When all the delegations to the academic exchange conference arrived safely in Houston, the first academic event held after the disaster began in the expectation of everyone.

Elite representatives from all countries in the scientific research community gathered, and Houston prepared a spacious indoor venue for the convening of this event, which is comfortable and equipped.

The huge screen projection lit up on the wall in front of the venue, and the scientists who were just talking in a whisper stopped talking for an instant, and everyone suddenly began to stay quiet, on the one hand out of polite instinct, and on the other hand because the eyes had been attracted by the picture in the projection.

These are some grotesque pictures, on the whole huge wall, this picture has a dozen.

After a short period of quiet, the people in the stage began to talk again.

“What is this?”Zhao Kangchao asked that both of them were from Chongming District, and had previously worked in the building of the East Beach International Conference, and were more familiar with each other than their peers.

Chen Bin and Meng Jie and others were unable to enter the conference hall, because they were non-scientific personnel, so they could only stay at the delegation site.

"I feel a kind of text," Zhang can stare at those grotesque pictures for half a day, although there is still some invincible, but the feeling brought by this idea is very strong.

"It is said that the content of the exchange conference is related to the alien civilization," Zhao Kang thought, and the information he had seen in the data brought back by Liu Jiajun appeared in his mind, "How many things are the Americans willing to shake this time?"

“Look at the situation first.”Zhang can see the podium in the conference hall, there has been a host of the school.

"Hello, everyone, welcome to Houston," the scholar who stood on the podium was a spirited old man, and from his dress, you will find no difference from ordinary researchers, but the elites from all over the world no one dared to despise this man, because he is the giant of astronomy, the senior astrophysicist George Mather.

“It is him!”When Zhao Kang saw the scholars on the stage, he was surprised, "George Mather, this big man survived the disaster."

“What did he do, great?”Zhang knew very little about George Mather because he was not a man in linguistics.

“Senior astrophysicist at the Gold Space Centre of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration of the United States, the black form of cosmic microwave background radiation and the discoverer of anisotropy, winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics.”Zhao Kang gave Zhang Ding popular science, "his research and discovery helped mankind understand the beginning of the universe and the origin of galaxies and stars, and further supported the big bang theory of the formation of the universe."

"The United States won a little more Nobel Prizes," Zhang can swallow, and admire the old man on the stage who wears glasses and is tall and thin.

“Houston Tibetan Crouching Tiger,” Zhao continued, “Dr. Mario, who came from the Tampa Institute, is also a Nobel Prize winner, and has a deep biological and genetic knowledge, and few people can look forward to it.”

"When can we have so many tough people in China," Zhang can reach a nod, the hard power of the United States is actually seen from the number of Nobel Prize winners.

“Maybe Zhang brother you’re next,” Zhao Kang laughed.

"Haha, I think, but I'm afraid I'm still not that ability," Zhang Cui knew that Zhao Kang was joking, "I am engaged in the study of linguistics, in this field seems to have not yet won the Nobel Prize, because linguistics can not bring a special contribution to society, compared to natural science has obvious shortcomings, compared to literature can not make the public familiar and understand."It must, in conjunction with other disciplines, reveal the mysteries of ‘wisdom’, including language.”

“For example?”Zhao Kang asked.

“Computer technology, for example, and biotechnology,” Zhang thought about it and said of his understanding.

"So we have a chance to have a 'double sword'," Zhao Kang said.

“What do you guys think about these pictures?” George Mather did not go to the subject too much, but went straight to the subject.He pointed to the pictures on the huge wall and asked the people under the stage.

Everyone thought that George Mather would open the curtain of this academic exchange conference by asking questions.

“The nebula?”

“A work of art of an alien civilization.”

...

Everyone said anything, watching the crowd talk a lot, George Mather smiled, intending to give them more time to think.

“If you have any good questions, you can raise your hand,” he said to the floor.

"I still think these grotesque pictures are words, and my instincts tell me they are."Zhang reconfirmed his idea that "the theme of this conference is linked to extraterrestrial civilizations, and then these words are extraterrestrial texts."

