How Would We Communicate with Alien Life? - with Carl Sagan
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- Опубліковано 22 вер 2024
- If life exists elsewhere in the Universe, would we be able to communicate with it? In this clip from the 1977 CHRISTMAS LECTURES "The planets", Carl Sagan demonstrates how we could send a signal that would make sense to intelligent beings that have evolved independently from us.
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The Royal Institution 2017 advent calendar ‘Transmissions Through Time’ looks through the lens of CHRISTMAS LECTURES past to share the best demonstrations around the science of communication. From Attenborough and Sagan to Woollard and Fong, we revisit old favourites and find new gems to bring you a little gift of science every day in the lead up to Christmas. bit.ly/RiAdvent17
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This is why Carl Sagan was so unique, he could explain complicated matters in a way that kids were able to understand, but at the same time it makes me amazed as an adult
are you sure that kids understood?
@@rolomovement9811 lol a few kids understood.
Most were bored and had no concept of what was being said. ... Ironically exactly like most adults navigating society today :(
Andrew: possibly the bored kids in the vid actually ARE the adults of today to whom you refer...
@Oskars Lielmanis I'm 12 and I understood.
he chose topics that COULD be explained to 12 year old kids lol. You simply can't explain actually complicated ideas, like the fundamental theorem of calculus, using pictures and slides.
A student tracked this down for me - I was one of the graduate students. What this video doesn't show is that we had 48 hours to decode the message (or fail), and be recorded after the fact by the BBC, whatever the outcome. Failure was not an option, but success wasn't guaranteed - what was fun was that each grad student made a separate contribution (although I confess that I'm not sure that my insights were that profound, or that if we reassembled now we'd be able to do it again!
You guys still did great. Not sure I could have done it! Also, what an honor to study under such a legend!
Nostalgia....
Formaldehyde: So the molecules have a particular radio frequency and that's the frequency we should use. What is the source of this information?
@@AdeelKhan1 I think it wasn't much before this event that astronomers had detected the presence of formadelhyde in interstellar clouds in our galaxy - every molecule has its own 'fingerprint' of frequencies of that it can absorb or emit, and from measurements on Earth in laboratories the radio frequency of formaldehyde had been measured. This made it possible to identify this rather simple molecule as having been produced in abundance in clouds of gas and dust in the Milky Way. The idea was that the signal we had decoded had been sent at LOTS of different frequencies, but at a very slow rate so that it was easy to detect and decode. It was like a billboard on the highway saying 'tune your radio dial to WQXR to hear the latest news.' The recipient would then know where to listen for the real message that would contain much more information. One of the challenges of this kind of imagined alien communication is figuring out where to tune your radio dial, and this was an ingenious solution.
@@richardgfrench5357 Formaldehyde appears to be a precursor to amino acids as the foundational building block of life. I see, so you are saying that it absorbs or emits a certain radio frequency. So it's a precursor channel, which if were an alien signal, is a suggestion to tune into a particular frequency. Because there are indeed be many frequencies. If I understood correctly. So we are talking about a precursor signal.
Carl Sagan was the biggest influence in my life. I had hope back then. Wow... How I miss this great man...
He seemed to have died very young!
@@Dyslexic-Artist-Theory-on-Time Yes, he was only 62.
His legacy remains.
Hope dies last. Hope you're doing well all these years later.
Alien 1: huh its a formaldehyde molecule
Alien 2: I think they want us to preserve their species once they are all dead.
😂
At risk of sounding like the previous comments, Mr. Sagan became one of the most influential in my life and one I hold in highest regard. I seriously miss his influence on our world.
unlike his physical body, Carl Sagan's influence on our world lasts as long as we care to preserve it.
@@busTedOaS true today it's ag great need for humans all around earrh
So true for me…….heartbreaking he’s gone
Living in Ithaca from 1972 until 1984 I had the distinctly awesome pleasure to listen to this gentleman lecture us a Cornell in person, numerous times.
Carl Sagan really is the best
And is book Cosmos!!!
CybranM the way he educates paved the way for the likes of Tyson, Greene, and many other personalities who now do it well like Sagan did
"Beep BEEP beep beep BEEP!" -- Carl Sagan, 1977
D Q contact...........prime numbers......?
He was singing 3 frequencies, not 2. I just have to take advantage of an opportunity to correct him.
Finally I have discovered who composed the track Mr Krabs requested!
That's a LOT of swears in one sentence, Dr Sagan! @.@
Beep beep bop bop boop - mr krabs
He was my advisor. I owe him a lot.
