I'll leave my hot take here. I fell in love with science through listening to Carl Sagan and his calm, inquisitive tone was something I fell asleep to on a lot of nights. I have nothing against Neil DeGrasse Tyson personally, but I think this channel is carrying on Sagan's mantel in a way I appreciate more. All of the videos feel so full of wonder and without judgement. Well done, and thank you.
Tyson is a brilliant human being, but he’s too closed minded/opinionated on too many subjects for my full respect. On another note, think about the vastness of space, the stars, galaxies, etc. There’s no way it’s just there for us to observe and appreciate in this life. It’s impossible for all of it to be “just there”. There’s so much more waiting for us. Until then, take care and enjoy your time here, and I’ll see you on the other side fellow human 🤙🏻
@@troutster09 "There’s no way it’s just there for us to observe and appreciate" Exactly! And there's just no way that it ever was or will be FOR US. The moment we realize that the universe does not have us in mind or anything else in mind, because 'it' is not purposeful, is the moment we can free ourselves from such provinciality and truly enjoy the wondrousness of the cosmos for what it actually is -- "just there."
@@troutster09 Just claimed NDT was too opinionated/closed minded but say "There's no way its just there for us to observe and appreciate", it's a very real possibility that we never leave this rock and our species is annihilated out of existence before we get even beyond our own solar system yes, that is a possibility, and that's just called being open minded. Don't confuse your preferences with reality.
Great post and I can relate. I’m not old enough to have listened to Carl Sagan when he was alive but truly admire his work now that he’s gone. I relate to your post because I love to fall asleep to the calm tone of many scientists. Check out John Micheal Godier here on RUclips. He posts very similar content and has a similar tone. I fall asleep so easy to his videos.
Like a little kid who loves candy, as soon as I see a new video from this channel I just get so excited because you know it's going to be an amazing video like always. One of my favorite channels on RUclips. Thank you sir and team
This is my absolute favorite channel! My grandmother passed away last night.I stayed up late and woke up really early to look at the stars. What a lovely surprise to find a new upload from my favorite channel🙏😊
Having watched space and astronomy videos for over a decade now, I'm blown away I've never come across this channel. This is by far the best astronomy channel available. Thank you for the content.
I'm truly jealous of the future generations and the knowledge they'll know that we only speculate about today. As much as we know today, in the grand scheme of things, we don't know sh!t. But it's an unexplainable experience with one hell of a view
Welcome to being a human. You can imagine how people over 1000 years ago felt. The same way we do now. Even with our "technology" we really haven't accomplished that much. No human have left our solar system, let alone our galaxy! I'd imagine that moment if it ever happens to be one of the truly first steps of mankind in our journey to attempt find alien life elsewhere. Maybe we're "lucky" and there are aliens close to us. Maybe we should start by taking care of our planet and each others before we attempt anything else. From an aliens perspective we must be quite a destructive species.
I actually think there’s something wonderful about living in a time when we know enough to ask good questions but still can’t answer them. If we knew everything, I think life would be less interesting. It’s the mysteries that haunt us.
Well Dr Kipping, how you don't have millions of subscribers by now really grinds me, knowing that it's probably RUclips algorithms dictating numbers visiting your channel, like some of the others commenting, I for one thoroughly enjoy your thought experiments and information sharing. Thank you mate! 😎
This is such a great vid and topic! With the Hydrogen and Planck frequency being so ‘quiet’, I’ve often thought that with how noisy the universe appears to be, the best place to make that mutual contact would be in one of the quietest places where your ‘voice’ would be loudest. Like the Bootes void. However until we learn to stop killing each other, I’m not sure anyone else would be interested in knowing us!
Been waiting for an explanation like this for a long time, Setti have been trying so long to find signal's but to no avail! It's time to start thinking outside the box now and highly consider some of the methods you have mentioned in this video, I love the way your mind works and how you present the ideas, excellent work Mr Kipping 👍
If I were to be in that extreme scenario where my life depended on finding a stranger who's also looking for me, I would never search in the place with the highest population density possible, I imagine standing on the top of a hill at night, with the biggest laser beam I can find, pointed upwards. I may be a dead man pointing, but that'd be my logic.
In the video he used New York, but if you're looking at huge population centers Los Angeles or San Diego might also be strong contenders. And going to a place with huge populations actually means you are more likely to not find the single person you are looking for. The Forest and the Trees, if you will.
My thought went basically opposite to the NY model: I'd pick the geographic center of the contiguous US (or Lebanon, KS, the closest town to it) on midnight, new year's eve, and I'd do something to be as conspicuous as possible, like wear a giant papier-maché head (or just hold up a sign, but where's the fun in that?). This way you'd be in an obvious place and time, but would have far fewer people to sort through. But I don't really have any insight into how this particular strategy would translate into looking for ETs.
Hi Professor, can you do a video on the “veneer of water” problem? One thing I’ve noticed is that the worlds close to the sun have nearly no water at all, but worlds that do have water have way too much. If we had the amount of water relative to Europa, there would be no continents at all, or at least no dry land on the surface. Seems like there’s a “fine tuning” issue for life on earth where we had just the right amount of water. 50% more or less would be disastrous for the development of civilization on this planet. Edit: I haven't done the calculations, but I believe if we had something like 50% more water than we do, every single piece of every continent would be underwater. Even Everest would be under the waves. I think even 20% more water would bury most dry land under water. Likewise, if we had 50% less water, it would be difficult for the water cycle to continue and we'd end up with a runaway evaporation event where all the Earth's water would eventually evaporate into space, and life would be impossible. Performing a precise calculation of how much water is required so sustain life on Earth would be great. My hunch is that there's not a lot of margin for error, and we maybe have as little as 20 to as little of 10 percent of margin otherwise either life or civilization would be impossible.
@@Overcaffenated Yes, please reread the post. Just 20% more water should cover most, if not all, of the continents with water, leaving no dry land at all. Too little and you have a runaway evaporation where the surface becomes more like Mars or even Venus.
But assuming a geologically active planet, I'm guessing volcanoes would eventually reach the surface and then create land. It might take a longer time than our islands here today formed from underwater volcanoes but I think it would happen no matter what
@@MoCsomeone No. the weight of water would make that impossible. Plus, even if a few volcanoes could reach the surface, most of the continents would be buried under the waves still.
When talking about earth and its water look at pre life earth when comparing it with other planets... The water cycle was massively altered by life on this planet...
In regards waiting for mutually visible transits or just when we're visible to other worlds, that would probably a Schelling Point we could use to fire off a laser pulse or other unnatural emission, or maybe otherwise make our transit look unnatural.
We would have to observe the transit and then time the laser pulse to get there when they're ideally next closest to us (or at least on our side of their Sun). That wouldn't be hard to do, of course.
You know what I find amazing is that before watching most of the video, I tried to answer the question of where I would meet this person and I ended up choosing Times Square on January 1st at 12:00 PM. I think it's just remarkable that I was so close to choosing what you went with.
@@StoutProper it means that a transmission might be thought interesting by a civilization if it has frequency of a multiple of the hydrogen line. The hydrogen line has frequency of 1420 MHz, and is produced by an atomic transition of the hydrogen atom. It can travel quite far and is not blocked by clouds if hydrogen and interstellar dust.
First thing I thought about in order to find the other person was to go to times square in NYC everyday and hold up a sign. I think the majority of people would do something similar.
Interesting video, thanks for putting it out! IMO aliens might be very alien, including in the way they think, so our assumptions of what is meaningful to them might be just ourselves projecting. For the rationale on the video for example, initially I thought the first option would be to use means of communication like the internet or classifieds if this was before the internet. Without them, maybe find the exact geographic center of the US, then the exact center of the year and meet there on July 2nd at noon. Or at least go to the least populated town in the US on July 2nd at noon because that makes the most sense. Going into a highly populated area would be dumb and crazy... And then you mentioned New York in the video. Then you mentioned New Year's Eve... It goes to show that even among us we can think so differently as to have polar opposites in rationales. Chances are we will think very differently than aliens too.
that’s how i felt about new york it seems like it’d be difficult to find someone. however, he made some good points. and yes i just commented something similar about how people basically only draw from what we have here on earth. aliens may be nothing like us whatsoever
I've just watches a few videos of yours as a newcomer, and I just want to say that your videos are brilliant. The presentation of your thoughts and theories and the representation of the issues and problems are top notch, definitely subscribed, and I look forward to seeing more!
