“Good. Dr. Arroway, we understand you have something new. Would you care to tell us about it?” “Ms. President, sorry to be late, but I think we’ve just hit the cosmic jackpot. We’ve . . . It’s . . . Let me try and explain it this way: In classical times, thousands of years ago, when parchment was in short supply, people would write over an old parchment, making what’s called a palimpsest. There was writing under writing under writing. This signal from Vega is, of course, very strong. As you know, there’s the prime numbers, and ‘underneath’ them, in what’s called polarization modulation, this
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