Why SETI might be our most humbling science | Jill Tarter: Full Interview

About this video

Become a Big Think member to unlock expert classes, premium print issues, exclusive events and more: https://bigthink.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=yt_desc Subscribe to Big Think on YouTube ► https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvQECJukTDE2i6aCoMnS-Vg?sub_confirmation=1 Up next, Sean Carroll explains the biggest ideas in the universe | Full Interview ► https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TBNJyztai0 Jill Tarter has spent a lifetime working on a question that resists answers: not whether we believe there is life beyond Earth, but the quest for undeniable proof. Tarter explains why SETI is really about technology, patience, and learning how to tell alien signals from our own. 00:00 Origins of a cosmic detective 03:16 Hooked on the cosmos 06:06 Falling into SETI (a happy accident) 08:45 Women in engineering 14:50 Asking the big question 20:31 SETI the search for extraterrestrial intelligence 25:41 Teaching machines to look 35:02 The Allen Telescope Array 38:57 Proving the concept 40:50 The plane “UFO” incident 44:06 False positives 50:13 Carl Sagan’s legacy 57:43 The future of SETI Read the video transcript ► https://bigthink.com/series/full-interview/seti-jill-tarter/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=youtube_description © Freethink Media Inc., All Rights Reserved. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Go Deeper with Big Think: ►Become a Big Think Youtube Member Get exclusive classes and early, ad-free access to new releases without leaving Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/@bigthink/membership/ ►Become a Big Think Web Member Get the entire Big Think Class library, premium print issues, live events, and more. https://bigthink.com/membership/ ►Subscribe to Big Think on Substack Get all of your favorite Big Think content delivered to your inbox. https://bigthinkmedia.substack.com/subscribe/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Jill Tarter: Jill Tarter is Director of the Center for SETI Research at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California. She served as Project Scientist for NASA’s SETI program, the High Resolution Microwave Survey, and has conducted numerous observational programs at radio observatories worldwide. Since the termination of funding for NASA’s SETI program in 1993, she has served in a leadership role to secure private funding to continue the exploratory science. Her astronomical work was illustrated in Carl Sagan's 1985 novel "Contact." The character largely based on Tarter, "Ellie Arroway," was portrayed by Jodie Foster in the 1997 film version of "Contact."