SETI:
Science Fact, Not Fiction
Public Lecture
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Jill Tarter SETI: Science Fact, Not Fiction Public Lecture |
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| Stadthalle Heidelberg Tuesday, 22 APRIL 2003, 7:30 pm | ||
| The Lecture: | |
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Aliens abound on the movie screens, but in reality we are still trying
to find out if we share our universe with other sentient creatures.
Intelligence is very difficult to define, and impossible to directly
detect over interstellar distances. Therefore, SETI, the search for
extraterrestrial intelligence, is actually an attempt to detect evidence
of another distant technology. If we find such evidence, we will infer
the existence of intelligent technologists. For the past 43 years, the
SETI community has had a very pragmatic definition of intelligence: the
ability to build large transmitters! Almost all SETI searches to date
have looked for radio signals coming from distant civilizations. This
is not the only possible way to detect a technology across the vast
distances that separate the stars. We?ve recently begun looking for
very short optical pulses as well. As our own technology matures, we
may try other means of searching, and we will certainly improve upon the
searches that we are already conducting. Guiseppi Cocconi and Philip
Morrison ended their 1959 seminal paper on SETI with the statement, "The
probability of success is difficult to estimate; but if we never search,
the chance of success is zero." This remains true today.
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| Jill Tarter: | |
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Jill Tarter holds the endowed Bernard M. Oliver Chair for SETI at the SETI Institute
in Mountain View, California.
Today she serves as Director of the Institute's Center for SETI Research.
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| The SETI Institute: | |
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The mission of the SETI Institute is to explore, understand and explain the origin,
nature and prevalence of life in the universe.
The SETI Institute is a private, nonprofit organization dedicated to scientific research,
education and public outreach.
Founded in 1984, the Institute today employs over 100 scientists, educators and support staff.
Explore the SETI Institute's home page
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| SETI@home: | |
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SETI@home is a scientific experiment that uses Internet-connected computers
in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). You can participate
by running a free program that downloads and analyzes radio telescope data.
More information and downloads at the Berkeley SETI@home page or the German SETI@home page. |
| The Arecibo message: | |
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On November 16, 1974, a message was sent from the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico
(the largest radio telescope on Earth). The message, coded in binary, is 1,679 bits long
(1,679 is divisible by 2 prime numbers: 73 and 23, the dimensions of the message).
Each square on the image is represented by a value of 1 in the signal.
It was sent towards the M13 Global Cluster, and should be arriving in only 25,000 years.
There are hundreds of web pages dedicated to the Arecibo message. Here only two examples: http://ebe.allwebco.com/Science/Reaching_Out/Arecibo.shtml (english) http://www.setigermany.de/gruesse/arecibo.htm (german). |
| Contact - the movie: | |
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Ellie Arroway (Jodie Foster), the heroine of the movie "Contact,"
finds an alien broadcast in much the same way that
Project Phoenix
operates.
Phoenix is searching for signals from the directions of about 1,000 nearby,
sun-like stars. There are other SETI experiments underway, but Project Phoenix
is the only systematic targeted search of individual stars, the type of search
conducted in the movie.
How well did the movie stand up to real SETI science? |
| Poster: | |
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The poster for the public lecture. printer friendly PDF file (338k) |
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