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bananas

(27,509 posts) Mon Jul 20, 2015, 11:04 AM Jul 2015

Stephen Hawking and Yuri Milner Announce $100M Initiative to Seek ET

Source: Scientific American

Milner, a tech start-up entrepreneur and philanthropist, is partnering with scientists around the world to search for life among the stars

SETI—the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence—has been one of the most captivating areas of science since its inception in 1960, when the astronomer Frank Drake used an 85-foot radio telescope in the first-ever attempt to detect interstellar radio transmissions sent by beings outside our solar system. Yet despite its high public visibility and near-ubiquity in blockbuster Hollywood science fiction, throughout most of its 55-year history SETI has languished on the fringes of scientific research, garnering relatively scant funding and only small amounts of dedicated observation time on world-class telescopes.

Today, in a live webcast originating from London and set for 6:30 am Eastern, the Russian entrepreneur Yuri Milner, along with the physicist Stephen Hawking, is announcing his intentions to change that. Watch the live streamed event below, starting at 6:30 am.

Although Milner has made his name—and billions of dollars—through investments in Facebook, Alibaba, and many other tech start-ups, his true passion is science, which he has demonstrated through his formation of the Breakthrough Prize Foundation. This organization awards the world's most lavish scientific prizes. Milner's latest project is part of the Foundation's new Breakthrough Initiatives division and is called Breakthrough Listen. Providing $100 million in funding over the next decade to top SETI researchers, Breakthrough Listen will allow new state-of-the-art radio and optical surveys to take place using the world's premiere telescopes, creating the most ambitious and robust SETI program yet performed. The project is set to begin making observations in 2016.

Following the live webcast, Milner and distinguished scientists participating in Breakthrough Listen will conduct a media teleconference to discuss the new project and answer questions. Scientific American will continue to follow this story as it develops.

Read more: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/stephen-hawking-and-yuri-milner-announce-100m-initiative-to-seek-extraterrestrial-intelligence/

15 replies

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Highlight:

Stephen Hawking and Yuri Milner Announce $100M Initiative to Seek ET (Original Post) bananas Jul 2015 OP

Yuri Milner, Russian Entrepreneur, Promises $100 Million for Alien Search bananas Jul 2015 #1

Stephen Hawking steps up search for alien life bananas Jul 2015 #2

Yuri Milner To Provide $100M To Fund Search For Alien Life bananas Jul 2015 #3

Read the Inspiring 'Questions of Existence' Letter from the World’s Greatest Thinkers bananas Jul 2015 #4

The signatory list is very impressive longship Jul 2015 #5

Yes - and Frank Drake spoke at the announcement too bananas Jul 2015 #7

Direct link to the announcement video bananas Jul 2015 #9

Don't confuse this "Breakthrough Initiative" with the crackpot "Breakthrough Institute" bananas Jul 2015 #6

That's some pretty damning/stupid stuff from the "breakthrough institoot". erronis Jul 2015 #10

Kicked and recommended. Uncle Joe Jul 2015 #8

Ummm...I really think we should be careful with this stuff. roamer65 Jul 2015 #11

Sorry, but the distances are seriously large. longship Jul 2015 #12

Also, any signal we receive would likely be many light years away. longship Jul 2015 #13

Uh, didn't Hawkings say this was a bad idea recently? nt B2G Jul 2015 #14

How hard are they looking? CanSocDem Jul 2015 #15

bananas

(27,509 posts)

1. Yuri Milner, Russian Entrepreneur, Promises $100 Million for Alien Search

Reply to bananas (Original post)

Mon Jul 20, 2015, 11:06 AM

Jul 2015

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/21/science/yuri-milner-russian-entrepreneur-promises-100-million-for-alien-search.html?_r=0

Yuri Milner, Russian Entrepreneur, Promises $100 Million for Alien Search
By DENNIS OVERBYEJULY 20, 2015

Extending his idea of philanthropy beyond the earth and even the human species, Yuri Milner, the Russian Internet entrepreneur and founder of science giveaways like the annual $3 million Fundamental Physics Prizes, announced in London on Monday that he would spend at least $100 million in the next decade to search for signals from alien civilizations.

