Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Communication with the Future

I found this piece in the LA Times on the burial of radioactive waste in a salt mine in New Mexico fascinating from an anthropological point of view. How do we warn people 100,000 years from now that what is buried in the mine is dangerous? They obviously won't speak our language and what are the chances they will be able to translate our writing? If they do understand what we are trying to tell them will they believe it - or think we are trying to lure them away from a buried treasure?

Interesting questions and interesting that we really are trying to think ahead.

1 comment:

Matt Mullenix said...

Something tells me that if the place remains deadly for 250k years, it will be discovered and re-named many times: The Bad Place. No sign necessary.