Howdy, folks.
I'm here to ask for some clarification on my admittedly layman understanding of some spacey, sciencey goodness.
So, that trope about aliens out there somewhere, watching Gilligan's Island, because of the delay in our broadcast transmissions; I've had an idea for a story that sort of hinges on this sort of idea, but:
1) Even if an alien civilisation could pick up our broadcasts, wouldn't they need a compatible system to interpret them? Does this change if the signal is plain, analog audio without any video signal?
2) I managed enough research to put together that over galactic distances, we shouldn't have to worry much about things like relativistic effects affecting the signal, however:
3) That's basically moot, because our signals become so attenuated after a comparatively short distance, that the odds of anyone picking them up to begin with are tiny.
4) Say that we get past that though, does anyone have an idea what the odds are that a society could intercept this sort of signal and not recognize that it was a centuries old broadcast?
(Getting purely into the fiction in my head, I had imagined a culture with some sort of sci fi, instant communications, FTL etc, so maybe they've lost the notion that this signal had been in space for a couple hundred years before they caught it).
I know this is maybe a bit off topic, but I hope it falls far enough away from homework and/or advice that I could be forgiven.
Any help is hugely appreciated. Thanks in advance!
but how else are we gonna waste so much time and money on useless shit?
One hopeful daytime bump, and then I'll let the thread die.
There's a plot in an episode of Futurama incredibly similar to this, if it helps anon! I think the episode was titled Single White Lawyer, or something of that sort.