greenhouse gases, especially methane. The population also continued to rise, which would lead to overpopulation, and therefore unemployment and lack of resources. (We later discovered that resources were scarce anyway due to the failure of agriculture and flooding.) At -75 years, there was a large drop in temperature, which we now know is due to the eruption of the Yellowstone super- volcano, which produced large volumes of sulfur dioxide, preventing the sun’s rays from passing through the atmosphere. There was also a drop in population at the same time, probably because of the contamination of water and destruction of crops due to the global spread of ash, and perhaps because some people were killed by the volcano if they did not evacuate areas of North America. There is also a large drop in population at -200 years, probably due to a combination of global flooding and war over resources. The graph also starts at -400 years from “present day”, suggesting that the message was sent at around 2400.

Day 2 information (audio)

We received another message, which we worked out was part of the same audio message as the message from Day 1. By combining the two, we worked out that the precise date of the message was 2405. We also learned that the technological disasters mentioned earlier included the Kessler syndrome, which is a series of collisions of satellites in LEO, making the launch of future satellites impossible. Finally, we learned that the failure to install efficient solar panels led to a network of solar-powered drones, which could be used to perform various functions and is an alternative to human manual labour.

Day 2 analysis (audio)

The Kessler syndrome, proposed by Donald J. Kessler, proposes that if there are too many satellites in low earth orbit, collision of satellites will generate debris, which will then also collide and create more debris, producing an unpreventable negative feedback loop. The surplus of debris in LEO will make it impossible for any new satellites to be put in orbit in this location, meaning that we will have to depend on satellites in high earth orbit, such as geostationary satellites, to monitor the Earth.

Day 2 information and analysis (animation)

We received several files on day 2. The first contained a list of locations and numbers, which were the height of the locations from sea level. The second two contained Python code which described an animation on the rising sea levels, and their effects on the areas of dry land left. There was some corruption in the data; however, by replacing ÿ with 225, we were able to generate coherent data. By referencing the second file, we produced the animation, which showed that by 2405, Europe and South America were almost completely underwater, with regions of North America also being submerged. This suggested that the world’s resources would suffer a serious blow, with South America being one of the main sources of crops and raw materials, and Europe contributing substantially to the world’s energy production. We predicted that this would lead to an exploitation of Africa’s resources, leading to further damage of the earth. Furthermore, evacuation of these areas would lead to overcrowding in the USA and eastern Asia. The Yellowstone eruption would reduce the habitable land area by a large amount, meaning that resources in individual countries would have to be distributed among many people, and possibly causing competition and war.

Taken from animation by Spoon Boiz

Day 2 analysis (text)

We also received some text, which told us to accelerate development of the following: lithium air batteries, drones, millimeter wave tech, routing and cyber security. This all suggests that future humans are providing ways for us to monitor and reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, with lithium air batteries providing an alternative way to power cars (oxygen at the positive electrode reacts with lithium ions to produce lithium peroxide, generating a voltage to power cars electrically) and with drones providing an efficient way to design, build and monitor solar power stations, meaning that we can make a rapid switch to renewable sources of energy. Millimeter wave tech improves the quality of communication with drones by increasing the capacity for data transfer, and delay- tolerant routing devices allow a stable connection to be made by seeking a route of transfer before sending the data. Cyber security prevents this data from being accessed using public key encryption, which combines an accessible public key with a secret private key to ensure data can only be reached by a sender and receiver.

Day 3 information (audio)

On Day 3 we learned that the humans were sending radio waves through a gravitational wormhole. (see analysis) We also found out that as well as climate change, we also failed to address shortages of phosphorus, causing global agriculture to fail and further reducing our limited supply of resources. Finally, we learned that the Kessler syndrome occurred because we launched orbital solar shade satellites into LEO in an attempt to reduce the effects of global warming.

Day 3 analysis (audio)

Wormholes are a theoretical bridge between two points in the curvature of spacetime, creating a shortcut and allowing matter to travel in time and space. They were originally proposed by Einstein and Rosen, and contain two ‘mouths’ and a ‘throat’, the mouths being located in the fabric of spacetime and the throat traversing a different location. Wormholes are very unstable, and so would collapse immediately if any matter were to enter; however, ‘exotic matter’ (matter that is not affected by weak nuclear force) could be used to hold the wormhole open for long enough to pass material through.

