I don't have the math handy but I've worked it out before -- when various groups send 'messages' into space from earth --- there's no realistic expectation another species will be able to receive it...we have trouble receiving massive, massive, EM sources that are millions of gigawatts at that range. We typically only do these' transmissions at thousands of watts at most.. They just hope that the alien species has some kind of super advanced receiving method....but most likely to receive a transmission from earth at that range would require a collection area like a parabolic dish the size of a planet. So even communication is unlikely.

Yes, your example with three strings is better. Thank you, Thief. Using the StringBuilder class is better again if you need to dynamically build large strings of course.. But this discussion over String.Format proves my point...There's a very large amount of 'best practice' that goes along with any language. The longer you've been using a language, the more of these you're aware of. Teaching mainstream languages would make it a bit smoother to enter employment, no doubt.

There's a lot more that goes along with a language Sure, if you know how to code OO, use iterators, understand switch statements and other language-related elements you can change languages and write an algorithm or two But Do I know best practice for everything? If I'm a c# programmer. Do I know important differences between Ruby 1.7, 1.8. 1.9? Do I know what the best inversion of control framework is? Or what the best ORM to use is? Am I familiar with how to use it? If I'm a Ruby developer am I aware that in a .NET language if I add two strings together in c# "Hello" + "World" It constructs a new immutable string. But if I do String.Format("{0}{1}","Hello","World" it is much faster and uses less memory? Will I know all the proper coding conventions, casing, tabbing, indenting styles. There are hundreds if not thousands of useful pieces of language, compiler, and environment specific knowledge which is useful and can be pretty obvious if you do not have it. I've been playing with c#, ruby, gcc. For around ten years commercially and I still need to invest significant re-education if I swap from say ruby to gcc or ruby to c# after a year.. There is a reason that people tend to stick with one or two primary languages.

I looked up phase interferometry and it was very interesting, thank you. If you've got it patented. That means the detail is public anyhow right? Why not just link us to the patent and/or go into detail?

Are you sure his measurements are good? At the very limit to get 1mm accuracy you'll need wavelength 1mm or less. Some quick calculations suggests 1mm wavelength = 299792458000Hz Or roughly 300Ghz This doesn't sound like something an 'amateur' could build on a weekend. Unless you're claiming some magical way a wave can contain more information than its wavelength would allow