Unanswerable Questions...

[pokeraz]

Reading Carl Sagan's 'The Demon-Haunted World', he talks about being given the opportunity to ask questions to supposed aliens that would prove their existence.

There are questions that are not answerable by us but the answer would be instantly recognizable as correct if we saw it. And any intelligent being smart enough for interstellar travel would be able to answer them.

As an example, one question asks to 'provide a concise proof to Fermat's Last Theorem' (book was written prior to middle 90's).

I thought it would be interesting to see what questions we could come up with. Questions that perplex us but we would recognize the correct answer if it was presented to us.

Thoughts?

[Magic_Man]

What is your largest known prime number bigger than 2^50000000?

[Magic_Man]

Give a complete solution to the Navier-Stokes equation.

[Magic_Man]

Give us the coordinates of an observable planet unknown to us.

[Shadowrun]

what question does "42" answer?

[RayBornert]

"What is the best question?"

in other words we should ask them what we should be asking them without any restrictions - they would not be able to answer without introducing their motives. if they did not answer then that would imply they do not exist or they're not willing to discuss their motives at this time (which is actually some hint of motive). my stategy here involves being able to infer something about the case where there is no response.

ray

[pokeraz]

[ QUOTE ]
"What is the best question?"

in other words we should ask them what we should be asking them without any restrictions - they would not be able to answer without introducing their motives. if they did not answer then that would imply they do not exist or they're not willing to discuss their motives at this time.

ray

[/ QUOTE ]

I like this idea and it seems better than asking a bunch of math questions. However, mathematics may be the only way we could communicate. And there are equations that if solved would vastly increase our knowledge of the universe.

[bluesbassman]

Does P=NP?

If not, then please provide the proof.

If so, then please provide a polynomial time algorithm that solves any NP-complete problem.

[Skidoo]

Earthling: What is the best question?

Martian: "What is the best question?"

[IsaacW]

[ QUOTE ]
provide a concise proof to Fermat's Last Theorem

[/ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Give a complete solution to the Navier-Stokes equation.

[/ QUOTE ]

Would the answers to these really be "instantly recognizable?" There's a reason the prizes for the millennium problems aren't released immediately upon publication.