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

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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[@Batooony]

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]

are you sure that kids understood?

[@dpt300]

@@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]

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

[@valiyar7541]

@Oskars Lielmanis I'm 12 and I understood.

[@radscorpion8]

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]

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]

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

[@youtubeuser2887]

Nostalgia....

[@AdeelKhan1]

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]

@@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]

@@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]

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]

He seemed to have died very young!

[@antonboludo8886]

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

[@bucketofbarnacles]

His legacy remains.

[@SSJ0016]

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

[@wolvenar]

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]

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

[@AlokKumar-tk1ty]

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

[@Jinka1950]

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

[@Novasky2007]

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

[@amoghavarshamurthy]

😂

[@hyperian_one]

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.

[@dr.lairdwhitehillsfunwitha67]

He was my advisor. I owe him a lot.

[@snylekkie]

Tell us more

[@lilbbasedgodiscool]

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

[@dougboggio7098]

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

[@CurtisDensmore1]

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

[@alexstorr3357]

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

[@zetetick395]

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

[@lifes40123]

Beep beep bop bop boop - mr krabs

[@os2171]

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

[@AlexandriaTheGreat]

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

[@positronundervolt4799]

Shoulda taken a language class first.

[@AlexandriaTheGreat]

positron underVolt , game point

[@Ryanstuff]

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

[@AlexandriaTheGreat]

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

[@alejandrobetancourt4902]

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

[@sbalogh53]

Especially the one in the brown shirt. lol

[@lumigg2556]

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]

Alejandro Betancourt - he’s a legend

[@anglojojo]

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

[@johncronin9540]

@@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.)

[@xebatansis]

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

[@Franco_justAhuman]

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

[@idealbacon]

Lmfao

[@CurtisDensmore1]

They were miserable. Such a waste.

[@esquilax5563]

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

[@johnbull1568]

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.

[@janeck.8695]

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

[@Eliphas_Leary]

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]

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

[@ssabykoops]

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

[@nkq5568]

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]

Wow I’m not alone on this one

[@sbalogh53]

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

[@RCDesertRat]

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

[@reindervantil2582]

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]

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.

[@michellemartinez7515]

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]

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

[@vishalrao7010]

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

[@jaideeprai230]

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. ✊✊✊✊✊

[@wasimskhan]

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.

[@SiMyt848]

I love the archive's video serie!

[@Dyslexic-Artist-Theory-on-Time]

They are the best!!!

[@JoeLaFon3]

I love this series. Keep em coming

[@Cyber_Kriss]

😂👍

[@davidpatterson2178]

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

[@D0x1511af]

stephen hawking

[@oddviews]

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

[@aaronbrandes7456]

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

[@kjamison5951]

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.

[@ckn711]

I wish I had Mr. Sagan as a professor.

[@UFOUAPMagnet]

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

[@fasteddy07]

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

[@daxxonjabiru428]

Nice of Bill Nighy to step in and assist.

[@houstonpromotion]

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

[@kimnice]

I don't

[@houstonpromotion]

Yea you do

[@joeyyc8515]

Not to the universe

[@houstonpromotion]

@@joeyyc8515 I said universal language

[@thesunreport]

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

[@TheDarrenSR]

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.

[@BrokenKoolAid]

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.

[@gipbwok2008]

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.

[@steverodak2230]

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

[@alexandervega408]

This is incredible.

[@woooster17]

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

[@joyl7842]

"either way, we win" Indeed!

[@muskyelondragon]

Carl was an inspiration

[@skyylow]

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

[@michellevey9608]

The smartest person/communicator ever in my opinion.

[@_DarkEmperor]

Such optimism... Carl Sagan clearly has not read "His Master's Voice" and "Solaris" by Lem.

[@jlinnlinn4241]

Really enlightening video. Thanks.

[@b.hagedash7973]

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

[@Dyslexic-Artist-Theory-on-Time]

Me too!!!

[@jaridwilliams739]

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

[@franciscocosentino4228]

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

[@neilrichardson7454]

If one person in that video went into a STEAM career because of this man, then mission accomplished 🙂

[@ninaelsbethgustavsen2131]

👽; "If they don't get the formaldehyde quiz, we'll just fly by....🛸 Carl Sagan ; "Just a minute..."

[@rodddossantos1437]

Carl Sagan is and will always be my hero.

[@rotntv]

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.

[@serijas737]

Alien life: *Appears.* Human: "We have to expect them to be from our universe." Alien life: "Alright then, see you later."

[@theboombody]

Kind of weird that Carl Sagan died not very long after the 1996 alien movie Independence Day came out.

[@tru_spartan_117]

I bet Sagan would enjoy the movie Arrival

[@jasondantzler2708]

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.

[@MrLifesavers1]

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.

[@SageModeisOn]

Scientists : There's life and we can communicate with this number message Aliens : eats message

[@Kraterlandschaft]

A question for the Aliens: Why don't you come visit us?

