How Would We Communicate with Alien Life?

How Would We Communicate with Alien Life? - with Carl Sagan

Рет қаралды 275,353

6 жыл бұрын

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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This video is from our 2017 advent calendar. Watch the full series here: kzfaq.info/sun/PLbnrZHfNEDZyvS5Cx-aRTX-Y8IBJCNmYm
Or watch the full lecture here: www.rigb.org/christmas-lectures/watch/1977/the-planets/planetary-systems-beyond-our-sun?
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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Пікірлер: 587

@Batooony 4 жыл бұрын

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

@rolomovement9811 3 жыл бұрын

are you sure that kids understood?

@dpt300 3 жыл бұрын

@@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 :(

@ultramutt8278 3 жыл бұрын

Andrew: possibly the bored kids in the vid actually ARE the adults of today to whom you refer...

@valiyar7541 3 жыл бұрын

@Oskars Lielmanis I'm 12 and I understood.

@radscorpion8 3 жыл бұрын

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.

@richardgfrench5357 5 жыл бұрын

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!

@Phobos_Anomaly 5 жыл бұрын

You guys still did great. Not sure I could have done it! Also, what an honor to study under such a legend!

@youtubeuser2887 5 жыл бұрын

Nostalgia....

@AdeelKhan1 3 жыл бұрын

Formaldehyde: So the molecules have a particular radio frequency and that's the frequency we should use. What is the source of this information?

@richardgfrench5357 3 жыл бұрын

@@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.

@AdeelKhan1 3 жыл бұрын

@@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.

@ameremortal 6 жыл бұрын

Carl Sagan was the biggest influence in my life. I had hope back then. Wow... How I miss this great man...

@Dyslexic-Artist-Theory-on-Time 6 жыл бұрын

He seemed to have died very young!

@antonboludo8886 3 жыл бұрын

@@Dyslexic-Artist-Theory-on-Time Yes, he was only 62.

@bucketofbarnacles 3 жыл бұрын

His legacy remains.

@SSJ0016 3 жыл бұрын

Hope dies last. Hope you're doing well all these years later.

@lilbbasedgodiscool 5 жыл бұрын

"Beep BEEP beep beep BEEP!" -- Carl Sagan, 1977

@dougboggio7098 3 жыл бұрын

D Q contact...........prime numbers......?

@CurtisDensmore1 3 жыл бұрын

He was singing 3 frequencies, not 2. I just have to take advantage of an opportunity to correct him.

@alexstorr3357 3 жыл бұрын

Finally I have discovered who composed the track Mr Krabs requested!

@zetetick395 3 жыл бұрын

That's a LOT of swears in one sentence, Dr Sagan! @.@

@lifes40123 3 жыл бұрын

Beep beep bop bop boop - mr krabs

@Novasky2007 3 жыл бұрын

Alien 1: huh its a formaldehyde molecule Alien 2: I think they want us to preserve their species once they are all dead.

@amoghavarshamurthy 3 жыл бұрын

😂

@CybranM 6 жыл бұрын

Carl Sagan really is the best

@Dyslexic-Artist-Theory-on-Time 6 жыл бұрын

And is book Cosmos!!!

@JoeLaFon3 6 жыл бұрын

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

@dr.lairdwhitehillsfunwitha67 3 жыл бұрын

He was my advisor. I owe him a lot.

@snylekkie 3 жыл бұрын

Tell us more

@wolvenar 6 жыл бұрын

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.

@busTedOaS 3 жыл бұрын

unlike his physical body, Carl Sagan's influence on our world lasts as long as we care to preserve it.

@AlokKumar-tk1ty 3 жыл бұрын

@@busTedOaS true today it's ag great need for humans all around earrh

@Jinka1950 2 жыл бұрын

So true for me…….heartbreaking he’s gone

@hyperian_one 3 жыл бұрын

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.

@janeck.8695 3 жыл бұрын

Carl Sagan = one of the greatest brains of the 20th century.

@ShadowsHeat 6 жыл бұрын

Wish he was still around

@thepleiades6992 4 жыл бұрын

He's in Sagittarius A

@christhescienceguy6285 3 жыл бұрын

Maybe he is here and you just don’t know it 😉.

@DKD76 3 жыл бұрын

Mee too

@ricomajestic 3 жыл бұрын

I could listen to Sagan speak for hours. Great speaker, story teller and lecturer!

@xebatansis 6 жыл бұрын

Look at all these young children getting educated on such an adult matter. It' s really nice to see.

@Franco_justAhuman 5 жыл бұрын

Well to be honest , most of them looked like they'd rather be sniffing glue than be there.

@idealbacon 5 жыл бұрын

Lmfao

@CurtisDensmore1 3 жыл бұрын

They were miserable. Such a waste.