<snip>

“It’s just a miracle,” said Frank Drake, an emeritus professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who joined Mr. Milner and others, including the cosmologist Stephen Hawking, in a news conference Monday at the Royal Society in London.

Dan Werthimer, a longtime SETI researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, said, “This is beyond my wildest dreams.”

In a prepared statement at the announcement, Dr. Hawking said that atoms and the forces of nature and the dance of galaxies could explain the lights in the sky, but not the lights on Earth. “In an infinite universe there must be other occurrences of life,” he said. “Or do our lights wonder a lifeless universe? Either way, there is no bigger question.”

<snip>

bananas

(27,509 posts)

2. Stephen Hawking steps up search for alien life

Reply to bananas (Original post)

Mon Jul 20, 2015, 11:11 AM

Jul 2015

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/stephen-hawking-russian-billionaire-yuri-milner-search-alien-outer-space/

CBS/AP July 20, 2015, 9:16 AM
Stephen Hawking steps up search for alien life

LONDON -- Renowned physicist Stephen Hawking and Russian tech entrepreneur Yuri Milner are pushing the search for extraterrestrial life into higher gear.

The pair said Monday the $100 million "Breakthrough Initiatives" program funded by Milner will harness computer power as never before in a search of the heavens.

<snip>

The program will involve millions working in tandem by donating spare computing power to a worldwide network.

Milner said it will be the widest search ever and generate data in one day that previously would have taken one year.

<snip>

bananas

(27,509 posts)

3. Yuri Milner To Provide $100M To Fund Search For Alien Life

Reply to bananas (Original post)

Mon Jul 20, 2015, 11:31 AM

Jul 2015

http://www.wsj.com/articles/yuri-milner-to-provide-100-million-for-outer-space-data-collection-effort-1437385233

Yuri Milner to Fund $100 Million Search for Intelligent Alien Life
Russian billionaire is known for his early bets on Facebook and Twitter

By Douglas MacMillan And Gautam Naik
July 20, 2015 5:40 a.m. ET

Man’s quest for discovering life on other planets is getting a $100 million boost from a Silicon Valley magnate.

Yuri Milner, the Russian billionaire who burst on to the U.S. venture-capital scene with early bets on Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc., is personally funding a bold new effort to scan the skies for signs of intelligent alien life.

Mr. Milner’s check will go to support a team of researchers, based at the University of California, Berkeley, tasked with collecting more data from outer space in a single day than previous efforts collected over an entire year. To do that, the group plans to rent out two of the world’s largest telescopes, in West Virginia and New South Wales, Australia, over the next 10 years, and use new signal-processing techniques to scan a greater spectrum of their radio frequencies than ever before.

“Our search will be 100 times better than any previous search for intelligent life in the universe,” said Geoff Marcy, who chairs Berkeley’s decades-old Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, or SETI. The project will survey about a billion stars closest to Earth and listen for any signals from the 100 closest galaxies beyond the Milky Way.

<snip>

bananas

(27,509 posts)

4. Read the Inspiring 'Questions of Existence' Letter from the World’s Greatest Thinkers

Reply to bananas (Original post)

Mon Jul 20, 2015, 11:35 AM

Jul 2015

http://time.com/3964301/breakthrough-listen-letter/

Read the Inspiring ‘Questions of Existence’ Letter from the World’s Greatest Thinkers
Matt Vella 9:42 AM ET

Why we should be searching for life beyond our solar system

On July 20, a consortium of scientists funded by billionaire investor Yuri Milner announced a $100 million project to scan the universe for signs of intelligent life. Milner, 53, a prescient technology investor, is also a former physicist. The endeavor, named Breakthrough Listen, is being supported by some of the world’s most well-known scientists and thinkers. As part of the announcement, the group release a letter explaining why the search matters and why it must continue. Here is the document in full.

<snip>

longship

(40,416 posts)

5. The signatory list is very impressive

Reply to bananas (Original post)

Mon Jul 20, 2015, 12:03 PM

Jul 2015

Sorry, the Time magazine link would not allow a copy/paste, but it lists those who have signed onto this initiative, including two Nobel laureates, James Watson and Stephen Weinberg.