Tell us more
I could listen to Sagan speak for hours. Great speaker, story teller and lecturer!
Those bored grade schoolers didn't know what they had in front of them.
Especially the one in the brown shirt. lol
dude even the Sagan's students had a hard time tryin to figuring out what this thing was, I think you're expecting too much for the grade schoolers lol
Alejandro Betancourt - he’s a legend
@David Lamb why the hate bruhh? Carl was a star man, a curios one that was highly evolved as a human being.
@@lumigg2556 He wasn’t asking the grade school children to decipher it; he was showing them how his grad students figured it out. It was a demonstration of one method of communicating with an extraterrestrial species. Humans have trouble communicating with each other, especially with language barriers, even though ultimately virtually all human languages are related to each other.
The problem is how does one communicate (using radio waves, a form of light, and thus traveling at the speed of light) with alien beings, who would obviously not understand ANY human language. Sagan was involved in the design of the plaque on the Pioneer Probes, and the record on the Voyager Probes, which are headed out of our Solar System forever, and may, deep into the future, be picked up by some interstellar aliens. How would one communicate with them? So Sagan has had a lot of opportunity to examine this question. And the scheme developed for his grad students was used in his novel, “Contact”. (The movie is good, the book, even better.)
Carl Sagan = one of the greatest brains of the 20th century.
Carl Sagan is responsible of me becoming a scientist. Profoundly in dept.
Bruh... profoundly in department? Do you mean debt?
Shoulda taken a language class first.
positron underVolt , game point
He's also responsible for Hugo Weavings rendition of the agent Smith character from The Matrix.
Ryan Peters I want this to be true and so I must pull from my reserves of skepticism. ❤️
Wish he was still around
He's in Sagittarius A
Maybe he is here and you just don’t know it 😉.
Mee too
Look at all these young children getting educated on such an adult matter. It' s really nice to see.
Well to be honest , most of them looked like they'd rather be sniffing glue than be there.
Lmfao
They were miserable. Such a waste.
Happens every year at the RI Christmas Lectures, they're great
These Christmas lectures were televised on the BBC at the time. I used to watch them every year, although I am slightly too young to have seen Carl Sagan's lectures. It's been something of a pleasure to discover all the old lectures, and those in the intervening decades.
Cheer up, folks! Carl Sagan still IS a great influence on many, and he STILL inspires a lot of people to continue his work. That's why he smiles in most pictures... ;o)
True and the search for an objective understanding goes on!!!
I love how years later we see this exact example of first contact used in his book/movie Contact ,.,.
I was thinking the same thing. What a treat to see the experiment unfold and how it influenced his novel and the film. What a genius. So clear in his thinking. I can only marvel.
Wow I’m not alone on this one
Carl Sagan was one of the most eloquent persons ever, gifted with an uncanny ability to articulate most complex ideas and deliver with such ease that a 9 year old me could understand. Love you, dear Carl.
We will always miss this amazing Soul. He not only had tremendous knowledge & an analytical mind but also the power to deliver in his mesmerising talks on the universe. It was as if he took you on a journey. God Bless his departed soul. There will never be another like him. ✊✊✊✊✊
We need Carl Sagan today more than ever to counter the war on science
There is no war on science. There is a battle against biased prejudiced corrupt science which we can see in the covid19 scam and the climate scare scam. Follow the money and you find out that those people who want to shove that so called science in our throats are the same people making billions of dollars by doing so. Science has become corrupt. In the covid19 scamdemic and in the climate scare scam real scientists have been silenced, deplatformed, demomnized and fired from their jobs. Carl Sagan is turning around in his grave
I think Richard Dawkins, Noam Chomsky, Margaret Geller, Alan Guth, Neil Degrasse Tyson, Jane Goodall, Peter Higgs etc etc...are all doing just fine in Sagan's absence.
Carl Sagan is still a great influencer, recently i read his book "A pale blue dot" and he inspired me to study astronomy and Physics, what a Great man!
Carl Sagan is the legend which lives on for ever in our minds... Love from India
“Either way we win”... wise words Carl.
I could listen to Carl Sagan speak all day long, everyday.
Carl Sagan is responsible for making me fall in love with astronomy
2:07 He was forced to come to this lecture and would rather be watching the football.
I love this series. Keep em coming
😂👍
Carl Sagan. The best of the best. Not nearly enough people like him today. A great communicater.
stephen hawking
Carl Sagan is not a national treasure, he was a treasure of humanity.
I love the archive's video serie!
They are the best!!!
Carl Sagan, for sure, one of my heroes of the 20th (and 21st) century
This assignment in 1977...
