The Breakthrough Initiatives: The Shape of Space
to Come
by Jamie Drew (Breakthrough Prize
Foundation)
Abstract. At the Royal Society in
London on July 20, 2015, Yuri Milner, Stephen Hawking and Lord Martin Rees
announced a set of initiatives - a scientific programme aimed at finding
evidence of technological life beyond Earth entitled `Breakthrough Listen',
and a contest to devise potential messages named 'Breakthrough Message'. In
addition, atop the One World Trade Center in New York on April 20, 2016,
Breakthrough Starshot was announced, an interstellar programme to Alpha
Centauri. These are the first of several privately-funded global initiatives
to answer the fundamental science questions surrounding the origin, extent
and nature of life in the universe. The Breakthrough Initiatives are managed
by the Breakthrough Prize Foundation.