@esquilax5563 3 жыл бұрын

Happens every year at the RI Christmas Lectures, they're great

@johnbull1568 3 жыл бұрын

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.

@os2171 6 жыл бұрын

Carl Sagan is responsible of me becoming a scientist. Profoundly in dept.

@AlexandriaTheGreat 3 жыл бұрын

Bruh... profoundly in department? Do you mean debt?

@positronundervolt4799 3 жыл бұрын

Shoulda taken a language class first.

@AlexandriaTheGreat 3 жыл бұрын

positron underVolt , game point

@Ryanstuff 3 жыл бұрын

He's also responsible for Hugo Weavings rendition of the agent Smith character from The Matrix.

@AlexandriaTheGreat 3 жыл бұрын

Ryan Peters I want this to be true and so I must pull from my reserves of skepticism. ❤️

@alejandrobetancourt4902 6 жыл бұрын

Those bored grade schoolers didn't know what they had in front of them.

@sbalogh53 6 жыл бұрын

Especially the one in the brown shirt. lol

@lumigg2556 3 жыл бұрын

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

@Eclipse1369 3 жыл бұрын

Alejandro Betancourt - he’s a legend

@anglojojo 3 жыл бұрын

@David Lamb why the hate bruhh? Carl was a star man, a curios one that was highly evolved as a human being.

@johncronin9540 3 жыл бұрын

@@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.)

@vishalrao7010 3 жыл бұрын

Carl Sagan is the legend which lives on for ever in our minds... Love from India

@Eliphas_Leary 6 жыл бұрын

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)

@Dyslexic-Artist-Theory-on-Time 6 жыл бұрын

True and the search for an objective understanding goes on!!!

@dewelr121 3 жыл бұрын

Carl Sagan is responsible for making me fall in love with astronomy

@sbalogh53 6 жыл бұрын

2:07 He was forced to come to this lecture and would rather be watching the football.

@ssabykoops 5 жыл бұрын

I love how years later we see this exact example of first contact used in his book/movie Contact ,.,.

@nkq5568 3 жыл бұрын

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.

@wagner55 3 жыл бұрын

Wow I’m not alone on this one

@wasimskhan 3 жыл бұрын

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.

@marco1173 3 жыл бұрын

I could listen to Carl Sagan speak all day long, everyday.

@JohnnytNatural 3 жыл бұрын

Aliens: Why are they sending us message of Mickey Mouse? Also Aliens: Tune into Looney Tunes and spend decades trying to decipher it

@jaideeprai230 3 жыл бұрын

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. ✊✊✊✊✊

@michellemartinez7515 3 жыл бұрын

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!

@kiddo280 3 жыл бұрын

“Either way we win”... wise words Carl.

@RCDesertRat 3 жыл бұрын

We need Carl Sagan today more than ever to counter the war on science

@reindervantil2582 2 жыл бұрын

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

@octaviussludberry9016 7 ай бұрын

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.

@aaronbrandes7456 3 жыл бұрын

Carl Sagan is not a national treasure, he was a treasure of humanity.

@oddviews 3 жыл бұрын

Carl Sagan, for sure, one of my heroes of the 20th (and 21st) century

@ckn711 3 жыл бұрын

I wish I had Mr. Sagan as a professor.

@davidpatterson2178 5 жыл бұрын

Carl Sagan. The best of the best. Not nearly enough people like him today. A great communicater.

@D0x1511af 5 жыл бұрын

stephen hawking

@JoeLaFon3 6 жыл бұрын

I love this series. Keep em coming

@Cyber_Kriss 6 жыл бұрын

😂👍

@SiMyt848 6 жыл бұрын

I love the archive's video serie!

@Dyslexic-Artist-Theory-on-Time 6 жыл бұрын

They are the best!!!

@Epochal_Enigmas 5 жыл бұрын

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?

@MuantanamoMobile 3 жыл бұрын

Can you give an example of any animal or organism ever communicating by "telepathy"?

@louithrottler 2 жыл бұрын

@@MuantanamoMobile My dog keeps telling you that you smell funny. Gonna answer him or what?

@fireangel6038 6 жыл бұрын

I love his voice

@UFOUAPMagnet 3 жыл бұрын

As a person who recognizes, and decodes impossible messages for a living, this talk is wonderful.

@michellevey9608 2 жыл бұрын

The smartest person/communicator ever in my opinion.

@fasteddy07 2 жыл бұрын

Had it been up to me to decode the message, I’d still be working on it today, some 44 years later.

@piccadilyroad66 4 жыл бұрын

If I were first high schooler at that time, maybe I'll be loved to join on these class, It's totally interesting lecture 😀

@daxxonjabiru428 3 жыл бұрын

Nice of Bill Nighy to step in and assist.

@tobinhays652 3 жыл бұрын

I am not a scientist by any means. I found that absolutely fascinating.

