Material Detail

This lesson received an honorable mention in the 2014 SoftChalk Lesson Challenge.

'Have you ever wondered if we're really alone in the universe? Would we even recognize a message from someone from outer space if we received one?

Well, some scientists have pondered those very questions, and through their research, they have accumulated some interesting findings. In this lesson, you'll "meet" one such scientist and learn how he thinks we just might be able to tell if "someone out there" is trying to communicate with us.

When you finish the lesson, you will have:

• explained the process to follow to determine if linguistic information is being communicated in a packet of signals.
• constructed a frequency distribution of the most occurring signal in a packet of signals.
• reported the number of occurrences of the most occurring signal in a given packet in both absolute and relative terms.
• decided, based on quantitative evidence, whether a packet of signals is gibberish or is conveying knowledge.
• stated assumptions made regarding Information Theory or the process of applying Information Theory.
• summarized the evidence used to determine whether a packet of signals is gibberish or is conveying knowledge.'

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