Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI)

Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) is the proposed use of radio telescopes to detect signals sent by intelligent life beyond Earth. In the Institute of Theory and Research, SETI is both a scientific question and a contest over who may define legitimate research: Arvind Acharya opposes the search, while Jana Nambodri argues that even a remote possibility merits investigation. Their dispute places the Giant Ear, the Institute’s array of thirty radio telescopes, at the center of a struggle over evidence, resources, and authority.

The Search and the Giant Ear

Ayyan Mani describes the Giant Ear to Oparna Goshmaulik as thirty enormous dishes, standing across broad farms about a hundred kilometres from the city and belonging to the Institute. The array’s purpose could extend beyond its existing work: radio astronomers wanted permission to use it to listen for signals from intelligent civilizations. For Nambodri, who wants to direct the array toward the search, SETI represents a project the Institute should be allowed to undertake, not a distraction to be ruled out in advance.

Ayyan gives the dispute a memorable emblem. He tells Oparna that, unlike other radio telescopes around the world, the Giant Ear has no champagne bottle. As he explains it, opening such a bottle after contact with an alien signal is an international tradition. The absent bottle makes the absence of the search visible: the Institute has built a vast listening instrument but, under Acharya’s policy, will not use it to listen for extraterrestrial intelligence. Ayyan attributes that refusal to Acharya’s dislike of SETI and his claim that it is not science.

The practical difficulty is part of the argument. Ayyan explains that radio telescopes are sensitive to interference: even a mobile phone left on the Moon would produce one of the sky’s clearest radio signals, and a passing car’s radio could provoke false rumours of contact. Acharya also doubts that aliens would send signals. The possibility of mistaking noise for a message thus supports his caution, while also sharpening the question Nambodri presses: whether imperfect methods justify forbidding the search altogether.

Competing Standards of Science

Acharya rejects SETI as a human-centred projection. He compares the search for alien signals to early robotics: the first robots were built in human likeness because people were preoccupied with themselves, whereas successful robots in operating theatres and assembly lines do not resemble humans. In his view, imagining distant beings who build machines and transmit radio signals repeats that error. As he puts it, “Man is not searching for aliens. Man is searching for man. It’s called loneliness. Not science.” He argues that the universe is too vast, and knowledge of consciousness too limited, to justify a search founded on a narrow idea of life.

His objection is also about attention and prestige. Acharya says SETI attracts journalists and public interest because it is glamorous, while work such as searching for pulsars receives less popular attention. He invokes the story of Jesus turning water into wine to argue that a more striking spectacle is not necessarily the more meaningful pursuit. In his view, investigating the stratosphere for microscopic life carried on meteorites offers a more serious scientific question than waiting for a signal from a civilization imagined in human terms.

Nambodri answers from a different standard of inquiry: a small possibility can still warrant investigation. When Acharya concedes that an alien civilization transmitting a signal is mathematically possible, Nambodri insists that possibility is enough to pursue truth. He illustrates the point by recounting an extraordinary pregnancy story attributed to an 1874 American medical journal, in which a bullet allegedly carried a soldier’s semen to a young woman. The tale functions in his argument as an example of an event treated as possible despite its improbability, not as established evidence for extraterrestrial contact. Nambodri’s principle is explicit: “In science, hope is everything.” Acharya counters with the opposite maxim, “Hope is a lapse in concentration.” Their exchange makes the disagreement more than a debate about radio astronomy: it is a dispute about whether disciplined science should exclude low-probability questions or remain open to them.

Institutional Opposition and Escalation

Nambodri raises the issue repeatedly with Acharya. He reports requests from radio astronomers around the world to use the Giant Ear and says Institute astronomers are unhappy with the ban. Universities have also offered attractive usage fees. Acharya refuses both the prospect of revenue and the proposed research, insisting that the Institute is not operating for money and that he will not let the array be used for what he considers nonsense. His control of the instrument therefore gives his judgment practical force: the question of SETI is decided not just in argument but through access to the observatory.

The conflict enters a wider institutional meeting when Nambodri says the Balloon Mission is not the only important work the Institute should undertake. He tells the gathered scientists that many, especially the radio astronomers, oppose Acharya’s position; Acharya has repeatedly refused to let the Giant Ear search for advanced civilizations and has publicly called SETI unscientific. Nambodri describes the policy as autocratic and unfair and brings the discontent into the open. The proposal is now a challenge to the Director’s authority as much as a request for telescope time.

The matter also reaches the Ministry of Defence. In a letter to Acharya, bureaucrat Bhaskar Basu says he has reviewed complaints from Institute scientists and considers them unfairly treated. The Ministry announces that the Institute may establish a SETI programme with departmental status and an independent budget, headed by Nambodri. The letter gives Nambodri complete charge of the Giant Ear, including freedom to decide its projects and allocate observing time to outside agencies; for this purpose, he will no longer report to Acharya. What had been an unofficial ban is answered by a formal redistribution of control. Ayyan understands the letter as a direct breach of Acharya’s authority and the opening move in a larger institutional duel.

SETI Beside the Balloon Mission

The conflict is framed against the Institute’s Balloon Mission, which Acharya presents as a more meaningful direction for research into life beyond Earth. At a press conference about living matter found at great altitude, he stops short of claiming that it came from space: he calls that conclusion a reasonable guess supported by several facts. He points to the difficulty of explaining how bacteria and fungi could reach such heights, the small likelihood that satellite debris accounts for the finding, and the precautions taken to secure the samplers. He also says the organisms are rare and difficult to culture in a laboratory.

That distinction matters to the SETI dispute. The Balloon Mission investigation is presented through claims about samples, contamination, altitude, and the limits of what can be concluded; SETI, by contrast, asks whether radio signals from an intelligent civilization can be detected. The novel does not make these projects equivalent. It places them within the same institutional argument over what kinds of evidence deserve attention and which researchers are empowered to pursue them. SETI’s significance lies in that unresolved boundary: Acharya treats its premise and methods as insufficiently scientific, while Nambodri regards the possibility itself as a reason to search.