I'm in my 3rd year as a mechanical engineer majorstudent. Needless to say classes and craming 50 plus hours a week gets dauntless. These coolworld videos are a nice break to reset and help me realize my endgoal
That's why I never had much hope about SETI. Although I used to run the SETI at Home years ago to try to help, I never had much hope in it. The reason is simple: we have a pretty good example of a technological species and we don't use it in the search. See... Do we ONLY use one radio frequency? No, we use a bunch. So why the heck would alien do that? Which are the frequencies we use for our stronger signals (which could be detected far enough)? So, let's look in those frequencies. It makes absolutely no sense to choose any other frequency in specific. After all, we're NOT looking for a natural phenomena. We're looking for intelligence - so, let's use ours.
I'm a smoothbrain, but just thinking like a caveman, I think a good place to start for Schelling Points in space would be when the largest planet in a given system crosses its inferior conjuction in relation to us. I imagine (just my imagination) these large planets are the most easily observed, and would be the easiest target to potentially hit for signals transmissions. After seeing this video, I speculate our best location for receiving contact from other systems would be around Jupiter. Very cool video! edit: this makes a lot of speculation and assumptions, I'm not a scientist or qualified to speak on the matter.
Putting a radio transmitter around Jupiter is also a good idea because in a previous video we saw how can humans turn Jupiter into a giant satellite dish basically. Easy to transmit, and to receive data, and with jupiters inclination from the ecliptic plane, more systems would be able to detect Jupiter transits around the Sun.
This video has excellent production value. Thank you to you and your team for taking the time to make it--your illustration of a simple ethical value (the point where you give up trying is the point of failure) is quite engaging!
I think it would be a fun idea for a story to have one of the first faster than light spaceship go to observe an anticipated supernova up close, and meeting other alien scientists who had the same idea.
Poul Anderson's 'The Enemy Stars' follows this premise. The ships are STL but crews rotate by instantaneous matter transference while the ships travel for centuries. One is crippled while exploring a neutron star and manages to contact an alien vessel travelling towards the same objective. Problem, the aliens are chlorine breathers...
@@cmbaz1140 Poul was one of the greats. His works covered every sub-genre of science fiction. Loved his use of descriptive writing. And was thrilled to meet him.
You have such a captivating voice and such good presentation of points. I was always told at maths but I never cared for it, you changed that I now enjoy it and even write essays about cosmology or learn different cosmological laws and how to calculate and prove them in my spare time. Thank you for your contributions and work in your fields you to above and beyond and I hope to not only meet you one day but even impress and work alongside you.
@@CoolWorldsLab speaking of your speaking voice, Professor Kipping, where is your accent from? I can't find a biography of you earlier than Cambridge 2006, so I wonder where your parents are from and where you lived around age 7?
@@jsalsman ..... hmm, you wonder where he was at age 7? That is a weirdly specific question. Are you wondering because regional accents are learned by that age? Or are you a goof who is stalking Dr. K?? Just messing with you. Take care and be well.
@@amandahugginkiss55 haha! I work on intelligibility remediation for language learning, a career which has taught me so much more about accents than most everyone I know even in this field. Did you know there are 14 different loci of vowel accents in the British Isles? It's just that age 7 is when most people's cerebellums learn their permanent lifelong diphone vocal tract articulation. Also, his speaking voice is indeed spectacular and we are all lucky he chooses to make these videos!
David Kipping is the only one who is the only PhD that is not afraid to say “we don’t know” for subject matter we don’t know. For that reason I’m willing to pay very close attention to every word, every sentence. Almost all the rest simply make stuff up so it’s always hard to determine where known facts end and educated speculation begins.
I always imagined we were missing something "simple" to other civilizations; like the Star Trek subspace communication technologies. Strange but my sense of humor always imagined our first contact to be us creating a subspace transceiver only to illegally tap into the subspace network of our galaxy's version of the ferengi. Our first glimpse of advanced civilizations is a galactic shopping network.
Yet another absolutely fascinating video. Many, many thanks for all the work you're putting into them, Dr. Kipping. This channel is truly an internet gem.
Exactly! We establish a colony on Proxima b around Proxima Centauri. We send them a message, "How's everything today?" We receive their reply 8.5 years later. "we are doing great! Weather is fine today. What is the status of Earth?" We reply, "Here are your new orders". Another wait of 8.5 years, "What? No can do! Resend!"........Ahh we are now into a 17 year conversation if one can even call it that and Proxima is the closest star to Earth. "New Horizons was traveling at speeds that topped 52,000 mph, but even at that rate, it would take about 54,400 years to reach Proxima Centauri." It only took 7 years to get to Pluto! We aint going anywhere outside of our Solar System, any time soon, and we will not be having conversations with the rest of the Universe! Science Fiction is Fiction! "Candy Is Dandy But Liquor Is Quicker".
@@folcwinep.pywackett8517 Gotta keep it brief and planned, send over equations and blueprints of new technology and ideas. Small-talk is better let to your fellows in your solar system
With patience. A patience that extends beyond an individual life time, a patience that only a people who thought of themselves as rungs in a ladder might consider.
We need to conduct surveys. Get some people together with no background knowledge on EM frequencies or SETI. Teach them about EM frequencies and then ask how they would go about contacting alien life. This would allow us to crowd source schelling points from people who arent "corrupted" by the bias of knowledge about how we currently search for ET life. We may just need one out of the box thinker to imagine a way of communication none of us have before.
I think Schelling Points might be a too human concept. It greatly has to do with our perception of the value of a place, an event or a sequence. Maybe they see no significance in these things. But I don't know how Aliens might think (if they even do that) and until there is actual contact, the Schelling Technique looks like a good starting point.
Any inteligent creature will almost certanly be motile rather the secile, and one of the most basic functions of such a brain will be spacial navigation and memory of unique places, our studies of the brain show that place, time and sequencing all utilize the same deep limbic system pathways so all earth vertebrates if evolved to our inteligence level would have this concept. While it's not impossible to rule out alien life being so alien that it dosn't even obey patterns seen in earth life It's not likely in my opinion and not particularly condusive to speculation when their are no constraints to that speculation.
Really interesting concept, I accidentally think about this a lot but didn't know there was a word for it. The thing is I wonder how useful they really are. Stephen Wolfram had this interesting thought that physics itself may look totally different to beings that parse out the structure of reality - even just slightly differently. Their technology stack could be built on completely different things, and different laws of physics. Not just laws we haven't discovered, but ones we couldn't ever recognize from our vantage point in reality. But perhaps even if this is so, it just means we have to go a layer of abstraction deeper to find the appropriate Schelling points.
@@stefanschleps8758 Umm... no. "Contact" is a fictional novel written by Carl Sagan, and Sagan, being no slouch of a scientist, was clear, in his fictional universe, to make sure that the patterns he described in the numbers would be impossible to be accidents nor a result of human wishing for patterns where there are none. He described in detail what the patterns were, and how they could not be accidents. His point seemed to be, in my reading at the time anyway, that this WOULD be the kind of thing the scientific community would accept as a kind of proof of superior intelligences reaching out to communicate with us. And of course, I don't believe for a moment he was saying he believed there actually WOULD be messages hiding in Pi, but rather it was a fanciful device to make a point in his fictional world. Regardless, I remember really enjoying the book as much or more than the movie.
I think that finding someone (or something) is just the icing on the cake. The real prize is the doing fo the projects and learning from the experience. Science exploration and development always pays for itself in the long run. If say we find a habitable world rather than an inhabited one, then that of course justifies everything that went into that discovery.
