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Extraterrestrial life, colloquially referred to as alien life, is life that may occur outside of Earth and which did not originate on Earth. No extraterrestrial life has yet been conclusively detected, although efforts are underway. Such life might range from simple forms like prokaryotes to intelligent beings, possibly bringing forth civilizations that might be far more advanced than humankind. The Drake equation speculates about the existence of sapient life elsewhere in the universe. The science of extraterrestrial life is known as astrobiology.
The Fermi paradox is the discrepancy between the lack of conclusive evidence of advanced extraterrestrial life compared to the apparently high a priori likelihood of its existence. As a 2015 article put it, "If life is so easy, someone from somewhere must have come calling by now."
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the most prestigious and highly ranked academic institutions in the world.
Extraterrestrial intelligence refers to hypothetical intelligent extraterrestrial life. The question of whether other inhabited worlds might exist has been debated since ancient times. The modern form of the concept emerged when the Copernican Revolution demonstrated that the Earth was a planet revolving around the Sun, and other planets were, conversely, other worlds. The question of whether other inhabited planets or moons exist was a natural consequence of this new understanding. It has become one of the most speculative questions in science and is a central theme of science fiction and popular culture.
Jill Cornell Tarter is an American astronomer best known for her work on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). Tarter is the former director of the Center for SETI Research, holding the Bernard M. Oliver Chair for SETI at the SETI Institute. In 2002, Discover magazine recognized her as one of the 50 most important women in science.
Seth Shostak is an American astronomer and author, and is currently the senior astronomer for the SETI Institute.
The communication with extraterrestrial intelligence (CETI) is a branch of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) that focuses on composing and deciphering interstellar messages that theoretically could be understood by another technological civilization. The best-known CETI experiment of its kind was the 1974 Arecibo message composed by Frank Drake.
Walter Hendrik Gustav Lewin is a Dutch astrophysicist and retired professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Lewin earned his doctorate in nuclear physics in 1965 at the Delft University of Technology and was a member of MIT's physics faculty for 43 years beginning in 1966 until his retirement in 2009.
The Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) is an annual science fair in the United States. It is owned and administered by the Society for Science, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C. Each May, more than 1500 students from roughly 70 countries and territories compete in the fair for scholarships, tuition grants, internships, scientific field trips and the grand prizes, including one $75,000 and two $50,000 college scholarships. All prizes together amount to over $5,000,000. Two awards ceremonies are held including: Special Awards Organization Presentation and the Grand Awards Ceremony. The International Science and Engineering Fair was founded in 1950 by Science Service and was sponsored by Intel from 1997 to 2019. Since 2020, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals is the title sponsor for ISEF, but the event that year was cancelled and replaced with an online version due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Jason Matthew Daniel Pontin is a British-born venture capitalist and journalist. He is a partner at the venture capital firm of DCVC in Palo Alto, and is a board member and seed investor in a number of life sciences companies. He is the former editor in chief and publisher of MIT Technology Review.
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Abraham "Avi" Loeb is an Israeli-American theoretical physicist who works on astrophysics and cosmology. Loeb is the Frank B. Baird Jr. Professor of Science at Harvard University. He had been the longest serving chair of Harvard's Department of Astronomy (2011–2020), founding director of Harvard's Black Hole Initiative and director of the Institute for Theory and Computation within the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
George Fitzgerald Smoot III is an American astrophysicist, cosmologist, Nobel laureate, and the second contestant to win the $1 million prize on Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?. He won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2006 for his work on the Cosmic Background Explorer with John C. Mather that led to the "discovery of the black body form and anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation".
The Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) is the engineering school within Harvard University's Faculty of Arts and Sciences, offering degrees in engineering and applied sciences to graduate students admitted directly to SEAS, and to undergraduates admitted first to Harvard College. Previously the Lawrence Scientific School and then the Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences, the Paulson School assumed its current structure in 2007. Francis J. Doyle III has been its dean since 2015.
Active SETI is the attempt to send messages to intelligent extraterrestrial life. Active SETI messages are predominantly sent in the form of radio signals. Physical messages like that of the Pioneer plaque may also be considered an active SETI message. Active SETI is also known as METI.
Charles Stuart Bowyer was an American astronomer and academic. He was a professor at the University of California.
Taylor Wilson is an American nuclear physicist and science advocate. Wilson achieved controlled nuclear fusion in 2008 when he was 14 years old. He has designed a compact radiation detector to enhance airport security. Wilson works to expand applications for nuclear medicine, and to design and develop modular power reactor technology.
Technosignature or technomarker is any measurable property or effect that provides scientific evidence of past or present technology. Technosignatures are analogous to biosignatures, which signal the presence of life, whether intelligent or not. Some authors prefer to exclude radio transmissions from the definition, but such restrictive usage is not widespread. Jill Tarter has proposed that the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) be renamed "the search for technosignatures". Various types of technosignatures, such as radiation leakage from megascale astroengineering installations such as Dyson spheres, the light from an extraterrestrial ecumenopolis, or Shkadov thrusters with the power to alter the orbits of stars around the Galactic Center, may be detectable with hypertelescopes. Some examples of technosignatures are described in Paul Davies's 2010 book The Eerie Silence, although the terms "technosignature" and "technomarker" do not appear in the book.
Jeremy England is an American physicist who uses statistical physics arguments to explain the spontaneous emergence of life, and consequently, the modern synthesis of evolution. England terms this process "dissipation-driven adaptation".
SPARC is a tokamak under development by Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC). Funding has come from Eni, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Khosla Ventures, Temasek, Equinor, Devonshire Investors, and others.
References
- ↑ "Henry Lin". ted.com. Retrieved 24 July 2014.
- ↑ "30 Under 30 – Forbes". forbes.com.
- ↑ Henry Lin (27 February 2014). "Henry Lin: What we can learn from galaxies far, far away – Talk Video – TED.com". ted.com.
- ↑ Johnson, Carolyn. "Scientists can detect pollution in search for 'intelligent' life". Boston Globe . Retrieved 24 July 2014.
- ↑ Overbye, Dennis (21 July 2014). "More Eyes on the Skies". The New York Times. NY Times . Retrieved 24 July 2014.
- ↑ Lemonick, Michael. "The Search for Extraterrestrial Air Pollution". Time Magazine . Retrieved 28 July 2014.
- ↑ "Astrophysicists Prove That Cities On Earth Grow in the Same Way As Galaxies in Space". MIT Tech Review.
- ↑ "Life May Have Spread Through the Galaxy Like a Plague". Smithsonian .
- ↑ "Henry Lin | Department of Physics".