In 1985 Carl Sagan releases his novel, “Contact”, where an alien species sends a message which, when decoded, reveals a video image and hidden in the message is a three dimensional drawing of a device that allows one person to travel to the origin of the message as a first step in interstellar contact...
In 1996, the World loses Carl Sagan.
In 1997, Jodie Foster stars in the motion picture adaptation.
I love his voice
I wish I had Mr. Sagan as a professor.
As a person who recognizes, and decodes impossible messages for a living, this talk is wonderful.
It is a pity he is gone, My dad enjoyed astronomy astronomy programs watching Carl Sagan's programs when i was growing in teen years and I enjoyed watching with him. Good quality of programs of they day you don't get this today quality.
Wouldn't it be funny when we've tried our best to figure out such a complex way to communicate with them, and then when they arrived, they just telepathically learn our language and speak with it fluently?
Can you give an example of any animal or organism ever communicating by "telepathy"?
@@MuantanamoMobile My dog keeps telling you that you smell funny. Gonna answer him or what?
If I were first high schooler at that time, maybe I'll be loved to join on these class, It's totally interesting lecture 😀
I am not a scientist by any means. I found that absolutely fascinating.
Had it been up to me to decode the message, I’d still be working on it today, some 44 years later.
This is incredible.
Nice of Bill Nighy to step in and assist.
2:07 .... I can't believe I'm missing Scooby Doo for this...
xD
Carl was an inspiration
That Kathy is smart! She realized it's a 31x31x31 cube and correctly guessed it's formaldehyde. I wonder what she accomplished in her career.
While this is interesting to think about, it relies on many assumptions. The most prominent being that if we are putting a beacon out there for a more advanced intelligence to intercept, wouldnt that intelligence have already put out a beacon of its own that we are ignorant of? It seems to me that a higher intelligence would have a more efficacious strategy to start communication with us than we would have to initiate communication with it. We are the ones that need to pay attention and identify information with intent... aka meaning thats everywhere around us.
The smartest person/communicator ever in my opinion.
The quality of this is amazing for a Sagan video.
Contact was a really good movie.. I perfectly plausible possibility to the existence of alien intelligent life..
When reason takes a cue from art: confronted with the sheer impossibility of language, turn to use images.
"either way, we win"
Indeed!
Math is a universal language everyone knows math to some extent EVERYONE
I don't
Yea you do
Not to the universe
@@joeyyc8515 I said universal language
Carl Sagan is and will always be my hero.
The kid at 2:06 is a grumpy boy lol
2:08 - the body language of the kid in the sweater is great. I bet he bragged about it later, telling his friends that he enjoyed Professor Sagan's lecture.
Really enlightening video. Thanks.
The next space telescope is named after Carl Sagan. It's mission is to search for life.
Still amazed by his approach to teaching n explaining!!
I watch this episode time and time again, and it still makes my blood race
Human beings have a hard time communicating with each other, let alone aliens from another planet.
I like how he didn't baby talk them. He talked to those kids like they were adults.
Such optimism... Carl Sagan clearly has not read "His Master's Voice" and "Solaris" by Lem.
Carl Sagan is the reason I regret becoming a tax lawyer. Thank you Carl wherever you are!
We are simply not evolved enough to deal with the complexities of communicating with an advanced civilisation.
Our brains use filtering techniques and guesswork to solve problems, this means that we rarely take in all the facts and make poor judgement (evident throughout human history). To control our limitations we have to have a culture and laws that influences thought and how we rationalise and make judgements. These 2 facts make for an extremely primitive civilisation. An advanced civilisation would not need to be governed by laws or influenced by culture.
It's going to take us centuries to develop the technology that will enable us to upgrade our brains and open up pure rational thought with advanced levels of perception. Only then once we've reached this level of enlightenment should we head for the stars. By that point we will have overcome all of the technical issues of space flight and communication.
It's unlikely that hostile lifeforms would reach a level of advancement that facilitates interstellar travel. It's possible that there is a galactic community of civilisations who use suitably advanced technology to shield their existence from worlds that are not ready. The universe has "evolved" too perfectly for this not to be the case.
Alien life: *Appears.*
Human: "We have to expect them to be from our universe."
Alien life: "Alright then, see you later."
One of the greatest humans to ever live in my mind
Good thing celestial & terrestrial beings are patient with us. They understand that our emotions can often frustrate us and get in the way of communication. Most things are a lifelong marathon, consistent learning, not exactly an event. Though there can be major events that help us.
Not one single child today has the patience, curiosity, or attention span to sit through this presentation the way these kids in the video did. Quietly. Respectfully. Intrigued.
