The Tenth Cycle: A Thriller (A Rossler Foundation Mystery Book 1) by JC Ryan Page A

top. Daniel hoped they could get through lunch without being arrested. To ward off more of the same, he mentioned Dr. Zacharias’ lecture over a foot-long meatball sub.
    “Heard a great lecture on Friday. Dr. Ben Zacharias, do you know of him?”
    “Oh, yeah, the ‘math is language’ guy. He’s pretty hot stuff in my field.”
    “How so?”
    “Well, you know he’s got this theory that the ancient world used mathematics to communicate with us today. Actually, more than a theory, it’s pretty much accepted.”
    “I didn’t know that.”
    “It is among astronomers, anyway. The stars are another thing that’s been pretty constant over the millennia, other than where they are in our sky, of course. But somehow, ancient astronomers were able to predict the movement, and it had to be math that helped them do that. They were more accurate than you’d believe, in spite of their primitive tools.”
    “Do you think the ancients actually left messages for us? Or were they just leaving records?”
    “I’m not sure there’s agreement on that among scientists. But look, we did the same thing.”
    “What do you mean?
    “We sent a message, like a message in a bottle. Have you ever heard of one of those washing up on shore? It happens fairly often.”
    Now Daniel was a little lost. Who was ‘we’? And what message in a bottle? Owen was in full lecture mode, though, so maybe it would become clear in a minute.
    “Some of them travel hundreds of miles, I saw a story about it on TV just last week. People have been doing it for ages, and it’s crazy. The one on TV turned up over a hundred and eighty years after it was thrown in the ocean. Think of the journey it took! It makes me want to get inside a bottle and see where I end up.”
    “Suffocated or at the funny farm, no doubt.”
    “That’s right, scoff. But you’re the one who brought it up.”
    “Me? I still don’t know what you’re talking about, message in a bottle. What did you mean ‘we did the same thing’?”
    “Voyager, man. Remember? The space ships we sent out to explore the Universe back in 1977? They put some gold records in the capsules, in case there’s intelligent life out there. Sound recordings and stuff. And pictures of what we look like, you know, I think they put Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man on it, and some math formulas. Even if they can’t figure out anything else, the math has to be universal.”
    Daniel had forgotten about this, but now he remembered. There was even more on the phonograph records than Owen was babbling about. As he recalled, they contained information about topics such as our location in the solar system, mathematical definitions, the physical unit definitions we use, our solar system parameters, chemical definitions, our DNA structure, diagrams of male and female human anatomy and cell division, a diagram of conception, a fetus development diagram and much more. And, if he remembered correctly, it was meant not only for intelligent extra-terrestrials, but for future humans as well, should it come back to Earth in the distant future. Like Owen said, a message in a bottle, which might be washed up on the same shore from which it was cast.
    Daniel’s excitement had grown as he thought about it, until in an uncharacteristic gesture; he seized Owen’s shoulders and planted a kiss in the middle of his forehead. “Owen, you’re a genius!”
    “Jeez, man, get off! Don’t be doing stuff like that in public!”
    Lifting his eyebrows, Daniel’s arch reply was, “You’d rather we were in private?”
    “NO! Get away from me, you pervert!”
    Daniel couldn’t help it, he threw back his head and laughed, drawing stares from their fellow diners. “I owe you one, Owen. You’ve given me a brainstorm.”
    “Well, you gave me a heart attack. Settle down, before someone comes after you from the funny farm. What brainstorm?”
    “You know I’ve been working on the Great Pyramid at Giza, trying to figure out a way to write a