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New research! One-offs... there's something about them, whether it be the first interstellar asteroid or a star behaving in an unprecedented way. These "black swans" capture our attention and imagination but interpreting them is challenged by the inherent scarcity of data. Perhaps no case encapsulates this more than the famous 1977 Wow Signal. Join us today as we discuss our new paper on Black Swan Theory with consequences for the Wow signal.

You can support our research program and the Cool Worlds Lab at Columbia University: https://www.coolworldslab.com/support

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Thank-you to our supporters T. Widdowson, D. Smith, M. Sloan, L. Sanborn, C. Bottaccini, D. Daughaday, A. Jones, S. Brownlee, M. Lijoi, Z. Star, T. Zanjonc, C. Wolfred, F. Rebolledo, L. Skov, E. Wilson, M. Elliot, B. Daniluk, J. Patrick-Saunders, M. Forbes, S. Vystoropskyi, S. Lee, Z. Danielson, C. Fitzgerald, V. Alexandrov, L. Macchia, C. Souter, M. Gillette, T. Jeffcoat, H. Jensen, F. Linker, J. Rockett, N. Fredrickson, B. Mlazgar, D. Holland, J. Alexander, E. Hanway, A. Rao, E. Crump & J. Bergman.

Correction at 10:19 - the hydrogen line is 1420 MHz not kHz

::Links::
► Kipping, D. (2021), "Black Swans in Astronomical Data", MNRAS, in press: https://arxiv.org/abs/2104.07693
► Harp, G., Gray, R., et al., (2020), "An ATA Search for a Repetition of the Wow Signal", AJ, 160, 162: https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881/aba58f
► Event Horizon interview with Dr Jerry Ehman:    • The Wow! Signal with Discoverer Dr. J...  
► Our previous video about BLC-1:    • Did We Just Detect a New "Wow" Signal...  
► Breakthrough Listen live-stream about BLC-1:    • Day 1: Breakthrough Discuss 2021: Alp...  

::Music::
Music licensed by SoundStripe.com (SS) [shorturl.at/ptBHI], or via Creative Commons (CC) Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/..., or with permission from the artist
► Brad Hill - Replicant [https://open.spotify.com/track/39M7dd...]
► Joachim Heinrich - Y
► Brad Hill - A Slowly Lifting Fog [https://open.spotify.com/track/0GgkyL...]
► Chris Zabriskie - Cylinder Five
► Indive - Lightyears Away
► Chris Zabriskie - Cylinder Four
► Falls - Life in Binary
► Falls - Ripley
► Kevin MacLeod - Long Note Two
► Joachim Heinrich - Horizon

::Video clips::
► LHC footage and animations by CERN: https://home.cern/resources
► Pulsar animation I by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center: https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/13058
► Pulsar animation II by NASA/Fermi/Cruz deWilde    • Pulsar Animation  
► Oumuamua animation I by ESO/M. Kornmesser/L. Calcada: https://www.eso.org/public/videos/eso...
► Oumuamua animation II by ESA/Hubble/NASA/ESO/M. Kornmesser: https://www.eso.org/public/videos/eso...
► Parker probe animation by NASA/JHUAPL: https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/12729
► Footage of Mayor & Queloz by NCCR PlanetS:    • The discovery of the first exoplanet  
► Douglas Vakoch footage by TEDx talks:    • The search for extraterrestrials | Do...  
► Gaia animation by ESA/C. Carreau:    • Gaia scanning the sky  
► APEX timelapse by ESO/B. Tafreshi (twanight.org): https://www.eso.org/public/usa/videos...
► Orbital debris animation by NASA/ODPO/JSC: https://orbitaldebris.jsc.nasa.gov/ph...
► Outro video by ESO/L.Calçada/spaceengine.org

::Film clips used::
► Contact (1997) - Warner Bros
► Independence Day (1996) - 20th Century Fox
► Ad Astra (2019) - 20th Century Fox

::Chapters::
00:00 Discovery
02:50 Black Swans
07:53 Sponsorship
09:08 The Wow Signal
11:59 Black Swan Theory
17:09 Wow as a Black Swan
23:48 Credits

#BlackSwanTheory #WowSignal #CoolWorlds