It feels so good to disengage from everyday life and think about these things it's fascinating. This channel deserves millions of subs for the level of content here.
When you posited the question 'meet someone in the US at an unknown location and unknown time" I immediately said "NYE Times Square Ball Drop". It's such an iconic first instinct response.
I love this channel. This is something I still think about all the time. Every night I look up at the stars and wonder, who's staring back at us and wondering if there anyone else is out there. I just can't believe we are alone in an endless universe.
Lui Ji concluded that game theory actually counsels against seeking to send a signal to other, potentially far more advanced, civilizations. The Fermi Paradox is therefore explained by self protection interests. Great videos!!
3 Minutes in and everything you have said is the exact opposite of what I would think would be a good idea. I feel going to where their is the least amount of people would increase your odds of finding the exact person we are looking for instead of looking through a sea of people. If both men looked for the least populated place their would no doubt find each other. In NY a half a block away the person can not be seen. In the salt flats you can see them for miles .
An Analog to this is the stupidity of using the Hydrogen line. We are looking for one of the most abundant signals in the universe and attempting to find information in it. Like hearing all of the birds in the jungle and trying to find the single guy in the jungle whistling Morse code messages.
I really like your videos, really original. Im really happy that you dont just tell a story, but share your very own thoughts, makes the videos really interesting
I think one of the biggest problems were the interaction of two ideas you brought up: Technological Comparability and the Speed of Light In order to have a hope of communication, we likely need to have (somewhat) similar levels of technology. Humanity wouldn’t be able to communicate with a civilization more than a century less advanced then us, and we probably couldn’t receive communications from one a few centuries more advanced. Yet, if we are using shelling points of specific times and places (say, a gamma ray burst), then because EM Signals travel at lightspeed, it could take thousands of years before it arrives at a planet to receive it. If they were of similar technology when we sent it, they would almost certainly be either extinct by then or have evolved beyond the original modality of communication. And if they originally weren’t sophisticated enough but were once the signal arrived, they would have no idea about the shelling point and wouldn’t know where to look. The inability of species to communicate in real time (according to physics as we understand it) is perhaps the biggest obstacle towards actual communication
Thousands of years seem like an eternity to us, and I often see comments that there’s no point if that’s the limit. But to a more mature civilization, that timescale might be quite acceptable as a turn around time.
Mind explaining why communication wouldn't be possible with a civilisation more than a few centuries more advanced than us? Pretty sure a life-seeking civilisation would want to send a signal that all intelligent life-forms could understand ─ not just lifeforms at least as advanced as them, as that would narrow down their search range significantly ─ and so would probably send the most easily decipherable signals ─ ones that we could pick up on.
I don't understand why this video doesn't have more views. :) I've referenced it so many times in my talks and interactions with people. Very insightful!
Again, that feeling of hope. It’s good to know that some non Terran species is looking for us just as hard as we are looking for them. The universe has a way creating symmetry. Surely we have one counterpart. Thank you, Professor Kipping for another thought provoking episode. P.S. Professor and the cool worlds community, will James Webb find one habitable system?
When he started to talk about two random people having to meet somewhere in the us, my mind immediatly went to "ill just wait at times square all day every day" and u can imagine my joy when that was the first location he picked
I've always thought altering our sun's spectral lines in an unnatural way is the best way to get ET's attention. As for EM, the range is quite poor. We would need to have vastly superior/larger transmitter/receivers than we currently do. Otherwise the inverse square law will simply turn our signal into noise.
In a past video Dr. Kipping discussed how there are no green stars, so a green star would be a relatively certain sign of intentional interference. ruclips.net/video/vXOYbzQ4jDA/видео.html
Cool Worlds is by far the best RUclips channel out there I think. I do have alot that I watch, but, I always look forward to watch Dr. kipping's new videos. Even when he doesn't upload new videos, I always watch older Cool World videos. I dont even know how many times I've watched the one about Betelguise. Sorry for the spelling lol.
I saw two lights in the sky on New Years while looking for fireworks being shot off in my suburb. No bigger than a faroff star you'd see in the sky, one was following the other, suddenly stopping completely, and fading away in a matter of a minute or less. Presumably, whatever it was stopped moving leftward in the sky and started moving away from me (into space), giving the appearance that they were just fading away.
If you consider how we are suddenly looking for ways to protect earth from space based threats we will surely in future try to protect our sun from threats, thus shining a very bright laser at all the stars might trigger a security response from an advanced race which might be a good thing or a really bad thing if they consider us hostile for doing that.
Watching this video made me go back and re-watch the film Contact - I had forgotten just how much I love that film. If we can avoid the collapse of civilization I am envious of those who get to meet alien civilizations, but thankful to have seen a little of the journey there
The existence of Schelling points depends on having the same or at least compatible intentions. So we need a civilization striving for contact with another one. In our own civilization there are at the moment only some groups actively searching for contact - most people are indifferent or even sceptical if it would do us any good. We could assume that in many civilizations at a similar cultural and technological stage there would be similar or even stronger reservations (depending on culture, history, psychology), while civilizations at a lower technological stage would not be able to communicate at all and civilizations at a higher (or radically different) cultural and scientific level would assume radically different Schelling points (if any). So it is the old problem of meeting someone with a similar state of mind at a specific time in their and our (cultural) evolution within a distance which allows some kind of communication using our existing technology - and radio waves e.g. became indecipherable noise at a certain distance. If you are very lucky and if you use highly sopisticated equipment, you can perhaps identify it as probably coming from an artificial source, but that is about all of information you can get from it - a lighthouse in space, but not one able to send at least some morse code.
@@trippy_rubixs9876 The sky is to bright. There is much background radiation from all the suns. The signal could easily be overseen. If you consider how difficult it is to see a big planet in a nearby solar system, you would need a huge emitter as well as a energy level comparable to a small sun if you wanted to broadcast something. "Smallcasting" would be easier: Sending a message by a directional laser beam to a certain point not too far away would probably work and need far less energy - but then you had to know before where to direct your beam.
@@MichaEl-rh1kv what about in places like Alaska where it is dark for like 3 4 months during their winter and lazer right we already have some amazing ones im sure we could figure something out
@@trippy_rubixs9876 It is not dark. You can still see the light of stars - and we talk about interstellar communication. If you are near a star (like on any planet) it is difficult to outshine it over interstellar distances. You would either have to make a light radically different from that of your sun or to manipulate your sun itself (which would in most cases be really dangerous for all nearby). If we are in the polar night = the shade of Earth, we can see more light from the stars, but we can still not see the light coming from one point of one of their planets. With the James Webb Space Telescope we hope to become able to see nearby planets not only as a single pixel, but with some details. But it will not suffice to detect a light source much smaller than the diameter of such a planet (except perhaps it is something like a huge fusion bomb).
Great video, out of curiosity, has anyone ever tried to analyze what baseline intelligence would need to be for alien contact to occur? That intelligence might revolve around a normal curve and then trying to understand the occurance of a specific level of intelligence along with the number of likely connections with other similarly intelligent individuals within a society that would over time lead to milestone discoveries for a civilization. Are humans 1-sigma in that type of hierarchy? Are we "dumb" relatively based on the requirements? Are we somehow more intelligent than normal? It seems like a strange question to ask, but watching this video I wonder what types and levels of intelligence are required for some particular thing to be an "obvious" Schelling Point to multiple civilizations. I'm not even sure how to search for research that might answer this question... EDIT: For clarity, and conversation... if the average human IQ was 75 (relatively speaking) what impact would that have on civilization? What if it was 125? What if it was 250. (I know there will be quips about different kinds of intelligence, etc... what can you do)
I would start with the Kardashev Scale and the Fermi Paradox for some starter insight into this... then go from there. I think your questions would make a compelling thought experiment on their own!
