Milton Mermikides in Aeon:
Some 14 billion miles from here floats a 12-inch gold-plated record. This artefact was placed onboard the Voyager 1 space probe in 1977 (and another on the Voyager 2 sister vessel) and now, having long completed its scheduled planetary flybys, it hurtles at nearly 500 times the speed of sound into deep space. Created to communicate the story of human civilisation to any extraterrestrial who happens to encounter it, the Golden Record includes images, mathematical equations, astronomical coordinates and sounds. Its aim is to convey – in the absence of a common language – not just the facts of human existence, but also evidence of our intelligence.
One elegant method of how this might be possible is through the medium of music, which – aside from lyrical content – has the advantages of neither needing visual representation nor a lexicon of phonic objects. It speaks for itself through the common fabric of frequencies – amplitude over time – which can be etched directly and unfiltered into the surface of the disc. The importance of music to the project is clear: hand-etched on the record’s surface is the inscription ‘To the makers of music – all worlds, all times.’
When deciding which music could represent the pinnacle of human spirit and intelligence, Johann Sebastian Bach was inevitably suggested but – according to an unverified but irresistible anecdote – there was some dissent, because presenting music of such beauty and intelligence to any extraterrestrial listener would be ‘just showing off’.
More here.