Every week, Singularity University’s YouTube channel debuts a new episode of Ask an Expert, a Twitter-sourced Q&A with experts answering questions about everything from living forever to the unexpected ways blockchain will change humanity.
This week, former director of the NASA Ames Research Center and chairman of the Breakthrough Prize Foundation, Pete Worden answers questions about life in the universe.
Worden is first asked about the Drake Equation, a formula used to estimate the possible number of intelligent extraterrestrial civilizations out there.
He then discusses Edward Snowden’s theories on how alien communication might be encrypted and whether we could even recognize or decrypt those signals if we found them.