Contact
E1108
Contact is a science fiction novel by Carl Sagan that explores humanity’s first communication with an extraterrestrial intelligence and the intersection of science, faith, and politics.
All labels observed (2)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Contact canonical | 20 |
| Contact (1997 film) | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T4764 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Contact Context triple: [Carl Sagan, notableWork, Contact]
-
A.
containment
Containment was the Cold War U.S. strategy aimed at preventing the expansion of Soviet influence and communism worldwide.
-
B.
Enquire (software)
Enquire (software) was an early hypertext system created by Tim Berners-Lee that served as a conceptual precursor to the World Wide Web.
-
C.
Sununu
Sununu is a prominent American political family name most notably associated with former New Hampshire Governor and White House Chief of Staff John H. Sununu and his son, Governor Chris Sununu.
-
D.
Bolt Beranek and Newman
Bolt Beranek and Newman was a pioneering American research and engineering firm best known for its foundational role in developing the ARPANET, a precursor to the modern internet.
-
E.
Lynn
Lynn is a coastal city in northeastern Massachusetts, known as one of the larger urban centers in the Greater Boston metropolitan area.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Contact Target entity description: Contact is a science fiction novel by Carl Sagan that explores humanity’s first communication with an extraterrestrial intelligence and the intersection of science, faith, and politics.
-
A.
containment
Containment was the Cold War U.S. strategy aimed at preventing the expansion of Soviet influence and communism worldwide.
-
B.
Enquire (software)
Enquire (software) was an early hypertext system created by Tim Berners-Lee that served as a conceptual precursor to the World Wide Web.
-
C.
Sununu
Sununu is a prominent American political family name most notably associated with former New Hampshire Governor and White House Chief of Staff John H. Sununu and his son, Governor Chris Sununu.
-
D.
Bolt Beranek and Newman
Bolt Beranek and Newman was a pioneering American research and engineering firm best known for its foundational role in developing the ARPANET, a precursor to the modern internet.
-
E.
Lynn
Lynn is a coastal city in northeastern Massachusetts, known as one of the larger urban centers in the Greater Boston metropolitan area.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (47)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf | science fiction novel ⓘ |
| adaptedAs |
Contact
self-linksurface differs
ⓘ
surface form:
Contact (1997 film)
|
| author | Carl Sagan ⓘ |
| awareness | widely known in popular science and science fiction communities ⓘ |
| centralTheme |
faith versus evidence
ⓘ
first contact with extraterrestrial intelligence ⓘ humanity’s place in the universe ⓘ politics of scientific discovery ⓘ relationship between science and religion ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin |
United States of America
ⓘ
surface form:
United States
|
| filmAdaptationDirector | Robert Zemeckis ⓘ |
| filmAdaptationStar | Jodie Foster ⓘ |
| genre |
first contact fiction
ⓘ
philosophical novel ⓘ science fiction ⓘ |
| hasForm | novelization of an earlier film treatment ⓘ |
| hasISBN | 9780671434007 ⓘ |
| inspiredBy | Carl Sagan’s work with SETI ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| mainCharacter | Ellie Arroway ⓘ |
| mediaType | print ⓘ |
| notableCharacter |
David Drumlin
ⓘ
Palmer Joss ⓘ Rachel Constantine ⓘ S. R. Hadden ⓘ |
| pageCount | ~430 ⓘ |
| plotElement |
construction of a mysterious Machine
ⓘ
decoding of an extraterrestrial message ⓘ international political conflict over the Machine ⓘ journey through a series of wormholes ⓘ receipt of a signal from the star Vega ⓘ |
| protagonistAffiliation | SETI ⓘ |
| protagonistOccupation | radio astronomer ⓘ |
| publicationDate | 1985 ⓘ |
| publisher | Simon & Schuster ⓘ |
| publisherImprint | Simon & Schuster adult trade ⓘ |
| setInPeriod | late 20th century ⓘ |
| settingLocation |
Japan
ⓘ
Puerto Rico ⓘ Soviet Union ⓘ United States of America ⓘ
surface form:
United States
|
| workDealsWith |
extraterrestrial intelligence
ⓘ
global governance ⓘ prime numbers ⓘ radio astronomy ⓘ religious fundamentalism ⓘ wormholes ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Contact Description of subject: Contact is a science fiction novel by Carl Sagan that explores humanity’s first communication with an extraterrestrial intelligence and the intersection of science, faith, and politics.
Referenced by (21)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
this entity surface form:
Contact (1997 film)
subject surface form:
Carl Sagan
subject surface form:
Ann Druyan
subject surface form:
Carl Sagan