Talk:Contact (novel)

message: This is really nerdy and arguably irrelevant, but I feel like the following statement can be proven false: 
: "The string's length is the product of 11 prime numbers. The 1s and 0s when organized as a square of specific dimensions form a rasterized circle."
The product of an odd number of prime numbers (e.g. 11) cannot be a square number.
Proof:
: If X is square, then X = Y*Y.
: Y is the product of N prime factors.
: Thus, X is the product of 2N prime factors.
: There is no integer N such that 2N is odd.
: QED
There is no way that a sequence of this type can form a perfect square.Hypatient (talk) 02:29, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: It doesn't mean a mathematical square, but a geometrical square: "a square of specific dimensions", i.e. 3x3, or 4x4. It goes without saying the grammar was unclear, at best—the original prose is as follows: "The program reassembled the digits into a square raster, an equal number across and down."
Furthermore, the characterization used in this article of the pattern discovered by Ellie at the end of the book is erroneously conflated with the mysterious message alluded to by the Stationmasters. At least according to the epilogue, the circle is merely a precursor, a marker for the mathematician that they are on the right path. The article says Ellie's program uncovers a string, "The string's length is the product of 11 prime numbers", this is incorrect, nor stated in the epilogue (also, it is not expressed how far beyond the decimal the Argus found this pattern: certainly not 1020). The string of binary digits being the product of 11 primes was characteristic of the Stationmasters' unsolved message, not the circle-within-a-circle: Ellie even mused upon this fact that it was unlikely her program had already stumbled across their mystery. The article continues: "The extraterrestrials suggest that this is a signature incorporated into the Universe itself. Yet the extraterrestrials are just as ignorant to its meaning as Ellie, as it could be still some sort of a statistical anomaly." Again, this is incorrect: someone mistook the circle at the end of the book and the Stationmasters' unsolved binary message to be the same thing. The narrator alludes the circle to a signature; the Stationmasters referred to a full, as-of-yet-decrypted message.
At no point in the epilogue does it state the circle and the unsolved binary message to be the same thing; in fact an entire paragraph was devoted to Ellie musing the possibility of "easier" and "harder" messages, this one likely a mark of encouragement.
Anyway, just sharing.
Watemon (talk) 09:13, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: A Mathematical Proof

message: The date of marriage between Carl Sagan and his wife is stated as 1979 in this article, yet on her wikipedia page it says 1981. Which one is it?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Orange.County.Steve (talk • contribs) 02:58, 24 April 2021 (UTC)
thread_title: Date of Marriage

message: The transcendental number PI actually does contain deep within its digits a pattern of 1's and 0's representing a rasterized circle, precisely as described by Carl Sagan. As German mathematician Jörg Arndt explains, "Somewhere in PI, everything that is finite is surely to be found, including, when coded in numeric form, every text in the world, the shortest, the longest, the cleverest. Naturally that includes this text, and also of course the Bible, in every language, and every piece of music." From this we can extrapolate that PI also contains somewhere the full text of the novel Contact. See "Pi unleashed", page 4.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pbnelson (talk • contribs) 04:14, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Message in PI prediction

message: To my mind the Conclusion section of this article reads like a subjective review and arguement against Intelligent Design. The following section should stay, but I think the rest should go:
"Intelligent design proponents often cite the ending of Contact as proof that Sagan believed that, using the tools of science, it was possible to discover if there was a creator of the universe. This position is in direct conflict with the vast body of Sagan's views as represented in his work and writings, which are best described as dismissive of claims of supernatural origins of the cosmos and favoring explanations of a naturalistic origin."
Even this I find a little subjective, it would be better to provide quotations that state Sagan's view explicitly, there appear to be many available.
The section on Pi, Averroes, Feynman etc. appears to be a critique/personnel analysis it's interesting but I don't really think it has any place in this entry.
:I agree that there are problems. Please make the needed changes. --JWSchmidt 18:36, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Edit Conclusion

message: This phrase is illogical: "much like the proof of God by testaments of the biblical times which are not accepted by modern science as evidence." Testaments of biblical times are not considered "proof of God". They are stories about God. To read them requires a priori that God exists. They in no way serve as evidence that God exists. Never has a Biblical scholar, theologian, nor any other academia, nor the Bible itself, made the claim that the testaments of the Bible serve as proof of God. If the Bible ever made that claim, then it would contradict itself when it speaks of the importance of faith.Bryanpeterson 21:14, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: proof of god

message: Random question: is it known at all why Sagan named a character after Esarhaddon, an Assyrian king?  Is there something to that historical figure's life story that adds some kind of meaning or depth to the character?  It seems like an odd choice for a cheap joke (if it's just for kicks, why not some old colleague/foe of Sagan's?) but I can't figure out what else it could be.  Or is it merely coincidence (I doubt it, but I suppose it's possible)? Jwrosenzweig 22:30, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It's been a while since I read the novel, but I seem to recall that one of the reasons that S.R. Haddon had so many enemies was because he had built "pleasure palaces", or something like that. Perhaps this recalls Esarhaddon's "rebuilding of Babylon"? In any case, Jwrosenzweig, an interesting observation. func(talk) 17:34, 21 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Esarhaddon

message: Revert from my appropriate revisions on June 3. Of which Diza said "comment is obviously mandatory to anyone who have read the book..!!"
What comment were you referring too?
The most obvious mistake I fixed was claiming Dawkins was a "well-known" atheist. Well-known by who? Just because a bunch of atheist websites quote him because they like some of the things he said doesn't make him an atheist. I gave evidence; I quoted his own words denying that he was an atheist: "An atheist has to know a lot more than I know. An atheist is someone who knows there is no God" and the credible source from the Washington Post.
The second thing I fixed was the claim "touchstone by the leading proponents of the [[intelligent design movement". There is not citation. And an exhaustive google search I was unable to find one intelligent design proponent use anything by Sagan. Of course this doesn't mean it doesn't happen. And a coverage of the possible controversy may be warranted in this article but to claim the controversy extends to the extent that it is a "touchstone" is flagrantly false.
Besides those things I have no ideal what you mean by "comment is obviously mandatory to anyone who [has] read the book." I made no correction or deletion of anything about the book. Everything is still their, I just rearranged a few things to maintain fluidity because I deleted undocumented claims.
Bryanpeterson 15:16, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Creationism edit" 

