A

David

Darling

Hellas

Physicist Philip Morrison estimated that what we know about the civilization of ancient Greece amounts to somewhat under 10 billion bits of information – a quantity he therefore suggested be called a 'Hellas'. The communication of cultural information between stars, he proposed, can be conveniently discussed in terms of this unit. For example, the amount of information we would need to convey to an extraterrestrial race in order to give a comprehensive picture of our own culture would be on the order of 100 Hellades.