Astro Night

Thu, November 01, 2018

Abstract: 
What is the possibility of other intelligent life in the universe? Can we detect radio, infrared, or optical  signals from other civilizations? Current and future SETI projects, including the new $100-million Breakthrough Prize Foundation Listen project, may provide an answer. Berkeley SETI Research Center chief scientist Dan Werthimer will describe the rationale for past and future searches and will show how new technologies are revolutionizing SETI. Dan will describe Breakthrough Listen, SETI@home, the new PANOSETI wide field all-sky-all-the-time project, as well as concepts for future SETI.

 

Bio: 
Dan Werthimer was in the “Homebrew Computer Club” with Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak; everyone in that club became ultra-rich, except Dan, because he wanted to search for ET. Although Dan isn't ultra-rich, he is the Marilyn and Watson Alberts SETI Chair,  chief scientist of the Berkeley SETI Research Center, and principal investigator of SETI@home and the Center for Astronomy Signal Processing and Electronics Research (CASPER). Dan has testified to congress about SETI; he is co-author of "SETI 2020", editor of "BioAstronomy: Molecules, Microbes and Extraterrestrial Life" and "Astronomical and Biochemical Origins and the Search for Life in the Universe". He has been Associate Professor in the engineering and physics departments of San Francisco State University and a visiting professor at Beijing Normal University, the University of St. Charles in Marseille, and Eotvos University in Budapest. He has also taught at universities in Peru, Egypt, Ghana, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Uganda and Kenya.