This is a very good thing.

bananas

(27,509 posts)

7. Yes - and Frank Drake spoke at the announcement too

Reply to longship (Reply #5)

Mon Jul 20, 2015, 12:45 PM

Jul 2015

The article in the OP has the archive of the live stream,
there's about 7 minutes of dead air at the beginning.

bananas

(27,509 posts)

9. Direct link to the announcement video

Reply to longship (Reply #5)

Mon Jul 20, 2015, 01:30 PM

Jul 2015

http://livestream.com/accounts/6714632/events/4205486/player?width=600&height=338&autoPlay=true&mute=false

bananas

(27,509 posts)

6. Don't confuse this "Breakthrough Initiative" with the crackpot "Breakthrough Institute"

Reply to bananas (Original post)

Mon Jul 20, 2015, 12:26 PM

Jul 2015

There's a "think-tank" called "The Breakthrough Institute" which is full of crackpots.

One of them is Barry Brook, who discredited himself while Fukushima was melting down on live TV, claiming:

1. There is no credible risk of a serious accident.

http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/03/12/japan-nuclear-earthquake/

and later in that discussion:

There will be no breach of containment and no release of radioactivity beyond, at the very most, some venting of mildly radioactive steam to relieve pressure. Those spreading FUD at the moment will be the ones left with egg on their faces.

I am happy to be quoted forever after on the above if I am wrong… but I won’t be.

- posted 12 March 2011 at 1:55 PM by Barry Brook

http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/03/12/japan-nuclear-earthquake/#comment-113871

As Chico Marx once said, "Who you gonna believe, me or your lying eyes?"

The organization keeps getting soundly debunked, yet somehow keeps getting funding.

http://ethics.harvard.edu/blog/breakthrough-institutes-inconvenient-history-al-gore

The Breakthrough Institute's Inconvenient History with Al Gore
April 14, 2014
by Paul D. Thacker

While sometimes functioning as shadow universities, think tanks have been exposed as quasi lobbying organizations, with little funding transparency. Recent research has also pointed out that think tanks suffer from a lack of intellectual rigor. A case in point is the Breakthrough Institute run by Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger, which describes itself as a "progressive think tank."

If you’ve been following recent news on climate change, then you must have witnessed the recent meltdown happening over at the Breakthrough Institute. In a March 19 post at Nate Silver’s new FiveThirtyEight journalism site, Breakthrough Institute Senior Fellow Roger Pielke wrote a piece titled “Disasters Cost More than Ever—But Not Because of Climate Change.” The article was highly criticized for cherry picking information on climate change impacts, with Slate labeling it an “Unnatural Disaster” and an embarrassment to Silver’s new venture.

<snip>

The Breakthrough Institute has a clear history as a contrarian outlet for information on climate change and regularly criticizes environmental groups. One writer describes them as a “program for hippie-punching your way to fame and fortune.”

<snip>

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2009/06/17/204250/the-breakthrough-institute-shellenberger-nordhaus-waxman-markey/

Debunking Breakthrough Institute’s attacks on Obama, Gore, and top climate scientists
by Joe Romm Jun 17, 2009 7:15pm

The Breakthrough Institute (TBI) has dedicated the resources of their organization to trying to kill prospects for climate and clean energy action in this Congress and to spreading disinformation about Obama, Gore, Congressional leaders, Waxman and Markey, leading climate scientists, Al Gore again, the entire environmental community and anyone else trying to end our status quo energy policies, including me (see “Memo to media: Don’t be suckered by bad analyses from the Breakthrough Institute” and “Will America lose the clean-energy race? Only if we listen to the disinformers of The Breakthrough Institute“). Now they are embracing and defended those who deny the reality of climate science.

<snip>

http://cleantechnica.com/2013/06/17/the-breakthrough-institute-why-the-hot-air/

The Breakthrough Institute – Why The Hot Air?
June 17th, 2013 by Thomas Gerke

I’ve recently stumbled upon a number of articles by the Breakthrough Institute (BTI) that aimed at discrediting renewable energy on the one hand and on the other preaching about nuclear energy as the solution for the global energy crisis of the 21st century. With their hearts and minds pre-set on pushing their narrative, that some kind of a nuclear salvation is being held back by leftish environmentalists (sinister!), the so called German “Energiewende” (Energy Transition) has apparently become a regular target of the Breakthrough Institute staff’s publications.