@TheDarrenSR 3 жыл бұрын

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.

@alexandervega408 3 жыл бұрын

This is incredible.

@jlinnlinn4241 3 ай бұрын

Really enlightening video. Thanks.

@austin5060 2 жыл бұрын

The quality of this is amazing for a Sagan video.

@muskyelondragon 6 жыл бұрын

Carl was an inspiration

@joyl7842 3 жыл бұрын

"either way, we win" Indeed!

@gsxrplatinum 5 жыл бұрын

This is an OUTSTANDING video!!!!!

@asgardiangod23 6 жыл бұрын

This is awesome. I love seeing your videos on my bell notifications lol

@Deft1-007 2 жыл бұрын

Still amazed by his approach to teaching n explaining!!

@rodddossantos1437 3 жыл бұрын

Carl Sagan is and will always be my hero.

@ingenuity168 5 жыл бұрын

I absolutely adore his voice!

@Dyslexic-Artist-Theory-on-Time 6 жыл бұрын

Really nice video!!!

@houstonpromotion 4 жыл бұрын

Math is a universal language everyone knows math to some extent EVERYONE

@kimnice 3 жыл бұрын

I don't

@houstonpromotion 3 жыл бұрын

Yea you do

@joeyyc8515 3 жыл бұрын

Not to the universe

@houstonpromotion 3 жыл бұрын

@@joeyyc8515 I said universal language

@smalltown4855 3 жыл бұрын

you can see how he used this approach in the film Contact. one of my favourites.

@tonyfrantz9942 4 жыл бұрын

Absolutely amazing

@avisingh9871 3 жыл бұрын

I can listen him all day.

@Baci302 2 жыл бұрын

Fascinating!

@ronaldjones5589 3 жыл бұрын

I watch this episode time and time again, and it still makes my blood race

@marcherm 3 жыл бұрын

When reason takes a cue from art: confronted with the sheer impossibility of language, turn to use images.

@waynester71 Жыл бұрын

Contact was a really good movie.. I perfectly plausible possibility to the existence of alien intelligent life..

@sheronkirkus3615 3 жыл бұрын

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.

@gipbwok2008 2 жыл бұрын

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.

@basketvector7311 3 жыл бұрын

The original and still the best

@archer7199 3 жыл бұрын

He's my all time fav.

@theomegaconcern9564 4 жыл бұрын

The kid at 2:06 is a grumpy boy lol

@jaridwilliams739 3 жыл бұрын

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

@Cybernaut551 3 жыл бұрын

This is good social skills advice!

@MrLifesavers1 3 жыл бұрын

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.

@caasieu 3 жыл бұрын

Sagan explaining pixels and basics of graphical computing hh,awesome...

@brennonguilbeau569 3 жыл бұрын

This guy is awesome.

@thesunreport 6 жыл бұрын

2:07 .... I can't believe I'm missing Scooby Doo for this... xD

@kjamison5951 3 жыл бұрын

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.

@warpath3427 3 жыл бұрын

Genius iin explaining in easy methods

@anaguma90 3 жыл бұрын

One of the greatest humans to ever live in my mind

@josemiguelaeriro2015 3 жыл бұрын

Brilliant

@cjshakes 5 жыл бұрын

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)

@skyylow Жыл бұрын

The next space telescope is named after Carl Sagan. It's mission is to search for life.

@treznich 3 жыл бұрын

Thank God for people like that carry us all into the future.

@BrokenKoolAid 2 жыл бұрын

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.

@fburton8 6 жыл бұрын

This is gold dust.

@b.hagedash7973 6 жыл бұрын

Takes me back to glorious Saturday afternoons whiled away with Hoffman's elixir and Sagan's Cosmos.

@Dyslexic-Artist-Theory-on-Time 6 жыл бұрын

Me too!!!

@AnweshSatpathy 4 жыл бұрын

share the whole lecture please

@bostangpalaguna228 4 жыл бұрын

Able to figure out the message is very cool

@steverodak2230 3 жыл бұрын

Human beings have a hard time communicating with each other, let alone aliens from another planet.

@franciscocosentino4228 2 жыл бұрын

Carl Sagan is the reason I regret becoming a tax lawyer. Thank you Carl wherever you are!

@jasondantzler2708 3 жыл бұрын

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.

@mrdeathgaming1457 2 жыл бұрын

Where is the rest of Sagans full lectures in HD pls?

@johnfitzgerald2339 3 жыл бұрын

Cool to see a vintage Stony Brook University sweatshirt on kid in center @ 4:02. It looks like his little-brother to his right had one on too.

@userwl2850 6 жыл бұрын

This... Dawkins...and Simon Conway Morris where the best Xmas lectures ever.

@Kargoneth 9 ай бұрын

Why is this video clip of a higher quality than the video of the full lecture?

@rotntv 3 жыл бұрын

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.