It's probably important to consider not only intelligence but a species communication capabilities. Much of our technological evolution was built upon increasing the rate of information communicated between humans. In terms of intelligence, I think a species would need to reach a point of where they become capable of passing complex knowledge between one another. This way they could sort of manifest this emergent superintelligence that we utilize today. No human knows how to build a handheld graphing calculator completely from scratch, nevermind a rocket. Perhaps aliens would be the same way about their spacecraft
@@nawtmyrealnamelol I could imagine a super intelligent species who has a weakness of being very long lived and thus having very few offspring. The small number of offspring could lead to a very low population that never reaches a connection threshold that is high enough to reach the necessary mile stones. The more I think of it, the more I go back to the book "Connections" by James Burke and the associated television show. But a bit in reverse, or sideways, or something. EDIT: The end point of that thought tree is probably another solution to the Fermi Paradox... It probably isn't just intelligence, but also the genetic need for population growth, along with scarcity of materials (The Foundation being placed on Terminus), and some other Venn Diagram shenanigan.
@@nawtmyrealnamelol I agree, but communication is one of only 2 requirements for the type of runaway (exponential) technological growth that humanity has undergone. The other is the ability to create new tools from the environment, and requires not only intelligence but also creativity. Even if a species possesses human-level communication ability but is unable to figure out that, if you attach a stone to a stick, you combine the length of the stick and the power of a stone, then all of that information transfer and collective memory that ensues from this communication ability will be of no use. The reason that technological progress has been exponential since pretty much the dawn of civilisation is that, as newer tools got created, those newer tools were used to create even better tools, and those were in turn to create yet better tools, etc. Of course, knowledge about how to build the earlier tools would still need to be preserved for the newer tools to be built, so collective memory ─ pretty much only attainable via advanced communication ─ is still necessary, but its role can be compared to that of a catalyst; the actual "reactant" in the phenomenon of technological growth has been our ability to create tools. So, it seems like the answer to OC's question is probably the same as the answer to the question of what baseline level of intelligence one would require in order to be able to create new tools from the environment ─ a question that could hypothetically be scientifically answered via testing.
One schilling point in time for intelligent life is the singularity for artificial intelligence where biological intelligence is almost instantly superseded. This could be applied to the simulation hypothesis where the epoch in time to start the simulation is just before the singularity where the event could be witnessed. This is why we are here now.
The probability of finding some civilization around our own technology level, seems to me impossible, given we are just in our first steps as a technological advance civilization, everyone out there should be milenia ahead of us.
Yes, Mr. Poet, they are asking the same question. Every individual is an alien to every other. Life must persist until it cannot. Universally. Thanks, btw. Your lyrical thoughts are extremely liberating. Made my day. Life is a penny rocket, allowing for relativity. . .
Ok I just gotta say this... Bro... It is an absolute pleasure to have you make this content.... I love space.. Universe... And even just the concept of our reality and I've actually been watching you're videos for a while now... But I wish I could have just a sit down and convo about it but I DJ across the country and its like no one cares about our advancements... And more so just the thought of making contact with other species (out of this world).... What if we are the only ones here... But to me... As far as my perspective.... There's no way it's just this world that harbours life! Maybe different perspectives as we call it ... But yeah.... I think it is only a matter of time!
I don't know about anyone else but I feel the need for us to find out we're not alone and alien life doing the exact same wishing and hoping they aren't alone in this vast lonely universe. Like a sense of longing
Why would we assume that a highly advanced civilization would forget what it is like to be more primitive? If they suspect that there are many others less advanced out there (and have any interest in contact...) would they not be able to take this into account when choosing Schelling points?
"If we are not here now, we were there before. (Coordinates for the Sol System, with indication to inspect the third planet from the star) Nothing could be more exciting than meeting new people and to share life with others. It can only be hoped you are out there, and we are still here. Come and see what can be learned." I'd like to think that'd be a good message to put in a bottle. Short, honest, a little self aware and vague, but welcoming. Hopeful. Not too scared or vain or desperate, lonely, posturing or confident. They may not be out and we might not be around when they give the bell or phone a ring. But wouldn't it just be Great, however frightening or reassuring it'd be, wouldn't it just be Something?
"The moment we decide to stop is the moment we've committed to failure." True, but in the face of certain failure, giving up can be freeing. One can save energy, time, and other resources. I've given up hope of ever having another job or relationship. This makes my future simple, but I wish I had the strength to just lie down and die. Hopefully humanity keeps going as it becomes painfully obvious that it too is alone until it dies.
Fantastic and mind-expanding work, once again. The knowledge and originality of thought you share are a huge gift to the collective. I have idly wondered if it might be possible to beat pulsar signals against each other looking for any interesting patterns (or "messages") in the beat waveform. Going further, perhaps one might try using a separate, offset pulsar (offset in both space and frequency) to provide a reference frequency and then heterodyne with however many pulsars to get some very weird semi-music from the sky.
When our universe expands well enough that everything is so far away that you can no longer see anything anymore when you look up, new big bangs will occur. This big bangs came from some of the black holes and did not necessarily occur at the same time. Basically, space pulsates like beating hearts.
I'll leave my hot take here. I fell in love with science through listening to Carl Sagan and his calm, inquisitive tone was something I fell asleep to on a lot of nights. I have nothing against Neil DeGrasse Tyson personally, but I think this channel is carrying on Sagan's mantel in a way I appreciate more. All of the videos feel so full of wonder and without judgement. Well done, and thank you.
Tyson is a brilliant human being, but he’s too closed minded/opinionated on too many subjects for my full respect. On another note, think about the vastness of space, the stars, galaxies, etc. There’s no way it’s just there for us to observe and appreciate in this life. It’s impossible for all of it to be “just there”. There’s so much more waiting for us. Until then, take care and enjoy your time here, and I’ll see you on the other side fellow human 🤙🏻
@@troutster09 "There’s no way it’s just there for us to observe and appreciate"
Exactly! And there's just no way that it ever was or will be FOR US. The moment we realize that the universe does not have us in mind or anything else in mind, because 'it' is not purposeful, is the moment we can free ourselves from such provinciality and truly enjoy the wondrousness of the cosmos for what it actually is -- "just there."
Totally. I'm sure you'd love Brian Cox as well then
@@troutster09 Just claimed NDT was too opinionated/closed minded but say "There's no way its just there for us to observe and appreciate", it's a very real possibility that we never leave this rock and our species is annihilated out of existence before we get even beyond our own solar system yes, that is a possibility, and that's just called being open minded. Don't confuse your preferences with reality.
Great post and I can relate. I’m not old enough to have listened to Carl Sagan when he was alive but truly admire his work now that he’s gone. I relate to your post because I love to fall asleep to the calm tone of many scientists. Check out John Micheal Godier here on RUclips. He posts very similar content and has a similar tone. I fall asleep so easy to his videos.
Im 37 years old and dont get excited that much these days, except when Cool Worlds posts a vid of this subject...
Absolutely!!
This post is a mood. And I can't help but relate...
I feel you.
being 37 shouldnt stop you from feeling excited more often :)
Same absolutely the same!
Like a little kid who loves candy, as soon as I see a new video from this channel I just get so excited because you know it's going to be an amazing video like always. One of my favorite channels on RUclips. Thank you sir and team
I like to save them for weekend naps
This is my absolute favorite channel! My grandmother passed away last night.I stayed up late and woke up really early to look at the stars. What a lovely surprise to find a new upload from my favorite channel🙏😊
Condolences.
Condolences. This is a great channel.
🥺❤️
Condolences.
@@EvenTheDogAgrees thanks
Having watched space and astronomy videos for over a decade now, I'm blown away I've never come across this channel. This is by far the best astronomy channel available. Thank you for the content.
"You can't find a schelling point with a pigeon"
*Stands next to some bird feed*
I'm truly jealous of the future generations and the knowledge they'll know that we only speculate about today. As much as we know today, in the grand scheme of things, we don't know sh!t. But it's an unexplainable experience with one hell of a view
Welcome to being a human. You can imagine how people over 1000 years ago felt. The same way we do now. Even with our "technology" we really haven't accomplished that much. No human have left our solar system, let alone our galaxy! I'd imagine that moment if it ever happens to be one of the truly first steps of mankind in our journey to attempt find alien life elsewhere. Maybe we're "lucky" and there are aliens close to us. Maybe we should start by taking care of our planet and each others before we attempt anything else. From an aliens perspective we must be quite a destructive species.
