FAQ

Since she was a young girl, Doctor Eleanor "Ellie" Arroway (Jodie Foster) has been fascinated by science, astronomy, and making radio contact with people far away. She works as a SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) researcher at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. When her National Science Foundation (NSF) funding is pulled from her by her boss David Drumlin (Tom Skerritt), she obtains private funding from secretive billionaire industrialist S. R. Hadden (John Hurt) and moves to the Very Large Array (VLA) in New Mexico. Just when it looks like her access to the VLA's radio telescopes is going to be cut, Ellie receives a transmission of prime numbers emanating from the star Vega. When the transmission is confirmed by other scientists around the world, Ellie becomes involved in making humanity's first contact with extraterrestrial life.

The movie is based on a 1985 novel of the same name by American astronomer Carl Sagan (1934-1996). Sagan actually conceived of the idea for Contact in 1979 and, along with his wife Ann Druyan, wrote a 100+-page film treatment. When the project got stuck in development hell, Sagan published Contact as a novel. The novel was eventually adapted for the movie by American screenwriters James V. Hart and Michael Goldenberg.

Vega, about 25 light-years away from the earth, is the principle star in the constellation Lyra, visible overhead in the northern hemisphere from spring through autumn. In temperate latitudes, it is visible during the summer months. In the southern hemisphere, it is visible low in the northern sky during the winter months.

It usually refers to an introductory text used to teach reading. In the context of the movie, it refers to the key needed to "read" symbols, languages, and maps, a key that would enable them to match certain numerical sequences in the message with known physical/scientific constants such as the speed of light, the atomic weights of the elements, sequences of natural algorithms, the wavelengths of visible light, stuff any natural scientist (or mathematician) would know.

One of the electronic transitions for the hydrogen atom yields light radiation with a wavelength of about 21.12 centimeters, which is very useful in radio astronomy because it can penetrate dusty regions of space. It corresponds to a frequency of approximately 1,420.41 cycles per second. Even though the space aliens won't be using the same conventional units, it remains that the wavelength of that particular hydrogen emission is what it is regardless. Equivalently, the frequency is what it is, too. Whatever units they're using, the quotient of pi over frequency will be the same. Since we're evidently advanced enough to be broadcasting television signals, the extraterrestrials can assume that we're knowledgeable about things like pi and the 21-centimeter hydrogen emission. They may also gather that we know there are no interstellar sources of radiation which happen to be at that frequency multiplied by pi to high precision. They must expect us to figure out that the signal's frequency, coupled with its modulations counting out prime numbers, strongly indicates that it's artificial in origin; that we mustn't mistake it for some weird, exotic, natural process.