I really hate the way things have gone in this country... Pop culture has replaced all culture.
Wow. I learned something today about decoding those crazy 1's and 0's. I'm an artistic type that has a tempestuous relationship with math and physics. My brain does not compute. But if anyone could teach me...it would be Sagan. What a trip back in time to hear his voice again. The country was different then. Miss it. Thanks for uploading this little gem.
This really made me realize how much technology helps in teaching. Its hard to see without a comparison to the past. I bet visualization in 3D was extremely hard in the past and is now something we take for granted. What other things might become easy to visualize in the future? (thus leading to more people being able to understand it and become interested in it)
👽;
"If they don't get the formaldehyde quiz, we'll just fly by....🛸
Carl Sagan ;
"Just a minute..."
This is good social skills advice!
I can listen him all day.
Where is the rest of Sagans full lectures in HD pls?
Takes me back to glorious Saturday afternoons whiled away with Hoffman's elixir and Sagan's Cosmos.
Me too!!!
I bet Sagan would enjoy the movie Arrival
i really have to give credit to sagan, the day i saw his video on light speed posted on youtube 14 years ago was when i started asking why
This is an OUTSTANDING video!!!!!
Why is this video clip of a higher quality than the video of the full lecture?
…. It’s all fascinating 🧐 aren’t we all ‘alien’ to one another and having to ‘learn’ how to communicate properly with one another ?
Bugs 🕷 🐛 🐜 animal 🦓 🦔 🦒 or human… we are all learning to live and communicate with each other 💖✨
Alien 1 : it’s a Formaldehyde molecule of Mickey Mouse
Alien 2 : Mickey Mouse DIED!!!???
Scientists : There's life and we can communicate with this number message
Aliens : eats message
I love that kid at 2:10.
He's all like... this sucks. It'll take 2 years at light speed to get to the nearest star.
you can see how he used this approach in the film Contact. one of my favourites.
If one person in that video went into a STEAM career because of this man, then mission accomplished 🙂
Smile, wave, and hope for the best.............
The third, and in fact generic, alternative is that that particular scientific endeavor neither "succeeds" nor "fails" conclusively (i.e., never halts).
In this case, the body of scientific knowledge got through ancillary hypotheses and experiments, as well as the body of methods and techniques (and even physical technologies) developed in conjunction with (or co/incidentally, alongside) the former developments/advances -- all, at least originally, in the aim of deciding the hypothesis -- _all accrue without limit._ The ROI for R&D is strictly positive. Always.
In other words: Science is a win-win-win enterprise.
More like dog-eat-dog.
We're all in this together. Happy New Year to you.
Enjoy: ua-cam.com/video/G9EJE1ad36Q/v-deo.html
EDIT: But also this: thefutureofourworld.ytmnd.com
Why not upload the whole thing? would love to rewatch them, I know it's out there but not in this quality.
People like short videos!
so by that logic we are not people then...
We're glad you're enjoying some Sagan. All of the Christmas Lectures are covered by a rather complex set of copyright rules between several parties so unfortunately we are unable to upload full length videos onto UA-cam. We are aiming to get our entire back catalogue online here though: www.rigb.org/christmas-lectures/watch
Kind of weird that Carl Sagan died not very long after the 1996 alien movie Independence Day came out.
Sagan explaining pixels and basics of graphical computing hh,awesome...
I think Dr. Sagan would be impressed at how many “channels”, or rather frequencies we are able to “listen” to at once. I don’t think it improbable at all that 50 years from now, listening to or rather being able to monitor frequencies from DC to Daylight all at one time will be possible while the antenna is pointed at one spot in the sky. And either the antenna rapidly moves to different spots, or perhaps dozens or even hundreds of antennas could provide instantaneous surveillance of most, if not the entire sky. Or rather, building on what Dr Sagan alluded....our ability to read all the local highway billboards and hear all the local radio stations, all at once, isn’t too far fetched? Perhaps this is nothing more than a pipe dream.
No you're right. New telescopes are going up all over the world. And the new move in SETI is to use all the resources of the internet to sift and store this data. Pretty soon, what you're describing will be fully realized.
A question for the Aliens: Why don't you come visit us?
i love the internet, we can now, like never before watch and educate ourselves profoudnly in most sunjects for almost a penny, and listen back to the words of great people long gone
Thank God for people like that carry us all into the future.
The question is, who is that Cathy lady. She basically figured most of this out
Kathy carried that team like Atlas the world.
The original and still the best
Fascinating!
This guy is awesome.
Really nice video!!!
He's my all time fav.