And they will envy the next ones. Greater the circle of knowledge, bigger the edge of the unknown ✨
Unless, of course, disaster overtakes us, and our civilisation is destroyed to such an extent that we never recover.
Nah man, we humans are really really stupid, we will probably destroy our selves in the near future.
I actually think there’s something wonderful about living in a time when we know enough to ask good questions but still can’t answer them. If we knew everything, I think life would be less interesting. It’s the mysteries that haunt us.
Well Dr Kipping, how you don't have millions of subscribers by now really grinds me, knowing that it's probably RUclips algorithms dictating numbers visiting your channel, like some of the others commenting, I for one thoroughly enjoy your thought experiments and information sharing. Thank you mate! 😎
Only just came across this channel and it's amazing, I'm obsessed.
@-Childs- I corrected the mistake 👍 All the best
This is such a great vid and topic! With the Hydrogen and Planck frequency being so ‘quiet’, I’ve often thought that with how noisy the universe appears to be, the best place to make that mutual contact would be in one of the quietest places where your ‘voice’ would be loudest. Like the Bootes void. However until we learn to stop killing each other, I’m not sure anyone else would be interested in knowing us!
This guy just has a voice I want to listen to. Always explains things in such a interesting way I am taking in every word.
This channel along with Sea universe channel are my favorites. Quality over quantity.
Been waiting for an explanation like this for a long time, Setti have been trying so long to find signal's but to no avail! It's time to start thinking outside the box now and highly consider some of the methods you have mentioned in this video, I love the way your mind works and how you present the ideas, excellent work Mr Kipping 👍
If I were to be in that extreme scenario where my life depended on finding a stranger who's also looking for me, I would never search in the place with the highest population density possible, I imagine standing on the top of a hill at night, with the biggest laser beam I can find, pointed upwards. I may be a dead man pointing, but that'd be my logic.
In the video he used New York, but if you're looking at huge population centers Los Angeles or San Diego might also be strong contenders. And going to a place with huge populations actually means you are more likely to not find the single person you are looking for. The Forest and the Trees, if you will.
My thought went basically opposite to the NY model: I'd pick the geographic center of the contiguous US (or Lebanon, KS, the closest town to it) on midnight, new year's eve, and I'd do something to be as conspicuous as possible, like wear a giant papier-maché head (or just hold up a sign, but where's the fun in that?). This way you'd be in an obvious place and time, but would have far fewer people to sort through. But I don't really have any insight into how this particular strategy would translate into looking for ETs.
@@darenblythe5169 I tried that once but no ets contacted me :(
@@katherinestives940 San Diego is a weird choice.
@@angusmatheson8906 White House maybe? Or some monument
Great video. I hope they try to communicate with us via lasers, so we can detect them more easily.
This channel is truly exceptional
How am I only discovering this fantastic channel now? Excellent, educational and with just the right amount of excitement. Nice work!
You should read Dr Paul Laviolette Decoding the Message of the Pulsars: Intelligent Communication from the Galaxy
Hi Professor, can you do a video on the “veneer of water” problem? One thing I’ve noticed is that the worlds close to the sun have nearly no water at all, but worlds that do have water have way too much. If we had the amount of water relative to Europa, there would be no continents at all, or at least no dry land on the surface. Seems like there’s a “fine tuning” issue for life on earth where we had just the right amount of water. 50% more or less would be disastrous for the development of civilization on this planet.
Edit: I haven't done the calculations, but I believe if we had something like 50% more water than we do, every single piece of every continent would be underwater. Even Everest would be under the waves. I think even 20% more water would bury most dry land under water. Likewise, if we had 50% less water, it would be difficult for the water cycle to continue and we'd end up with a runaway evaporation event where all the Earth's water would eventually evaporate into space, and life would be impossible. Performing a precise calculation of how much water is required so sustain life on Earth would be great. My hunch is that there's not a lot of margin for error, and we maybe have as little as 20 to as little of 10 percent of margin otherwise either life or civilization would be impossible.
"Fine tuning..."?
@@Overcaffenated Yes, please reread the post. Just 20% more water should cover most, if not all, of the continents with water, leaving no dry land at all. Too little and you have a runaway evaporation where the surface becomes more like Mars or even Venus.
But assuming a geologically active planet, I'm guessing volcanoes would eventually reach the surface and then create land. It might take a longer time than our islands here today formed from underwater volcanoes but I think it would happen no matter what
@@MoCsomeone No. the weight of water would make that impossible. Plus, even if a few volcanoes could reach the surface, most of the continents would be buried under the waves still.
When talking about earth and its water look at pre life earth when comparing it with other planets...
The water cycle was massively altered by life on this planet...
getting hunted will shake the loneliness off
Thursday with cool worlds.
It is because of these kinds of videos why I believe that this channel is THE best science channel on RUclips. Thank you guys
In regards waiting for mutually visible transits or just when we're visible to other worlds, that would probably a Schelling Point we could use to fire off a laser pulse or other unnatural emission, or maybe otherwise make our transit look unnatural.
We would have to observe the transit and then time the laser pulse to get there when they're ideally next closest to us (or at least on our side of their Sun). That wouldn't be hard to do, of course.
You know what I find amazing is that before watching most of the video, I tried to answer the question of where I would meet this person and I ended up choosing Times Square on January 1st at 12:00 PM. I think it's just remarkable that I was so close to choosing what you went with.
I've always wondered why integer multiples have been considered the natural waterholes. Why not pi times the hydrogen line?
That too! Contact film uses that!
What does that mean exactly?
@@StoutProper it means that a transmission might be thought interesting by a civilization if it has frequency of a multiple of the hydrogen line. The hydrogen line has frequency of 1420 MHz, and is produced by an atomic transition of the hydrogen atom. It can travel quite far and is not blocked by clouds if hydrogen and interstellar dust.
@@AlbertoGirardi747 ah ok nice one
“Every star may be a sun to someone.”
Man, I really hope science lovers end up winning the information war. What a world that would be!
I agree. Following the science is truly important.
@@billfarmer7984 wow you guys sound idiotic. The science... science is a method and not to be idolize.
I cannot express enough how much I enjoy these videos.
First thing I thought about in order to find the other person was to go to times square in NYC everyday and hold up a sign. I think the majority of people would do something similar.
Rick roll in youtube is the schelling point for me in the internet
Interesting video, thanks for putting it out! IMO aliens might be very alien, including in the way they think, so our assumptions of what is meaningful to them might be just ourselves projecting.
For the rationale on the video for example, initially I thought the first option would be to use means of communication like the internet or classifieds if this was before the internet. Without them, maybe find the exact geographic center of the US, then the exact center of the year and meet there on July 2nd at noon. Or at least go to the least populated town in the US on July 2nd at noon because that makes the most sense. Going into a highly populated area would be dumb and crazy... And then you mentioned New York in the video. Then you mentioned New Year's Eve... It goes to show that even among us we can think so differently as to have polar opposites in rationales. Chances are we will think very differently than aliens too.
that’s how i felt about new york it seems like it’d be difficult to find someone. however, he made some good points. and yes i just commented something similar about how people basically only draw from what we have here on earth. aliens may be nothing like us whatsoever
You should read Dr Paul Laviolette Decoding the Message of the Pulsars: Intelligent Communication from the Galaxy
Im 42 and im always exited this days exept when cool world post video, it put everything in perspective. Thx a lot.
I've just watches a few videos of yours as a newcomer, and I just want to say that your videos are brilliant. The presentation of your thoughts and theories and the representation of the issues and problems are top notch, definitely subscribed, and I look forward to seeing more!
What you said around minute 16:35 - 17:25. It applies not just to astronomy but to life. So profound. Dude, you are magnificent.
