Student "edition" found at {csi dot journalspace dot com}.

Maybe I shouldn't have started this blog now, not with everything that's been going on.

During the third week of classes, the students taking up Science Fiction literature had their first film viewing session, which were the movies “Contact” and “Independence Day”.

So afterwards I had to lecture again on some of the real science sources of the first movie, and the real science impossibilities from the second movie.

In other words, it was about “Good Science Fiction” against “Bad Science Fiction” once more.

I talked about the actual efforts being made by the group on Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence or SETI, about listening in to the radio signals from each star for several minutes at a time for the whole sky – or the part of the sky that’s visible to them – then repeating the entire cycle.

I discussed the verifications being made by these personnel (not all of whom are scientists or astronomers) every time they get a candidate signal, to make sure that it is not from the overhead satellites that may be in the way or from encrypted military transmissions that may just sound alien.

Then I detailed the time and distance that the broadcast from Earth had to travel to Vega and back (26 years one way), which gives the current time of the movie.

“Imagine receiving a Happy Birthday text message after that long,” someone remarked.

Next I explained about the Einstein-Rosen bridge or the theory of wormholes, along with the Theory of Relativity, emphasizing that both have really not yet been proven.

I forgot to go into Occam’s Razor, and my co-teacher did not mention it to me until afterwards.

As for “Independence Day” the students had their own moments of disbelief during the movie. I only mentioned the impossibility of not getting a picture of an object a fourth the size of the moon given the thousands of amateur astronomers out there, and an explosion in a tunnel bypassing an open side door where Will Smith’s wife ran through.

Session 963 is not from aliens. Class dismissed.