[@Maperator]

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

[@smalltown4855]

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

[@stevewiles7132]

Smile, wave, and hope for the best.............

[@DingusTheGenius]

Kathy cracked the code... I am wondering how her life developed.

[@bogusmcbogus2637]

I like how he didn't baby talk them. He talked to those kids like they were adults.

[@TommYYZ]

We need to be able to understand their systems so Will Smith can upload the virus to the mother ship.

[@larrygarland3728]

One of the really sad parts of our American society, to me, is that this video is about 4 years old, or older, and only 1/4 of a million people have actually watched it!

[@Deft1-007]

Still amazed by his approach to teaching n explaining!!

[@treznich]

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

[@clubredken13]

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.

[@caasieu]

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

[@basketvector7311]

The original and still the best

[@thomthumbe]

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.

[@IPlayWithFire135]

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.

[@brennonguilbeau569]

This guy is awesome.

[@jamerv86]

Example obviously leads to how aliens in close encounters communicated initially with the frequencies.

[@Baci302]

Fascinating!

[@Kargoneth]

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

[@secretwpn]

It is interesting to think if we know a single example in history where a contact of 2 civilizations did not turn out as a disaster to at least one of them.

[@AwakenConsc]

In Carl Sagan's Cosmos Episode 13 Nearly 200 years ago, in the Gulf of Alaska at a place called Lituya Bay two cultures that had never met experienced a first encounter. The Tlingit people lived more or less as their ancestors had for thousands of years. They were nomads moving often by canoe between numerous campsites where they caught plentiful fish and sea otters and traded with neighboring tribes. The creator they worshiped was the raven god whom they pictured as an enormous black bird with white wings. And one July day in 1786 the raven god appeared. The Tlingit were terrified. They knew that anyone looking directly at the god would be turned to stone. From the other side of the planet had come an expedition led by the French explorer La Perouse. It was the most elaborately planned scientific voyage of the century sent around the world to gather knowledge about the geography natural history and peoples of distant lands. But to the Tlingit whose world was confined to the islands and inlets of south Alaska this great vessel could have come only from the gods. There was one among them who dared to look more deeply. He was an old warrior, and nearly blind. He said that his life was almost over. For the common good, he would approach the raven to learn whether the god really would turn his people to stone. He set out on his own voyage of discovery to confront the end of the world. The old man made himself look hard at the raven and saw that it was not a great bird from the sky but the work of men like himself. This first encounter turned out to be peaceful. Men of the La Perouse expedition were under orders to treat with respect any people they might discover. An exceptional policy for its time, and after. La Perouse and the Tlingit exchanged goods and then the strange ship sailed away, never to return.

[@Dyslexic-Artist-Theory-on-Time]

This is very true and I think this is the reason why contact has not beenmade!

[@archer7199]

He's my all time fav.

[@Dyslexic-Artist-Theory-on-Time]

Really nice video!!!

[@blimey691]

Why would they communicate with us. Why would we talk to bugs..fish...slugs?..they are on a different intellectual timeline. Millions of years ahead of us....there’s must be just of thought..pure intellect...pure soul....pure thought...they don’t talk...they have universal common knowledge..intelligence...they are millions of years ahead...

[@userwl2850]

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

[@wadeinn463]

You don’t communicate... you RUN! What has any species ever done when finding new lands?

[@ingenuity168]

I absolutely adore his voice!

[@romankrhounek5974]

Beginning of Contact

[@fburton8]

This is gold dust.

[@asgardiangod23]

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

[@johnfitzgerald2339]

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.

[@sciocore]

This is why we should NEVER leave alien communications to scientists.

[@marvinmartian6516]

Wish he could see all the new stuff about mars we find now

[@twstf8905]

Jeezus, he's a genius. Gone too soon, sadly.

[@MrDemoncrusher]

This study would have suggested that communication with another alien species would need to be on par with the most intelligent of us to transcribe it. Meaning if we received such a transmission, only the brightest of us could have deciphered it.

[@josemiguelaeriro2015]

Brilliant

[@abdul6teen]

bold of us to assume the aliens would use the same representation as us for chemical structures

[@tedjohansen1634]

The 70's had Carl Sagan, and the 00's had Neil deGrasse Tyson. Why hath you failed me, dear Evolution?

[@robb6188]

At 2:40 in, when you see the grad student at the head of the table, it's the Mitch Taylor character from the 1985 movie, Real Genius, that you're thinking of. Played by Gabe Jarret. You're welcome. I know it was bugging you too.

[@Ishidori85]

Now I understand the plot of Contact, lol.

[@warpath3427]

Genius iin explaining in easy methods

[@mikesomerset6338]

Until now I hadn't considered the possibility of the sending or receiving of an interception containing an error.

[@esquilax5563]

"People of Earth, we come in peas"

[@AnweshSatpathy]

share the whole lecture please

[@supremereader7614]

The dislikes are only from the grade schoolers.