From: LARRY KLAES (ljk4_at_msn.com)
Date: Sat May 17 2003 - 07:07:48 PDT
SETI director makes contact
The Day Monte Vista stood still
By Jeanine Benca, STAFF WRITER
Saturday, May 17, 2003 - DANVILLE -- Jill Tartar has yet to careen through a space-time wormhole into the farthest reaches of the universe and make contact with extraterrestrial lifeforms.
But that's no excuse for others to stop trying.
Such was the message the renowned physicist and researcher imparted to local teenagers Friday.
Tartar, the real-life model for Jodie Foster's role in the movie, "Contact," directs the privately funded Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute (SETI), based in Mountain View.
She dropped by Monte Vista High School this week to remind members of Generation Y that most of today's scientific realities were once science fiction.
"I don't know whether I will succeed, whether my granddaughter will succeed, whether SETI will ever succeed ... But I do know if we never search, the probability of finding something is zero."
Tartar received her doctorate in astrophysics from the University of California, Berkeley, and is well known for her work on SETI's Project Phoenix -- a broad search for alien signals that uses some of the world's largest telescopes.
Founded in 1984, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute was taken under NASA's wing a year later.
In 1994, scientists received a devastating blow when Congress cut funding for the program. But the Institute has survived intact, with the help of private donors.
On Friday, Tartar shared her personal and scientific journey with students.
One of only a handful of women in the world qualified to answer questions like, "How do we know the universe is expanding?" she admits the most intriguing inquiries -- "Is time travel possible?" and "Are we alone in the universe?" -- continue to evade even the sharpest of scientific minds.
Tartar helped sate the curiosity of students who asked if the movie "Contact" was grounded in reality.
Based on the novel by Carl Sagan, the Hollywood blockbuster features Jodie Foster in Tartar's role, as the director of SETI.
After intercepting a coded message from a nearby galaxy, Foster's character uses it to travel through space and time. One issue presented in the film was how alien hunters can differentiate man-made "hoaxes" from real, intergalactic signals.
"How would scientists be able to tell if there was a hoax?" one student asked.
"Getting an independent confirmation of a signal is the best way to arm against hoaxes," Tartar responded. "What did Jodie Foster do? If you remember from the movie, she called Australia and got an independent confirmation."
Another student asked, "Even if we did send a signal out, how would (the aliens) understand it?"
On that point, Tartar says one of the movie's major themes -- that mathematics is the "universal language" -- makes a lot of sense.
"You could create a message starting with mathematics. Eventually, by using math, you can create very abstract, complex ideas. Why send words or text? Why not send pictures? Or music?"
Still, major obstacles remain, says Tartar, who lamented the absence of a "global government" on Earth that would make it easier to reach out to extraterrestrials, should the opportunity ever present itself.
Students called Tartar a "genius" and said they hoped they would live to see the day when real "contact" is made.
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