Why looking for other civilizations is really about understanding the future of our own.
After 2,500 years of human beings arguing over their opinions about life beyond Earth, science is finally poised to gain real data relevant to the question. Spectacular advances in astronomy, including the discovery of thousands of “exoplanets” orbiting other stars, will soon allow us to carry out detailed searches for alien life. The discovery of any kind of life – intelligent or not – will be revolutionary. Finding evidence for other technological civilizations, however, would have profound implications not only for our own place in the cosmos but also for how we view the human future with all its grand possibilities and grave challenges.
In this talk I will explore the rapidly evolving field of Astrobiology, show how the search for alien life will be carried out and, finally, explore its consequences for a human civilization that is poised to mature beyond “cosmic adolescence”
About the Speaker
Adam Frank is the Helen F. and Fred H. Gowen Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Rochester. An astrophysicist and astrobiologist, Frank’s computational research group at the University of Rochester has developed advanced supercomputer tools for astrophysical gas dynamics and magnetogasdynamics. These codes were used to study topics such as the formation of stars and the evolution of exo-planet atmospheres.
Much of his current work focuses on how life and planets evolve together. For this work he is the Principal Investigator of NASA’s first program to study the planetary-scale “technosignatures” that exo-civilizations may produce. He also works in “Physics of Life” research exploring the role of semantic information in the evolution of agency and autonomy.
Frank has been a regular on-air commentator for NPR’s All Things Considered and CNN. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, The Atlantic and other media outlets and currently he co-runs the 13.8 blog on BigThink.com. Frank was the science consultant for Marvel’s Doctor Strange and was the 2020 winner of the Carl Sagan Medal from the American Astronomical Society. He is the author of five books, including most recently, The Little Book of Aliens and The Blind Spot. How Science Cannot Ignore Human Experience (co-authored with Marcelo Gleiser and Evan Thompson). His new project is a weekly newsletter called Everyman’s Universe (which can be subscribed to here)