I'm in my 3rd year as a mechanical engineer majorstudent. Needless to say classes and craming 50 plus hours a week gets dauntless. These coolworld videos are a nice break to reset and help me realize my endgoal
Dauntless? You mean 'daunting'?
That's why I never had much hope about SETI. Although I used to run the SETI at Home years ago to try to help, I never had much hope in it.
The reason is simple: we have a pretty good example of a technological species and we don't use it in the search.
See... Do we ONLY use one radio frequency? No, we use a bunch. So why the heck would alien do that?
Which are the frequencies we use for our stronger signals (which could be detected far enough)? So, let's look in those frequencies.
It makes absolutely no sense to choose any other frequency in specific. After all, we're NOT looking for a natural phenomena. We're looking for intelligence - so, let's use ours.
I'm a smoothbrain, but just thinking like a caveman, I think a good place to start for Schelling Points in space would be when the largest planet in a given system crosses its inferior conjuction in relation to us. I imagine (just my imagination) these large planets are the most easily observed, and would be the easiest target to potentially hit for signals transmissions. After seeing this video, I speculate our best location for receiving contact from other systems would be around Jupiter. Very cool video!
edit: this makes a lot of speculation and assumptions, I'm not a scientist or qualified to speak on the matter.
Putting a radio transmitter around Jupiter is also a good idea because in a previous video we saw how can humans turn Jupiter into a giant satellite dish basically. Easy to transmit, and to receive data, and with jupiters inclination from the ecliptic plane, more systems would be able to detect Jupiter transits around the Sun.
It's always nice to listen to the King slayer talk about the universe.
This video has excellent production value. Thank you to you and your team for taking the time to make it--your illustration of a simple ethical value (the point where you give up trying is the point of failure) is quite engaging!
This particular minute 16:33 I found most meaningful. Thanks David.
I think it would be a fun idea for a story to have one of the first faster than light spaceship go to observe an anticipated supernova up close, and meeting other alien scientists who had the same idea.
Sounds interesting...
A phenomenon could cause damage to both ships and they have to communicate to survive and escape before the nova happens...
Poul Anderson's 'The Enemy Stars' follows this premise.
The ships are STL but crews rotate by instantaneous matter transference while the ships travel for centuries.
One is crippled while exploring a neutron star and manages to contact an alien vessel travelling towards the same objective.
Problem, the aliens are chlorine breathers...
@@OnASeasideMission wow...awesome
@@cmbaz1140 Poul was one of the greats. His works covered every sub-genre of science fiction.
Loved his use of descriptive writing.
And was thrilled to meet him.
Good to know... thanks
I can't believe this channel only has a half million subscribers.
You have such a captivating voice and such good presentation of points.
I was always told at maths but I never cared for it, you changed that I now enjoy it and even write essays about cosmology or learn different cosmological laws and how to calculate and prove them in my spare time.
Thank you for your contributions and work in your fields you to above and beyond and I hope to not only meet you one day but even impress and work alongside you.
Thanks so much for your kind message, it really makes my day
@@CoolWorldsLab speaking of your speaking voice, Professor Kipping, where is your accent from? I can't find a biography of you earlier than Cambridge 2006, so I wonder where your parents are from and where you lived around age 7?
@@jsalsman ..... hmm, you wonder where he was at age 7? That is a weirdly specific question. Are you wondering because regional accents are learned by that age? Or are you a goof who is stalking Dr. K?? Just messing with you. Take care and be well.
@@amandahugginkiss55 haha! I work on intelligibility remediation for language learning, a career which has taught me so much more about accents than most everyone I know even in this field. Did you know there are 14 different loci of vowel accents in the British Isles? It's just that age 7 is when most people's cerebellums learn their permanent lifelong diphone vocal tract articulation. Also, his speaking voice is indeed spectacular and we are all lucky he chooses to make these videos!
David Kipping is the only one who is the only PhD that is not afraid to say “we don’t know” for subject matter we don’t know. For that reason I’m willing to pay very close attention to every word, every sentence.
Almost all the rest simply make stuff up so it’s always hard to determine where known facts end and educated speculation begins.
Time to get inspired!!!
I always imagined we were missing something "simple" to other civilizations; like the Star Trek subspace communication technologies.
Strange but my sense of humor always imagined our first contact to be us creating a subspace transceiver only to illegally tap into the subspace network of our galaxy's version of the ferengi.
Our first glimpse of advanced civilizations is a galactic shopping network.
They've been here a long time! 🛸
Yet another absolutely fascinating video.
Many, many thanks for all the work you're putting into them, Dr. Kipping.
This channel is truly an internet gem.
How will we ever be able to have a meaningful 2-way communication with entities light-years away, when we're limited to the speed of light?
Exactly! We establish a colony on Proxima b around Proxima Centauri. We send them a message, "How's everything today?" We receive their reply 8.5 years later. "we are doing great! Weather is fine today. What is the status of Earth?" We reply, "Here are your new orders". Another wait of 8.5 years, "What? No can do! Resend!"........Ahh we are now into a 17 year conversation if one can even call it that and Proxima is the closest star to Earth. "New Horizons was traveling at speeds that topped 52,000 mph, but even at that rate, it would take about 54,400 years to reach Proxima Centauri." It only took 7 years to get to Pluto! We aint going anywhere outside of our Solar System, any time soon, and we will not be having conversations with the rest of the Universe! Science Fiction is Fiction!
"Candy Is Dandy But Liquor Is Quicker".
@@folcwinep.pywackett8517 Gotta keep it brief and planned, send over equations and blueprints of new technology and ideas. Small-talk is better let to your fellows in your solar system
With patience. A patience that extends beyond an individual life time, a patience that only a people who thought of themselves as rungs in a ladder might consider.
CORRECTION: should read above "It only took 9.5 years to get to Pluto!" Sorry! Should have read up on the facts before breaching and spouting!
That "Invade Area 51" meme was the shelling point of the internet, lots of people actually showed up. 😂
Hit the notification straight away! Love the videos Professor Kipping! Especially the topics about aliens! ✌🏼
We need to conduct surveys. Get some people together with no background knowledge on EM frequencies or SETI. Teach them about EM frequencies and then ask how they would go about contacting alien life. This would allow us to crowd source schelling points from people who arent "corrupted" by the bias of knowledge about how we currently search for ET life. We may just need one out of the box thinker to imagine a way of communication none of us have before.
I think Schelling Points might be a too human concept. It greatly has to do with our perception of the value of a place, an event or a sequence. Maybe they see no significance in these things. But I don't know how Aliens might think (if they even do that) and until there is actual contact, the Schelling Technique looks like a good starting point.
Any inteligent creature will almost certanly be motile rather the secile, and one of the most basic functions of such a brain will be spacial navigation and memory of unique places, our studies of the brain show that place, time and sequencing all utilize the same deep limbic system pathways so all earth vertebrates if evolved to our inteligence level would have this concept. While it's not impossible to rule out alien life being so alien that it dosn't even obey patterns seen in earth life It's not likely in my opinion and not particularly condusive to speculation when their are no constraints to that speculation.
It does seem heavily based on culture. But maybe scientists share a culture, across species and galaxies?
Really interesting concept, I accidentally think about this a lot but didn't know there was a word for it. The thing is I wonder how useful they really are. Stephen Wolfram had this interesting thought that physics itself may look totally different to beings that parse out the structure of reality - even just slightly differently. Their technology stack could be built on completely different things, and different laws of physics. Not just laws we haven't discovered, but ones we couldn't ever recognize from our vantage point in reality. But perhaps even if this is so, it just means we have to go a layer of abstraction deeper to find the appropriate Schelling points.
I read the original book "Contact" by Sagan himself, and if memory serves, in the book they start to discover messages written into Pi itself!
Pareidolia effect. We are pitifully trapped by the need of the neocortex to establish order out of the chaos that is the universe.
