Contact by Carl Sagan
On March 27, at from 2:30 PM to 3:30 PM, Dr. David Guerra of Physics will be leading a discussion on Carl Sagan’s novel, Contact. Published in 1985 and made into a major motion picture in 1997, Contact is the story of Eleanor “Ellie” Arroway, a precocious young woman who discovers an extra-terrestrial message which then leads her to interstellar travel to meet the source of the message. But Contact is no Star Wars or Star Trek. It is not your run-of-the-mill science fiction novel. There are no green aliens, no fancy space ships, and no fearsome cyborgs. Rather, Contact is the story of humanity. Ellie’s involvement, some might say obsession, in the search for life among the stars represents her loneliness and pining for her late mother. Politicians, religious figures, and scientists clash over Ellie’s discovery. Ellie’s space flight, which she estimates at several hours, appears to have failed in seconds. So Contact ends with a controversial question: Did Ellie Arroway travel to another world as she claimed, or was it all her imagining? What determines our belief in extra-terrestrial life or in our belief that we are alone in the universe? Ultimately, Contact is about the nature of faith, whether faith in science or in religion or in the self.
Questions motivated by Contact, the novel by Carl Sagan:
1. “Let’s see if I’ve got this right”, she (Ellie) would say to herself.” I’ve taken an inert gas that’s in the air, made it into a liquid, put some impurities into a ruby, attached a magnet, and detected the fires of creation.” She would then shake her head in amazement. To anyone ignorant of the underlying physics, it might seem the most arrogant and pretentious necromancy (sorcery) p. 31. Why does understanding the physics make this statement less arrogant and pretentious? Also, is it pretentious using the word necromancy instead of sorcery?”
2. “There is no way it could be Vega, Dr. Arroway. The system’s only a few hundred million year’s old. Its planets are still in the process of forming. There isn’t time for intelligent life to have developed there. It has to be some background star. Or galaxy” p. 67. What assumptions is the scientist that is making this statement making about the universe and the way that life develops? See pages 67 and 69 for some ideas.
3. The message is revealed in several layers. First, a monochromatic binary burst in the form of a sharp vertical spike on the spectrum analyzer (“Intensity vs. Frequency) is detected. p.63 Next, after assuming the pulses represent a pattern of binary numbers (p 68) the scientists discover that the signal is a series prime numbers, 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 23, 29, 31 ...... They then discover that the polarization modulation is not random, it has content. p. 85 They decipher the message and get the audio and video of Hitler’s speech at the 1936 Olympic games. p.87. The entire world (the World Message Consortium) works on the message and discovers the primer, which is found by performing a phase modulation, suggested by Hadden, on page 221.
Why was the message sent in so many layers to earth, since the senders of the message must have intended the message for humans, since they layered the Hitler video in the message, and they understood humans enough to look inside their dreams to prepare a place in which the crew would be comfortable during their visit to the Central Station? Is there a scientific reason for this complexity or is it a literary structure on which the author built the story?
4. On pages 129 -132, Palmer Joss makes a series of statements during a television appearance that Elli watches. Some of the statements he makes are:
a. “What has science really done for us?” ... “Are we fundamentally happier?” p.129
b. “They (the scientists) never ask if some new theory is as good for people as the belief that it tries to replace.” P 130
c. “They (the scientists) are ready to throw away their ‘truths’ when a new ideas comes round. They’re proud of it. They don’t see any end to knowing. ...” p. 131
d. “Only God can repeal the laws of nature, not the scientists. They just got it wrong. If Albert Einstein was right, Isaac Newton was an amateur, a bungler.”
Questions:
a. Answer his question.
b. Should science ask if a theory is good for people before they propose a new way to understand the data? Think about evolution or nuclear theory.
c. Is this an accurate representation of scientists and if so is it a positive or a negative statement?
d. Are the laws of nature a human creation based on our perception of the world, which allow us to control nature or are we revealing the actual underlying structure of nature?
5. Does the make up of the crew of the second Machine, Ellie (Astronomer - USA), Vaygay (Nuclear Physicist-USSR), Eda (Theoretical Physicist - Nigeria), Xi (Archeologist-China), and Devi (Molecular Biologist-India), make sense?
6. On the beginning page of chapter 9, page 143, Albert Einstein is quoted as saying, “I maintain that the cosmic religious feeling is the strongest and noblest motive for scientific research.” What do you think that Einstein meant by this?
Bio:
Professor David Guerra earned his Ph. D. in physics from The American University in 1993. He conducted his research in the Photonics group at NASA – Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), where he spent 5 years as a graduate researcher, post doctorate, contractor, and faculty fellow. Since his first faculty position in 1994, he has worked with the Laboratory for Atmospheres at NASA-GSFC on the development of a novel, holographic-based, laser radar (lidar) system. In addition, Professor Guerra has conducted research with his students on topics including, hand-held haze detectors, the shape of laser pulses, and the fluid dynamics properties of maple syrup.