X-Message-Number: 22431
References: <>
Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2003 12:14:26 +0200 (CEST)
Subject: Re: Need help finding Astrophysicist Sara Seager
From: "D. den Otter" <>

> Message #22428
> Date: Thu, 28 Aug 2003 16:27:03 -0700
> From: James Swayze <>
>
> A few months ago I watched and taped a show off of PBS called "Big
> Ideas: Exploring the Cosmos" hosted by Ira Flatow. It was one in a
> series apparently though I never saw the others. They were simply
> interviews with extra bright people, among them Freeman Dyson, that had
> done extraordinary things in their fields and this show was mostly about
> cosmology. What attracted my attention most was that at the end of one
> young lady's interview the interviewer couched his last question with,
> "Now I know this is a little bit 'out there' but I know you have unusual
> plans for your body when you die, right?". She answered affirmatvely and
> went on to describe how she wishes to be cryogenically preserved at
> death and then "ejected into space" so to travel toward a system "with a
> known Earth like planet" likely to be inhabited by extraterrestrials
> that might some day discover her and revive her from stasis. She also
> said that if she is not discovered or misses the target she won't mind
> returning to our origins, becoming star stuff.
>
> She is rather bright and so I think we should contact her if possible
> and tell her she needn't take the rocket ride, we'll see that she is
> revived right here on Earth and then one day she can take the journey
> consciously, if such space travel ever becomes possible. Of course such
> travel may yet again require suspended animation but at least she can do
> so with a much greater certainty of success in a time when such journeys
> may well be common place.
>
> Her name is Sara Seager and she's an Astrophysicist. I think she is
> faculty at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University but
> I could not find her when I searched there. Any help finding her would
> be appreciated.

From: http://www.ciw.edu/seager/

Sara Seager
Carnegie Institution of Washington,
Department of Terrestrial Magnetism,
5241 Broad Branch Rd. NW
Washington, D.C. 20015

Tel. 202-478-8868, Fax 202-478-8821
E-mail: 

See also:

http://www.ciw.edu/seager/travel.html
[Travel and Visitor Schedule for Sara Seager]

http://www.thirteen.org/bigideas/seager.html
[Bio, photo, Big Ideas video]

The Google is mighty. Bow down.

> Admittedly I am at a bit of a loss to understand how she can have an
> open mind enough to consider cryonics possible enough for an advanced
> alien race to revive her and yet not, given her obvious advanced
> learning and high intellect, be able to see that our own technology
> would far surpass the level needed for revivification by the time she
> would be but a marginal distance away from or own solar system by
> today's space technology. I'm sure given the chance she would realize
> this.

Actually, I'm pretty sure she isn't really serious about this. It's just a
romantic idea, a fantasy of sorts (the comment about "becoming star stuff"
is quite telling, IMO); actual, real-life cryonics would probably freak
her out. Also, how could she possibly *not* know about this option after
months of media hype regarding the Ted "splendid popsicle" Williams thing?

> I'd be happy to gently nudge her toward realizing this.

Well, it never hurts to try, but I wouldn't get my hopes up if I were you.

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