This pleases me to no end. Sort of reminds me that an imperfect representation of Bach's Brandenbourg II is floating around on Voyager, encoded on a golden disc.<p>As a professional violinist for almost 30 years, and an expert in early music, it makes me a little sad that it's <i>that</i> recording that got sent out.<p>On the other hand, it thrills me that 4.5 or so billions of years from now, long after we are extinct, and when the sun goes dark, Bach will still be out there in the cosmos.<p>Not a perfect Bach. Not the best representation. Not at all what he would have imagined. But <i>a</i> representation.<p>Completely off-topic and re: Fermi's paradox.<p>I think that the voyager mission was a unique thing. It was only possible for a brief window of time in which we had the technology to do it, and the social willingness to do it. It was a short period of time.<p>Think about the social and political implications a mission like Voyager would have today. If you tried to do that today, people and countries and orgs from all over the world would argue for inclusion. I think there's a Simpsons episode about this.<p>My point about Fermi is that I'm suggesting that there was only about a 10 year window in which Voyager was both technically possible and socially acceptable. In the time scale of intelligent life, that's a very narrow window.<p>I sometimes wonder if there isn't a lot of intelligent life out there whose civilizations simply missed that window. In other words, a lot of life that would very much like to say hello, but can't agree on how to do it.<p>Sorry for the tangent.