message: The section, Intelligent Design(misinterpretation) uses The Demon-Haunted World and Science as a Candle in the Dark as if they were the titles of two books.  To the best of my knowledge, they are both part of the title of the same book The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark  as stated in  The_Demon-Haunted_World
  Starmax777 14:45, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Demon Haunted World vs. Science as a Candle 

message: Does this part:
In a kind of postscript, Ellie, acting upon a suggestion by the senders of the Message, works on a program which computes the digits of π to record lengths and in different bases. Very, very far from the decimal point (10^20) and in base 11, it finds that a special pattern does exist when the numbers stop varying randomly and start producing 1's and 0's in a very long string. The string's length is the product of 11 prime numbers. The 1's and 0's when organized as a square of specific dimensions form a perfect circle.
...make sense? Is it possible for any number that is the product of 11 primes to be a square number? Ospinad 17:04, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I didn't see this comment, but no, it's not possible. The proof is posted under "Mathematical Proof" on this page.Hypatient (talk) 02:38, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  mathematical question 

message: :Image:Contact Sagan.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.
Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.
If there is  other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page.  Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.
BetacommandBot (talk) 05:18, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Fair use rationale for Image:Contact Sagan.jpg

message: I've added A for Andromeda, because "Contact"  rang so many bells to me. It's only listed as a film, so far with no book page, (and Contact(film) doesn't have a See Also section) but I have to start somewhere. Swanny18 (talk) 10:46, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  A for Andromeda 

message: This might describe a FILM, not a NOVEL. Could this be written by someone who didn't read the book? Please fix this. Thanks Kvsh5 (talk) 08:55, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Plot summary: "In one scene, Ellie is shown interacting with ..." 

message: -- Similar books --
*His Master's Voice
*Danny Dunn and the Voice from Space
*The Listeners
*The Hercules Text
*A for Andromeda
*The Cassiopeia Affair by Chloe Zerwick and Harrison Brown
GroveGuy (talk) 18:17, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  save Similiar Books information  

message: "It was based on a screenplay co-authored with Francis Ford Coppola" - an article in Variety is linked to in support of this, however the judge in the case is quoted agreeing that "Sagan had violated some terms of the contract" but it doesn't specify what those terms were and (IMHO) doesn't support the assertion that Coppola co-authored a screenplay that was the basis for Contact.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.203.125.58 (talk) 04:35, 4 February 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Evidence for Francis Ford Coppola as co-author? 

message: The article says "A third message is discovered" but what was the second message? Sofia Koutsouveli (talk) 13:48, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Third message? 

message: A hidden comment at the top of this section states that this is not original research. Actually, yes, it is. To be more specific, it is synthesis: combining material from two sources to say something that neither source directly says. This section calls for interpretation of which differences are significant, which are minor and how to quantify the differences. Comments before I remove the section? - SummerPhD (talk) 01:29, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah, how about cutting us a little slack here, SummerPhD. A few people really love this novel and film and find it interesting to note how the movie people simplified what Sagan had in the book in order to make the movie. How about leaving it in? GroveGuy (talk) 03:35, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I happen to be one of those people who loves the film. There are lots of things I love that simply don't belong on Wikipedia. You can certainly copy the info to a blog or look for a Stephen King wiki out there somewhere to copy it to. Here, it's cruft. - SummerPhD (talk) 05:13, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Differences with the film 

message: Is the "fathers" name Ted Arroway or Theodore Arroway?101.98.175.68 (talk) 08:21, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Father 

message: The ideas of a violent religious objection to scientific advancements in "Contact" are quite similar to those in presented in Isaac Asimov's 1940 short story "Trends".  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Snapdragon630 (talk • contribs) 22:57, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Some similarities to Asimov's 1940 short story "Trends" 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on Contact (novel). Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110719215112/http://www3.isrl.illinois.edu/~unsworth/courses/bestsellers/search.cgi?title=Contact to http://www3.isrl.illinois.edu/~unsworth/courses/bestsellers/search.cgi?title=Contact
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 14:38, 12 August 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: I find it hard to accept the novel in the "hard science fiction" category because of a way too generous licence, unexpected for a scientific writer.  It is relevant in the story that the extraterrestrial signal is claimed to be fake, generated by a satellite - something impossible in 1985 when it was published, impossible thirty-two years later, and impossible in another thirty-two years at least.Ignacio.Agulló (talk) 14:01, 27 December 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hard science fiction ? 

message: In one chapter of the novel, Ellie is in Paris for some kind of a scientific conference.
One of her experiences there (which I assume must be actually an experience of Sagan during a visit to Paris) is that she sees ubiquitous signs advertising the Banque Nationale de Paris. She keeps imagining that if the middle letter of the BNP on those ads were reversed into a mirror image, it would be "the English word 'beer' spelled out in Russian letters". She keeps thinking that it looks like an ad for Russian beer.
The trouble is that Sagan was wrong.
In Russian, the English capital B is the letter for the sound V. If you reverse the middle letter in that French acronym, you have a word that in Russian would have to be pronounced "vir" (coincidentally a Latin word for "man"). 
Maybe this point is not important, but I wonder if other people who had read the novel noticed it. Tesseract12 (talk) 23:29, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ellie in Paris