"A is for Andromeda": A Starry Letter with a Virus

Fred Hoyle and John Elliot's 1962 novel, "A is for Andromeda," presents a classic science fiction trope: a message from extraterrestrial intelligence. Similar to Stanisław Lem's "His Master's Voice" and Carl Sagan's "Contact," the novel involves a communication from aliens that contains instructions for creating something complex, potentially a supercomputer or even a life form.

The narrative unfolds in the late 1960s, coinciding with the deployment of a new, expansive radio telescope in Great Britain. This instrument detects a signal originating from the Andromeda constellation, approximately 200 light-years distant. The source of the message does not target a specific location, suggesting a strategy that relies on chance in a densely populated galaxy, where civilizations might be common enough for such an approach to be viable.

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Is the curiosity of intelligent beings, which even the threat of annihilation cannot stop, a cosmic constant?

The alien program assumes the recipient possesses a fundamental curiosity. It's designed to deduce the nature of the life form that receives it and then complete the rest of the instructions. This premise is likened to the modern experience of computer emails: people know a message might contain a virus, yet they often open it anyway.

The novel probes whether the inherent curiosity of intelligent beings, even when faced with the threat of annihilation, is a constant across the cosmos. It questions if this drive to explore the unknown, regardless of potential catastrophic consequences, is a universal trait of sentient life.

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The Andromeda cipher assumes the recipient's curiosity. It's like computer mail – we know an email can be infected with a virus, yet we still open it.