Science

Giuseppe Cocconi

Physicist proposing an interstellar radio search

Also known as G. Cocconi

Who they are

Giuseppe Cocconi coauthored a 1959 proposal with Philip Morrison to search for artificial radio transmissions from nearby stars. They identified hydrogen’s 21-centimetre line as a promising region for observations with available instruments. Their paper turned a question about other civilizations into an observing strategy while leaving the transmitters’ existence hypothetical.

He connects speculation about extraterrestrial intelligence to the development of radio-search methods.

Selected contributions

Coauthored Searching for Interstellar Communications with Philip Morrison.Source ↗

Selected works

Academic paper · 1959
Searching for Interstellar Communications
Coauthor · Nature 184, 844–846; permissioned Cosmic Search reprint
Cocconi and Morrison propose searching the microwave spectrum for interstellar communications and explain why a physically motivated observing strategy is possible. They present a search proposal, not evidence that a signal has been found.
Original published September 19, 1959; linked January 1979 reprint is abridged and omits mathematics.
Preview ↗
Reading scope & citation
Reuses documented prior inspection: Provenance, exact original publication date, qualitative proposal and explicit uncertainty inspected. Full original Nature retrieval failed; omitted equations and complete original remain unread. Reused prior inspected evidence: Provenance, exact original publication date, qualitative proposal and explicit uncertainty inspected. Full original Nature retrieval failed; omitted equations and complete original remain unread.