I have my student-project office hours on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. It was a pretty fun session this week, in part because two of my students (Abby Shaum and Avery Simon) got jobs (congratulations!) and in part because we had a wide-ranging conversation that went way beyond everyone's particular projects. In one part of it, we talked about looking for pairs of planets (around a common host star) that have a period ratio that is a known irrational number (like e or pi or tau). Anu Raghunathan and I are using this kind of model as a null test when we search for planets in resonances (that is, we should find small-integer rational period ratios, not irrational ratios (or rational numbers with very large denominators; don't at-me)). But then of course we realized that one way that alien civilizations might signal us is by creating “transit beacons” that are in a ratio like e or pi. Hahaha new project!
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