Varying Constants and Fundamental Cosmology – VARCOSMOFUN’16

Are We Alone in the Universe?

15 Sept 2016, 18:30

1h

Room 7 (Maritime University, Szczerbcowa Campus)

plenary Public lecture

Speaker

Prof. Paul C. W. Davies (Arizona State University, USA)

Description

For 56 years astronomers have been sweeping the skies with radio telescopes in the hope of stumbling across a message from an extraterrestrial civilization. So far, nothing. Now the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) has received a huge fillip with a $100 million donation by the philanthropist Yuri Milner. However, is the current search strategy misconceived? Should we abandon detecting messages in favour of a search for more diverse signatures of non-human technology? In this talk, which is based on my book The Eerie Silence, I shall outline the opportunities and challenges facing the new era of SETI.