@@stefanschleps8758 Umm... no. "Contact" is a fictional novel written by Carl Sagan, and Sagan, being no slouch of a scientist, was clear, in his fictional universe, to make sure that the patterns he described in the numbers would be impossible to be accidents nor a result of human wishing for patterns where there are none. He described in detail what the patterns were, and how they could not be accidents. His point seemed to be, in my reading at the time anyway, that this WOULD be the kind of thing the scientific community would accept as a kind of proof of superior intelligences reaching out to communicate with us. And of course, I don't believe for a moment he was saying he believed there actually WOULD be messages hiding in Pi, but rather it was a fanciful device to make a point in his fictional world. Regardless, I remember really enjoying the book as much or more than the movie.
Schelling points for alien contact…
You’re a good salesman, I’m sold on the idea now!
I think that finding someone (or something) is just the icing on the cake. The real prize is the doing fo the projects and learning from the experience. Science exploration and development always pays for itself in the long run. If say we find a habitable world rather than an inhabited one, then that of course justifies everything that went into that discovery.
We are all aliens waiting to get off this rock...come on Elon...lol
I just love this channel. Mr. Kipping knows hope to convey information properly. Thank you professor Kipping well done sir.
It feels so good to disengage from everyday life and think about these things it's fascinating. This channel deserves millions of subs for the level of content here.
This is the Schelling Channel of youtube. The logic place to watch these amazing topics.
The great, but sadly short-lived, sci-fi series "Stargate: Universe" dealt with this topic
Thanks for your assistance in understanding this communication technique
It doesn't work if both of them are trying to find one another while concealing themselves.
The comments section of rick astley's Never Gonnja Give You Up sounds like a schelling point of the internet.
Golden timesl folks, golden times...
When you posited the question 'meet someone in the US at an unknown location and unknown time" I immediately said "NYE Times Square Ball Drop". It's such an iconic first instinct response.
I love this channel. This is something I still think about all the time. Every night I look up at the stars and wonder, who's staring back at us and wondering if there anyone else is out there. I just can't believe we are alone in an endless universe.
Lui Ji concluded that game theory actually counsels against seeking to send a signal to other, potentially far more advanced, civilizations. The Fermi Paradox is therefore explained by self protection interests. Great videos!!
3 Minutes in and everything you have said is the exact opposite of what I would think would be a good idea. I feel going to where their is the least amount of people would increase your odds of finding the exact person we are looking for instead of looking through a sea of people. If both men looked for the least populated place their would no doubt find each other. In NY a half a block away the person can not be seen. In the salt flats you can see them for miles .
An Analog to this is the stupidity of using the Hydrogen line. We are looking for one of the most abundant signals in the universe and attempting to find information in it. Like hearing all of the birds in the jungle and trying to find the single guy in the jungle whistling Morse code messages.
there are too many few populated places and very few memorable one.
I really like your videos, really original. Im really happy that you dont just tell a story, but share your very own thoughts, makes the videos really interesting
I think one of the biggest problems were the interaction of two ideas you brought up: Technological Comparability and the Speed of Light
In order to have a hope of communication, we likely need to have (somewhat) similar levels of technology. Humanity wouldn’t be able to communicate with a civilization more than a century less advanced then us, and we probably couldn’t receive communications from one a few centuries more advanced.
Yet, if we are using shelling points of specific times and places (say, a gamma ray burst), then because EM Signals travel at lightspeed, it could take thousands of years before it arrives at a planet to receive it. If they were of similar technology when we sent it, they would almost certainly be either extinct by then or have evolved beyond the original modality of communication. And if they originally weren’t sophisticated enough but were once the signal arrived, they would have no idea about the shelling point and wouldn’t know where to look.
The inability of species to communicate in real time (according to physics as we understand it) is perhaps the biggest obstacle towards actual communication
Thousands of years seem like an eternity to us, and I often see comments that there’s no point if that’s the limit. But to a more mature civilization, that timescale might be quite acceptable as a turn around time.
@@CoolWorldsLab yes but I thought that we were aiming at speaking to a less or equally advanced civilization
Mind explaining why communication wouldn't be possible with a civilisation more than a few centuries more advanced than us? Pretty sure a life-seeking civilisation would want to send a signal that all intelligent life-forms could understand ─ not just lifeforms at least as advanced as them, as that would narrow down their search range significantly ─ and so would probably send the most easily decipherable signals ─ ones that we could pick up on.
I don't understand why this video doesn't have more views. :) I've referenced it so many times in my talks and interactions with people. Very insightful!
Again, that feeling of hope. It’s good to know that some non Terran species is looking for us just as hard as we are looking for them. The universe has a way creating symmetry. Surely we have one counterpart. Thank you, Professor Kipping for another thought provoking episode.
P.S. Professor and the cool worlds community, will James Webb find one habitable system?
When he started to talk about two random people having to meet somewhere in the us, my mind immediatly went to "ill just wait at times square all day every day" and u can imagine my joy when that was the first location he picked
I've always thought altering our sun's spectral lines in an unnatural way is the best way to get ET's attention.
As for EM, the range is quite poor. We would need to have vastly superior/larger transmitter/receivers than we currently do.
Otherwise the inverse square law will simply turn our signal into noise.
In a past video Dr. Kipping discussed how there are no green stars, so a green star would be a relatively certain sign of intentional interference. ruclips.net/video/vXOYbzQ4jDA/видео.html
Yup but you can mitigate that with a focused collimated beam to some extent
Dude we dont even know whats out there let alone knows whose attention we're attracting God knows who or what kind of lifeform lol
I remember reading that the late Arecibo antenna was capable of communicating with its duplicate anywhere within the Milky Way galaxy.
Photons are fine, you just need to bundle them up into one of them new fangled LAYZER BEAMZ.
Cool Worlds is by far the best RUclips channel out there I think. I do have alot that I watch, but, I always look forward to watch Dr. kipping's new videos. Even when he doesn't upload new videos, I always watch older Cool World videos. I dont even know how many times I've watched the one about Betelguise. Sorry for the spelling lol.
I saw two lights in the sky on New Years while looking for fireworks being shot off in my suburb. No bigger than a faroff star you'd see in the sky, one was following the other, suddenly stopping completely, and fading away in a matter of a minute or less. Presumably, whatever it was stopped moving leftward in the sky and started moving away from me (into space), giving the appearance that they were just fading away.
The truth is far worse than the assumption of being alone in the universe...
Great idea in relation to the earth's transits. Maybe we should be looking for signals that are intentionally interrupted by there transits?
If you consider how we are suddenly looking for ways to protect earth from space based threats we will surely in future try to protect our sun from threats, thus shining a very bright laser at all the stars might trigger a security response from an advanced race which might be a good thing or a really bad thing if they consider us hostile for doing that.
Watching this video made me go back and re-watch the film Contact - I had forgotten just how much I love that film. If we can avoid the collapse of civilization I am envious of those who get to meet alien civilizations, but thankful to have seen a little of the journey there
The existence of Schelling points depends on having the same or at least compatible intentions. So we need a civilization striving for contact with another one. In our own civilization there are at the moment only some groups actively searching for contact - most people are indifferent or even sceptical if it would do us any good. We could assume that in many civilizations at a similar cultural and technological stage there would be similar or even stronger reservations (depending on culture, history, psychology), while civilizations at a lower technological stage would not be able to communicate at all and civilizations at a higher (or radically different) cultural and scientific level would assume radically different Schelling points (if any).
So it is the old problem of meeting someone with a similar state of mind at a specific time in their and our (cultural) evolution within a distance which allows some kind of communication using our existing technology - and radio waves e.g. became indecipherable noise at a certain distance. If you are very lucky and if you use highly sopisticated equipment, you can perhaps identify it as probably coming from an artificial source, but that is about all of information you can get from it - a lighthouse in space, but not one able to send at least some morse code.
Yeah why not use light gamma rays
@@trippy_rubixs9876 The sky is to bright. There is much background radiation from all the suns. The signal could easily be overseen. If you consider how difficult it is to see a big planet in a nearby solar system, you would need a huge emitter as well as a energy level comparable to a small sun if you wanted to broadcast something. "Smallcasting" would be easier: Sending a message by a directional laser beam to a certain point not too far away would probably work and need far less energy - but then you had to know before where to direct your beam.