Solar shading is a concept which would theoretically divert the course of some of the Sun’s rays, preventing them from reaching Earth and therefore countering global warming. Types of solar shade satellites include a large cloud of tiny satellites, which would reflect up to 2% of the sun’s rays, and a Fresnel lens, which diverts and scatters light, meaning light is less concentrated on particular areas.

Phosphorus is required by all plants. Phosphorus deficiency causes stunted growth and inability of plants to produce sugars, meaning that they will die. Death of crops worldwide would also prevent farmed animals to survive, depleting human food resources drastically.

Day 3 analysis (graph)

Corruption in the data once again meant that we had to substitute words or numbers; for example, the headings, Satellites and Debris. The graph shows that although the debris was increasing slightly, it was the launch of solar shade satellites at -250 years which led to a series of collisions and reduced the number of satellites to zero.

Day 3 analysis (text)

The text message on this day focused on farming, and how to prevent consumption of phosphorus while decreasing our dependence on crops and livestock. Stem cell food growth involves the removal of stem cells from live animals. These cells are placed in an environment where they can grow and develop into muscle or fat tissue, supplying humans with nutrients while only having to farm a few animals. Water modelling and GIS allows us to capture data worldwide, meaning we can allocate resources efficiently. A tax on animal consumption would reduce the demand for meat, meaning less livestock needs to be raised. Phenotyping involves the analysis of genetic sequences in plants, allowing production of food to be both monitored and controlled, and meaning more products can be created. Closing the phosphorus cycle by recycling manure allows phosphorus to return to the earth, meaning that there is less of an imbalance and more of a phosphorus supply in the earth.

Day 4 analysis (audio and animation)

The final message revealed that humanity made significant advances in quantum physics, and created a new field of science, gravitational engineering, which allowed them to construct wormholes. It also explained that the rise in sea levels was caused by an inability to tackle the large CO2 emissions. The most important piece of information from this message was the eruption of the Yellowstone super volcano, presumably at -75 years (when temperatures dropped). As explained earlier, this eruption would make many of our resources inaccessible, such as fresh water (which would be polluted by ash), fish (which would die as ocean water is polluted; fish would have been our primary protein source as land was flooded and as land agriculture collapsed) and land (North America being uninhabitable), as well as causing a drop in temperatures due to global dimming, which is caused by large volumes of sulfur dioxide in the atmosphere (a super volcano emits at least 1,000 km3 of material). The eruption of volcanoes is caused by magma underneath the Earth’s surface, which is forced upwards by pressure in magma chambers.

The animation, which was produced by referring back to the second file from Day 2, shows that a cloud of ash and sulfur dioxide spread through the whole world, with effects being particularly severe in North America. (NB: the Caesar shift occurs again for the same line of code as Day 1 ie. set.axis_facecolor. We wonder what it is about this particular combination of data values that causes them to be altered.)

Day 4 text

The text message explains how we can make advances in gravitational engineering as early as possible, through a number of ways: creating metastable and inflationary vacuums (ie. states with no matter and very little energy, which have a very long life span and are expanding outwards) to generate negative pressure, thus holding open a wormhole and allowing material to pass through without collapse; muon colliders, which are similar to hadron colliders but fire elementary particles, rather than composite particles, at each other, allowing greater energy levels to be supplied; leptogenesis, which is a physical process which can generate the Universe’s asymmetry between antileptons and leptons through the decay of neutrinos, allowing us to simulate a state similar to the vacuum of space; and the Planck scale, which is an area of extremely high energy where the four fundamental forces are hypothesized to merge into one force.

Summary Overall, the message sent by future scientists is not just a warning; it also instructs us on how to prevent disasters in many ways - firstly, by the reduction of greenhouse gas emission, which will slow the melting of sea ice, making flooding more preventable as less methane clathrate is released; secondly, by diversifying food sources and limiting our phosphorus consumption, meaning that more resources will be available when we need them; thirdly, by using drones to perform jobs more efficiently and monitor the state of the Earth; fourth, by using particle physics to make advances in gravitational engineering and even construct wormholes. It also warns us of future disasters, such as the eruption of the Yellowstone volcano in 2325, so that we can prepare for them by gathering supplies and evacuating necessary areas in an organized way , and advises us on measures that we should not take, such as the launch of solar shade satellites, which leads to our inability to launch anything into space. It is important that we follow these instructions, so that we can make early advances in physics, engineering and technology, and so that we can prevent war, famine and poverty.