<snip>

http://grist.org/climate-policy/breakthrough-institute-gets-it-wrong-on-climate-economics-again/

Breakthrough Institute gets it wrong on climate economics — again
By Frank Ackerman on 19 May 2012

Why do those at the Breakthrough Institute insist that everyone else besides them who cares about the environment is wrong, wrong, wrong? Their latest, called “The Creative Destruction of Climate Economics,” is a swipe at those misguided souls who think putting a price on carbon emissions would help combat climate change.

<snip>

etc etc etc

erronis

(15,328 posts)

10. That's some pretty damning/stupid stuff from the "breakthrough institoot".

Reply to bananas (Reply #6)

Mon Jul 20, 2015, 01:38 PM

Jul 2015

Your comment: "The organization keeps getting soundly debunked, yet somehow keeps getting funding."

It sounds like it is coming from the same source as other climate change deniers: Koch and cronies.

Uncle Joe

(58,416 posts)

8. Kicked and recommended.

Reply to bananas (Original post)

Mon Jul 20, 2015, 01:25 PM

Jul 2015

Thanks for the thread, bananas.

roamer65

(36,747 posts)

11. Ummm...I really think we should be careful with this stuff.

Reply to bananas (Original post)

Mon Jul 20, 2015, 06:51 PM

Jul 2015

Ask the Native Americans what they think about being "discovered" by the Europeans. We definitely cannot guarantee first contact would go at all well. Passive "listening" is ok, but we should not announce ourselves any more than we already have.

longship

(40,416 posts)

12. Sorry, but the distances are seriously large.

Reply to roamer65 (Reply #11)

Mon Jul 20, 2015, 07:32 PM

Jul 2015

And again, sorry, there are likely no warp drives in reality.

So relax, there are no aliens probing Texas farmers, or whomever. Broadcast away. It won't make a difference one way or another.

The galaxy is really fucking big. Getting anywhere is a real problem. It's that old rocket equation thingie.

My best to you.

longship

(40,416 posts)

13. Also, any signal we receive would likely be many light years away.

Reply to roamer65 (Reply #11)

Tue Jul 21, 2015, 08:08 AM

Jul 2015

So two way communication just is not very practical. Hell. I don't even know whether interstellar travel is at all practical. It's that old rocket equation problem again. Again, there likely are not any warp drives. You know, gotta obey the laws of physics and all that.

So the danger is near zero.

I cannot speak for alien psychology but it just does not make any sense to travel to another stellar system for conquest, or whatever... Take our water or something. Or to eat us.

I say broadcast away. It is not likely anybody would ever hear it.

B2G

(9,766 posts)

14. Uh, didn't Hawkings say this was a bad idea recently? nt

Reply to bananas (Original post)

Tue Jul 21, 2015, 08:38 AM

Jul 2015

Yes, he did.

"If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans," he said. "We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet."
In the new program, "Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking," he speculated that aliens' capabilities "would be only limited by how much power they could harness and control, and that could be far more than we might first imagine."

CanSocDem

(3,286 posts)

15. How hard are they looking?

Reply to bananas (Original post)

Tue Jul 21, 2015, 11:17 AM

Jul 2015

It appears to be just enough to get these huge MIC contracts 'off the ground'.

The planet has been inundated with ET's in their flying machines for decades with more and more credible evidence showing up every day, and in some quarters, psychic mediums have been channelling for 'ET'. The thing is, ET says they're on their way already.

So it's like this old time religion that preaches that there are no flying saucers and no long distance space travel because our God tells us so. And if they're real, it's because... "they are after our freedom".

Their help in advancing our planetary culture will be resisted at the highest levels. Some will call it "The work of Satan". Things like free energy will be demonized as will the introduction of mature intellectual analysis in all social affairs. As in...No More Wars.

I'd love to see the look of surprise on Stephen Hawking's face when ET says hello....

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