@@MichaEl-rh1kv what about in places like Alaska where it is dark for like 3 4 months during their winter and lazer right we already have some amazing ones im sure we could figure something out
@@trippy_rubixs9876 It is not dark. You can still see the light of stars - and we talk about interstellar communication. If you are near a star (like on any planet) it is difficult to outshine it over interstellar distances. You would either have to make a light radically different from that of your sun or to manipulate your sun itself (which would in most cases be really dangerous for all nearby).
If we are in the polar night = the shade of Earth, we can see more light from the stars, but we can still not see the light coming from one point of one of their planets. With the James Webb Space Telescope we hope to become able to see nearby planets not only as a single pixel, but with some details. But it will not suffice to detect a light source much smaller than the diameter of such a planet (except perhaps it is something like a huge fusion bomb).
A new Cool World video is nothing less than a Marvel cinema release for me.
Great video, out of curiosity, has anyone ever tried to analyze what baseline intelligence would need to be for alien contact to occur?
That intelligence might revolve around a normal curve and then trying to understand the occurance of a specific level of intelligence along with the number of likely connections with other similarly intelligent individuals within a society that would over time lead to milestone discoveries for a civilization.
Are humans 1-sigma in that type of hierarchy? Are we "dumb" relatively based on the requirements? Are we somehow more intelligent than normal?
It seems like a strange question to ask, but watching this video I wonder what types and levels of intelligence are required for some particular thing to be an "obvious" Schelling Point to multiple civilizations.
I'm not even sure how to search for research that might answer this question...
EDIT: For clarity, and conversation... if the average human IQ was 75 (relatively speaking) what impact would that have on civilization? What if it was 125? What if it was 250.
(I know there will be quips about different kinds of intelligence, etc... what can you do)
I would start with the Kardashev Scale and the Fermi Paradox for some starter insight into this... then go from there. I think your questions would make a compelling thought experiment on their own!
It's probably important to consider not only intelligence but a species communication capabilities.
Much of our technological evolution was built upon increasing the rate of information communicated between humans. In terms of intelligence, I think a species would need to reach a point of where they become capable of passing complex knowledge between one another. This way they could sort of manifest this emergent superintelligence that we utilize today.
No human knows how to build a handheld graphing calculator completely from scratch, nevermind a rocket. Perhaps aliens would be the same way about their spacecraft
@@nawtmyrealnamelol I could imagine a super intelligent species who has a weakness of being very long lived and thus having very few offspring. The small number of offspring could lead to a very low population that never reaches a connection threshold that is high enough to reach the necessary mile stones.
The more I think of it, the more I go back to the book "Connections" by James Burke and the associated television show. But a bit in reverse, or sideways, or something.
EDIT: The end point of that thought tree is probably another solution to the Fermi Paradox... It probably isn't just intelligence, but also the genetic need for population growth, along with scarcity of materials (The Foundation being placed on Terminus), and some other Venn Diagram shenanigan.
👋🖐The Connections (2021) [short documentary] 💖🙌✌
@@nawtmyrealnamelol I agree, but communication is one of only 2 requirements for the type of runaway (exponential) technological growth that humanity has undergone. The other is the ability to create new tools from the environment, and requires not only intelligence but also creativity. Even if a species possesses human-level communication ability but is unable to figure out that, if you attach a stone to a stick, you combine the length of the stick and the power of a stone, then all of that information transfer and collective memory that ensues from this communication ability will be of no use.
The reason that technological progress has been exponential since pretty much the dawn of civilisation is that, as newer tools got created, those newer tools were used to create even better tools, and those were in turn to create yet better tools, etc. Of course, knowledge about how to build the earlier tools would still need to be preserved for the newer tools to be built, so collective memory ─ pretty much only attainable via advanced communication ─ is still necessary, but its role can be compared to that of a catalyst; the actual "reactant" in the phenomenon of technological growth has been our ability to create tools.
So, it seems like the answer to OC's question is probably the same as the answer to the question of what baseline level of intelligence one would require in order to be able to create new tools from the environment ─ a question that could hypothetically be scientifically answered via testing.
One schilling point in time for intelligent life is the singularity for artificial intelligence where biological intelligence is almost instantly superseded. This could be applied to the simulation hypothesis where the epoch in time to start the simulation is just before the singularity where the event could be witnessed. This is why we are here now.
The probability of finding some civilization around our own technology level, seems to me impossible, given we are just in our first steps as a technological advance civilization, everyone out there should be milenia ahead of us.
Or way, way behind us.
Yes, Mr. Poet, they are asking the same question. Every individual is an alien to every other. Life must persist until it cannot. Universally.
Thanks, btw. Your lyrical thoughts are extremely liberating. Made my day. Life is a penny rocket, allowing for relativity. . .
Ok I just gotta say this... Bro... It is an absolute pleasure to have you make this content.... I love space.. Universe... And even just the concept of our reality and I've actually been watching you're videos for a while now... But I wish I could have just a sit down and convo about it but I DJ across the country and its like no one cares about our advancements... And more so just the thought of making contact with other species (out of this world).... What if we are the only ones here... But to me... As far as my perspective.... There's no way it's just this world that harbours life! Maybe different perspectives as we call it ... But yeah.... I think it is only a matter of time!
I don't know about anyone else but I feel the need for us to find out we're not alone and alien life doing the exact same wishing and hoping they aren't alone in this vast lonely universe. Like a sense of longing
Yup
I just can't get enough of your videos!
Thank You!
Fantastic video (as always!) and I like the Picard (?) on your desk ^^
Why would we assume that a highly advanced civilization would forget what it is like to be more primitive? If they suspect that there are many others less advanced out there (and have any interest in contact...) would they not be able to take this into account when choosing Schelling points?
Innovation and evolution of civilizations doesn't necessarily follow a linear path.
I can relate. I'm 51 yes old. Schelling points is what dating is all about .
Great show from Cool Ideas and another excellent post. Thank you.
"If we are not here now, we were there before.
(Coordinates for the Sol System, with indication to inspect the third planet from the star)
Nothing could be more exciting than meeting new people and to share life with others.
It can only be hoped you are out there, and we are still here.
Come and see what can be learned."
I'd like to think that'd be a good message to put in a bottle. Short, honest, a little self aware and vague, but welcoming. Hopeful. Not too scared or vain or desperate, lonely, posturing or confident.
They may not be out and we might not be around when they give the bell or phone a ring.
But wouldn't it just be Great, however frightening or reassuring it'd be, wouldn't it just be Something?
@12:48
"...human radio leakage washed over them..."
Is that like a Sonic Golden Shower?
I'll show myself out.
"The moment we decide to stop is the moment we've committed to failure." True, but in the face of certain failure, giving up can be freeing. One can save energy, time, and other resources. I've given up hope of ever having another job or relationship. This makes my future simple, but I wish I had the strength to just lie down and die. Hopefully humanity keeps going as it becomes painfully obvious that it too is alone until it dies.
I press like even before the video has finished. As soon as I hear prof. David voice I know it will be a great video!
Fantastic and mind-expanding work, once again. The knowledge and originality of thought you share are a huge gift to the collective. I have idly wondered if it might be possible to beat pulsar signals against each other looking for any interesting patterns (or "messages") in the beat waveform. Going further, perhaps one might try using a separate, offset pulsar (offset in both space and frequency) to provide a reference frequency and then heterodyne with however many pulsars to get some very weird semi-music from the sky.
This makes my week all the time!
I always love looking in the stars at night... and thinking that other aliens think the same.
When our universe expands well enough that everything is so far away that you can no longer see anything anymore when you look up, new big bangs will occur. This big bangs came from some of the black holes and did not necessarily occur at the same time. Basically, space pulsates like beating hearts.
If we've already received messages.i don't think they'd tell us anyway