| 1 | Interaction of civilizations at much different technological levels; the number π, which is irrational, transcendental, and normal (although there is no proof as yet about the normality of π. This question becomes pivotal to the ending of Contact); the epistemology of science; the apparent rotation of the celestial sphere and the Earth's spin; and ancient Greek astronomy. |
| 2 | Women participation in science; The Fermi paradox (specifically here, the Zoo Hypothesis); the scale of the universe; light pollution; the planet Venus (romantic view, strong radio emission, runaway greenhouse effect); the cosmic 3K background radiation. |
| 3 | The inverse square law for light; white noise; the electromagnetic spectrum; the Kardashev scale; the Alpha Centauri system (triple star system, exoplanet in the habitable zone); bandwidth of signal and information content; absorption and scattering of radiation by dust; radio astronomy; quasars and pulsars; the Voyager missions; constellations. |
| 4 | Tour of the solar system (from the outside in); sidereal motion; proper motion; planetary formation process; sources of radio interference and disruption; prime numbers; binary numbers; international and global nature of science. |
| 5 | Identify Vega in the night sky and Vega's properties; proper and radial motion of stars; Fermat's last theorem and the Goldbach conjecture; the hydrogen 21 cm and the hydroxyl 18 cm spectral lines, polarization modulation. |
| 6 | Occam's razor; the “God's in the gaps” argument; skepticism in science; the scientific method; remote sensing; learning about exoplanets from large distances; rarity of newly emergent technological civilizations; UFOs and their explanations. |
| 7 | Space race: American and Soviet achievements; space exploration missions (flyby, orbiter, lander or probe, sample return missions); organic molecules in space; Environmental requirements for life – building blocks (Miller-Urey experiment, Viking experiments), energy (sunlight, tidal friction), liquid medium (liquid water and its significance for life, alternative liquids options for life (NH3, CH3OH, CH4, C2H6)—advantages and disadvantages); human evolution; international nature of modern science; use of prime numbers in SETI messages. |
| 8 | Criticism of science; science as a driving force for technology; science communication and outreach; correcting nature of science; open-ended goals of science; scientific method; ancient and modern science; Newtonian gravity and Einstein's theories of relativity; impossibility of faster than light travel; age of the Earth and planetary system formation; plate tectonics and continental drift; theory of evolution. |
| 9 | Peer-review nature of science publications; how science works; what is consciousness; evolution of languages as an analogue to biological evolution; the Drake equation; solar flares and the active Sun. |
| 10 | Science and determinism; randomness and chance in physical processes; Foucault's pendulum; rotation of the Earth; skepticism in science; empiricism in science; scientific method; self-correcting nature of science; science journals and publications; precession of the equinoxes; cosmic background radiation and its isotropy; the Sun as a star; properties and conditions on Mars; Newtonian gravity and the inverse square law; magnetic dipoles; the double helix structure of DNA; no privileged frames of reference; the speed of light as a universal speed limit; stellar types and the H-R diagram; Occam's razor; mass extinctions; the “God in the gaps” argument and creationism. |
| 11 | Space colonization; Mars terraforming; Pauli exclusion principle; nuclear disarmament; cartography and projections; Platonic solids; white noise; unity of the human species. |
| 12 | Organic chemistry; symmetry and analogies (from alphabets, religions); origin of life; isomers; nucleic acid replication; nuclear energy; the Viking experiments. |
| 13 | Correlation v. causation; signal frequency and modulation; the electromagnetic spectrum. |
| 14 | What is life? And definitions; viruses; proofs in mathematics; curved space and time; the periodic table of the elements; phase modulation; units of measurements; air turbulence and twinkling of stars; time dilation and relativity; the 1420 MHz line; pendulums; conservation of energy; evolution as a stochastic process; superunification of interactions; atomic motion in matter. |
| 15 | Prognostication v. prediction; ammonia as an alternative to water as a solvent; instruments of ancient astronomy; Kepler's laws of planetary motion; gravitational waves and gravitational wave detection; Lysenko and his effect on Soviet molecular biology. |
| 16 | Human body in zero gravity conditions; space radiation and its interaction with the human body; controls in scientific experiments; solar flares; ozone and its importance for life; oxygen and its importance for life. |
| 17 | Geology and the time scale required for evolution; the galactic and stellar habitable zones; comets; panspermia; geosynchronous orbits; information and life; language and cognition and the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. |
| 18 | Plate tectonics; stellar evolution; origin of the elements in the universe and on Earth; superunification; stellar classification; meteors. |
| 19 | Platonic solids; black holes, event horizon, and singularity; causality; tidal forces; spaghettification; the second law of thermodynamics and entropy; stellar corona; planetary formation; gaps in circumstellar disks; shadows in optics; colors of stars and their abundance. |
| 20 | First life on Earth on land; spacetime curvature; the Kerr black hole; liquid breathing; longevity of advanced civilizations; the center of the Milky Way and the black hole at its center; wormholes; radiation coming out of black holes; expansion of the universe; future evolution of the universe and the Big Chill. |
| 21 | Importance of evidence for science; tensile and compressional stresses; intense radiation and its effects on structures; radioactivity and induced radioactivity; cosmic rays; tidal forces; reentrance through the atmosphere; causality. |
| 22 | Conditions in interstellar space; gravitational assist. |
| 23 | Maxwell's equations; the Ampere-Maxwell law; wormholes and the Einstein-Rosen bridge; age at which scientists make groundbreaking discoveries; nuclear explosions, radiation contamination; human place in the universe; angular resolution and telescopes; pi as a normal number. |
| 24 | Transcendental numbers; geometry of the universe; the Kardashev scale and classification of civilizations; wormholes; black holes; probability for a string of 0s and 1s inside an irrational number and the probability for a coded message. |