"Zhang Ge, then raise your hand and say ah," Zhao Kang saw that he had an answer but did not express it to everyone, and could not help but rush.

“Oh, for me?”Zhang can have some lack of confidence, the whole conference hall in the talent, the elite, the others did not speak, he had some timidity in his heart.

"Yes, I think you have no problem with your judgment, just raise your hand and say, let them understand what we Chinese think."

Zhang could think for a moment, and finally got up the courage to raise his hand.

“It is the scholar of the Chinese delegation, and you are welcome to express your opinion,” said George Mather, who saw that someone finally raised his hand, inferred from the representative of China, based on the appearance of the person raising his hand and the location of the person.

The staff of the venue quickly sent the microphone to Zhang Cang's hands, and Zhao Kang also whispered to him.

"My view is that these patterns are words, the words of alien civilizations," Zhang canaine in the venue began to sound, and everyone around them began to talk about it, some people were discussing this view of Zhang, and some people were discussing him.

George Mather's eyes lit up, and he stared with interest, "Please continue to say so."

"Everyone can see that these pictures are moving, and they are constantly moving."Zhang Canbian organized his language, "These pictures, I call them symbols for a moment, why not call them paintings, my reasons are as follows."

“There is a difference between language symbolism and painting, and the biggest difference between them is the dimension of meaning.”

“Language expresses meaning in chronological order, whereas pictures express meaning through spatial organization.”

“A simple example is a change in the time series of language symbols that would cause meaning changes, such as: Smith and Joan are married; Joan and Smith are married.”

Isn’t the same phrase that Zhang canaic that some people have been confused, “Smyth and Joan are married; Joan and Smith are married?”

Just when the crowd was mostly puzzled, George Mather laughed, nodded involuntarily, and his hands applauded him slightly, and it was clear that the great scientist had heard the logic of the speech.

“You might think that’s exactly what it means.Of course, if you only consider the ‘representational functions’ of language, they do mean the same thing.But as I said, language is expressed in chronological order, so it is not only the "experience function", but also the "interpersonal function" and "language" function.In most cases, we always speak to people, so our words and words will also reflect our relationship with others - such as affection, feelings, and so on."

With Zhang's explanation, more and more people have understood his meaning, and some people from the stage began to applaud, and the head of the Chinese delegation Pang Zhike had a deeper understanding of his own member at this moment.

"If you think about it, you will realize that Smith's friends prefer the first sentence, and Joan's friends prefer the second sentence, that we are all the same, always giving priority to the people closer to us, and that is what I mean by chronology."

“Then back to the topic we just had, and I said that these diagrams are a language rather than a picture, and there are some intuitive factors.These patterns are moving, or changing, and they make me feel like a swarm of worms are flying, so let me call the dense dots of light in the pattern worms.”

“These flying dots of light make me feel like we’re looking at the flow of time, and I have an idea that these words are similar to ours on Earth, but they’re different, and our words express meaning, and maybe that words are scenes.”

“The ideograms and time series of words or language are closely related, so our interpretation of words can only be linear.In reading, we can neither read from left to right, or from top to bottom, and we cannot arbitrarily choose a point to read on both sides.When we "read" pictures, we are not subject to this restriction."

"In the face of an image, we can look from the top left to the bottom right, or from the top right to the bottom left, we can also look from the top to the surrounding, and even from the middle.In other words, the interpretation of the picture is independent of chronology, only related to the position of space, and the change of the meaning of the picture is caused by the change in the spatial position of the elements that make up the image, and will only be affected by this factor.

A researcher from the stage raised his hand, and it seemed that something needed to be spoken.

Zhang could see someone raising their hands, then stopped and looked at the man.

The man who raised his hand was a scholar of faith, with a headscarf wrapped around his head and a thick beard on his face.

“I would like to ask you, why can’t these patterns be something like a video file similar to the human world?”The scholar asked.

"There is no conflict between your question and what I have just described, sir," Zhang said, "and the text can also depict a scene, a plot, or even a story."And I don’t know if you record anything with video, or with a video with a text description, or just a written record?”