Ha, take THAT, UVA....
So I had to provide a writing sample to UVA of no more than one page, on the following topic: "Stephen Hawking asked the question, 'What is the probability of life existing elsewhere in the universe?' in his public lecture, 'Life in the Universe.' If life does, in fact, exist elsewhere in the universe and you could send one thing to represent the human race, what would it be and why would you choose it?"
My submission - for which I feel vaguely dirty, but at the same time, what did I have to lose by being interesting and standing out from all the "amg i sends computarz!" entries? - is below the cut.
. . . . . The pinnacle of human achievement is not always the flashiest, most glamorous item. It is not always the gadget which beeps or the widget that makes our lives easier. Sometimes, the best way to represent the human race to a potential alien civilization is through the simple things in our lives: food.
. . . . . Most of our celebrations - be it Western culture Thanksgiving gatherings or Middle Eastern Al-Eid celebrations or Eastern Lunar New Year parties - revolve around vital sustenance for human life. The adage “You are what you eat” has some truth to it, as food defines who we are as a culture and what we value in life. Without food, we cease living, which is why hunger strikes are so poignant.
. . . . . With that in mind, who knows what type of food an alien civilization might have, or even if they have what we would think of as “food” - perhaps they survive by synthesizing nutrients out of their atmosphere. Humanity has already sent out radio waves and television transmissions and the Voyager I space probe with the Golden Record of Earth sounds and music and languages. What else should we send to represent humanity but food?
. . . . . However, sending food presents a problem. Nearly every food made by man is subject to spoilage. But there is one food - one tasty item to represent human achievement in culinary technology - that does not spoil, one food which would reach the Andromeda Galaxy as tasty and fresh as the day millions of years prior in which we shot it into space: the Twinkie*.
. . . . . The Twinkie - a wheat flour snack cake filled with vanilla cream - is made without any dairy products, thus making it significantly less prone to spoilage than most foods. Four of the eight main ingredients of a Twinkie are forms of sugar: corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, dextrose, and sugar. Sending a sweet, small, easily understandable item like a Twinkie may not display the diversity of human culture through our food, but it would show our ingenuity and creativity when it comes to making long-lasting snacks for those interstellar journeys.
. . . . . (* Shelf life of Twinkies is not guaranteed to exceed the span of light years necessary to escape the heliosheath.)
My submission - for which I feel vaguely dirty, but at the same time, what did I have to lose by being interesting and standing out from all the "amg i sends computarz!" entries? - is below the cut.
. . . . . The pinnacle of human achievement is not always the flashiest, most glamorous item. It is not always the gadget which beeps or the widget that makes our lives easier. Sometimes, the best way to represent the human race to a potential alien civilization is through the simple things in our lives: food.
. . . . . Most of our celebrations - be it Western culture Thanksgiving gatherings or Middle Eastern Al-Eid celebrations or Eastern Lunar New Year parties - revolve around vital sustenance for human life. The adage “You are what you eat” has some truth to it, as food defines who we are as a culture and what we value in life. Without food, we cease living, which is why hunger strikes are so poignant.
. . . . . With that in mind, who knows what type of food an alien civilization might have, or even if they have what we would think of as “food” - perhaps they survive by synthesizing nutrients out of their atmosphere. Humanity has already sent out radio waves and television transmissions and the Voyager I space probe with the Golden Record of Earth sounds and music and languages. What else should we send to represent humanity but food?
. . . . . However, sending food presents a problem. Nearly every food made by man is subject to spoilage. But there is one food - one tasty item to represent human achievement in culinary technology - that does not spoil, one food which would reach the Andromeda Galaxy as tasty and fresh as the day millions of years prior in which we shot it into space: the Twinkie*.
. . . . . The Twinkie - a wheat flour snack cake filled with vanilla cream - is made without any dairy products, thus making it significantly less prone to spoilage than most foods. Four of the eight main ingredients of a Twinkie are forms of sugar: corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, dextrose, and sugar. Sending a sweet, small, easily understandable item like a Twinkie may not display the diversity of human culture through our food, but it would show our ingenuity and creativity when it comes to making long-lasting snacks for those interstellar journeys.
. . . . . (* Shelf life of Twinkies is not guaranteed to exceed the span of light years necessary to escape the heliosheath.)