Corrected entry: When they contacted Australia to confirm the signal before Vega set, you can that hear Ellie's team still has the signal tuned in when they are talking to Australia. This couldn't have happened because Australia and US are opposite each other, therefore only one country could have been pointing to Vega at one time, not both. So Ellie's team shouldn't have been able to hear the signal because Vega was past the horizon and appearing on Australia's side.
Tailkinker
1st Jan 2011
Contact (1997)
24th Mar 2008
Contact (1997)
Corrected entry: When Haddon is showing Ellie's life story to her on his plane, he mentions that she turned down a teaching position at Harvard in order to do research work for SETI at Aericibo. But the video clips he is playing for her at that point show her actually teaching from a podium, using a screen behind her. This implies that she was physically teaching at Harvard, although in reality she never took the teaching position in the first place.
Correction: She could be presenting a paper at a conference, or making a budget proposal. Simply standing at a podium with a screen behind her isn't nearly enough to suggest that she's taken up a specific teaching position.
1st Dec 2007
Contact (1997)
Corrected entry: Ellie drives her jeep to confront Drumlin after learning he's pulling the plug on their research funding. She begins her typical argument, "there are 400 billion ." and he cuts her off with, "two possibilities: 1) they're so far away you'll never contact them, or 2) there's nothing out there but noble gasses and carbon compounds" . (ahem) the top 10 elements of which our local sun is comprised are: Hydrogen, Helium, Oxygen, Carbon, Nitrogen, Silicon, Magnesium, Neon, Iron and Sulfur (that's two noble gasses out of 10 ?) and isn't carbon-based life what they're looking for? so . carbon-compounds wouldn't be a bad thing to find, now would it? (00:26:45)
Correction: Drumlin's being sarcastic. (1) This is not intended as a serious scientific statement. We all know that there are other elements out there, and so does Drumlin. (2) Ellie's using a radio telescope. (ahem) Do you really think that carbon compounds are noted for sending out radio waves? They don't, so she's not going to find any. And, just for the record, neither do noble gases. Which merely emphasises the point; Drumlin's just being sarcastic about her chances.
1st Dec 2007
Contact (1997)
Corrected entry: Ellie tells Palmer, "There are 400 billion stars out there, just in our galaxy alone. If only one out of a million of those had planets, alright, and if just one in a million of those had life, and if just out of a million of those had intelligent life, there would be literally millions of civilizations out there." Such a brilliant MIT grad, should be more convincing using mathematical arguments: 4.00E+11 x 1/1.00E+6 x 1/1.00E+6 x 1/1.00E+6 = 4.00E-7 (that's 0.0000004 planets in our galaxy with life!) Not a very persuasive argument for vast quantities of life in the universe. (00:17:15 - 00:17:45)
Correction: Yeah, well, with the current estimate being that there are over a hundred billion galaxies in the observable universe, many of which are deemed to be considerably larger than our own, I think you'll find that Ellie's statement is, in fact, perfectly correct.
Nope. There would need to be 2.5 Trillion galaxies, considerably more than "over a hundred billion" for Ellie's math to be correct.
Actually 2.5 Trillion bears out 1,000,000 planets with life. So... technically, there would need to be 5 Trillion to bear out 2,000,000 planets with life, thus meeting the requirements for use of the word millions, with an "s" as in plural of.
You're working on the idea of galaxies rather than stars. if each galaxy held 400 billion stars than the original corrections claim is easily in the right.
There are galaxies that are far bigger than Milky Way, even hosting a trillion or more stars.
But she's not talking about other galaxies. She is talking about planets and stars in our galaxy. The entry is correct, she's talking about an extremely low percentage.
12th Mar 2006
Contact (1997)
Corrected entry: In the public inquiry at the end, Ellie says she was gone "approximately 18 hours". But this contradicts what she says right after the capsule lands: "What day is this? How long was I gone?" So how did she come up with 18 hours? We do find out after the inquiry is over that her headset, conveniently, recorded 18 hours of static, but this was kept secret by the investigating committee. So Ellie didn't know that; in fact, she had no way of knowing how long she was gone.
Correction: It's not remotely unreasonable that she couldn't have worked out an approximate timeframe later on, once she'd had to time to reflect on her experiences. She also knows that she's travelled through what appears to be a wormhole - under those conditions time can (and, as we find out, has) run strangely, so she has no real idea how long she might have been gone from their point of view, so her question is hardly unreasonable.
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Correction: Rubbish. Australia and the USA aren't even close to being opposites. Ellie is based in New Mexico, the antipode to which is in the middle of the Indian Ocean, approximately halfway between the western coast of Australia and Madagascar off the coast of continental Africa. It would entirely possible for the Australian team to pick up the signal before Ellie's team in New Mexico lost it.
Tailkinker ★