If elementary life forms are common throughout the cosmos, could intelligent beings have evolved elsewhere, and are they seeking us out? A father-and-son team of scientists-both with research backgrounds in astronomy and physics-gives us the most up-to-date scientific answers about extraterrestrial civilizations and our attempts to find them. If they exist, why haven't we been able to make contact? Could they be reluctant or unable to make themselves known? If aliens visited us before recorded history, are we now overdue for another visit? Even if we discount most UFO sightings as erroneous, how do we explain that more than four million Americans claim they have been abducted by aliens? Is there a case to be made for a future scientific study of UFOs? Here, in language requiring no prior specialized knowledge, the authors pull together the strands from all plausible scientific answers to present a unique merging of current astronomical findings with philosophical interpretation of the techniques used in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.
FREE Two-Day Shipping for Students. Learn more |
Book Description
The startling scientific answers to questions about advanced life on other planets.
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Although its title may conjure up visions of The X-Files, this sensible book has more affinity with the movie Contact. Above all, it is a plea for continued support of SETI (the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence), presently conducted as the privately funded Project Phoenix due to the withdrawal of government backing. Although readers of other major books on this subject, such as the classic Are We Alone? by Paul Davies or the more recent Probability One, will be familiar with much of the material here, this is a solid primer for those new to the actual science involved in current efforts to find ETI. The authors, a British father-and-son team (p?re David is the author of The Cosmos from Space; Andrew is a physicist and philosopher), address three crucial questions. Why have 40 years of searching not been fruitful? What is the probability that intelligent life will evolve on other planets? And, if it is there, why hasn't it come here? Readers are walked gently through the history of both the American and Soviet programs, the Drake equation (a means of organizing the factors necessary for an advanced alien civilization) and the fundamentals of astronomy, geology, biology, etc., needed to assess the likelihood of other technologically sophisticated civilizations evolving. While still promoting the search via radio astronomy for alien beacons, the authors hope to revive serious consideration that an alien research probe or survey may have visited (or will visit) our planet. Amateur exobiologists are encouraged to download SETI@home (http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/download.html) to turn their screensavers into signal-finding number-crunchers, and those who have read this well-reasoned book and wish to look further are advised to join a legitimate research group such as the Planetary Society, founded by Carl Sagan. Agent, Al Zuckerman of Writers House. (July)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Kirkus Reviews
A spirited, optimistic discourse on the search for extraterrestrial life. A father-and-son team of scientists (David is the author of The Cosmos from Space, 1987, etc.) explore the possibility of extraterrestrial life from a purely scientific perspective. Beginning with a famous equation (gasp) that attempts to calculate the likelihood of intelligent life in the universe, Aliens tackles arguments both for and against this possibility. The search for extraterrestrial intelligence, or SETI, begins in the 1960s with teams in both the US and the Soviet Union hunting for alien radio signals. Throughout the book the authors make every effort to give the nontechnical reader some basis of understanding the enormous distances and time scales involved for interstellar travel. To adequately explain the scientific issues involved, the Clarks give clear, qualitative explanations of mathematical concepts such as probability and the inverse square law. Although the authors offer ample evidence showing that simple life forms (``slime'') may be relatively abundant in the universe, the conditions that would allow for complex life forms are far more scarce. If aliens do exist, its far more likely we will find them through a search for their electronic transmissions rather than a search for their crashed saucers. The conditions that would allow for interstellar travel, assuming that extraterrestrials would even want to make such a trip, would require a herculean effort on their part. Its therefore obvious that the authors hold little regard for unsubstantiated tales of alien abduction. They even debunk some of the myths that surround SETI, including the idea that scientists listen for aliens on headphones. The irrepressible spirit of the authors of this fine tome is best described in their own words: What a wonderful challenge! What a noble endeavor SETI is!'' Good luck to them both. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A different theory for finding extraterrestrials,
By
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Aliens: Can We Make Contact With Extraterrestrial Intelligence? (Hardcover)
The early part of this book covers ground that will be familiar to those who have read about the scientific search for extraterrestrial intelligence: the Drake equation for determining the number of alien civilizations, the search for radio signals(SETI), the absence of evidence (the Fermi Paradox), the evolution of life on planets. The Clarks, a father and son team of scientists, then turn to their own thesis: searching for alien spacecraft is as legitimate a research endeavor as searching for alien radio signals. They make the case for a scientific "ufology." This leads them into a discussion of the motivations for, and the feasibility of, interstellar flight. They invent the term IMETI, which stands for ETI capable of interstellar mobility. The Clarks discuss how to search for IMETI, including a winnowing out of UFO reports that would separate a genuine "signal" from the "noise." They favor the establishment of groups of researchers to pursue this quest. Pointing out that SETI scientists overcame the giggle factor to persevere in their research, the Clarks argue that scientific ufologists can achieve the same level of credibility. While many readers may instinctively reject the Clarks' thesis, it deserves as much of a hearing as most theories about extraterrestrials. This clearly written book, aimed at a non-scientific audience, is easy to read. Unlike most books on this subject, it is not illustrated with photos or diagrams.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A wonderful work of popular science!,
By A Customer
This review is from: Aliens: Can We Make Contact With Extraterrestrial Intelligence? (Hardcover)
Perhaps the wittiest, cleverest, and most thought-provoking work of popular science to appear in the last decade. With admirable verve and rigour, the Clarks transport us to the limits of our universe, and to the limits of our understanding. A tour de force!
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Widening the scientific strategies toward contact,
By
This review is from: Aliens: Can We Make Contact With Extraterrestrial Intelligence? (Hardcover)
This powerful book urges a wider range of scientific strategies toward contact with alien intelligence. Use radio and optical telescopes to detect artificial signals, of course, and even to detect huge astroengineering projects far away. But then this father-son team of scientists point out that extraterrestrial intelligence may well have reached Earth, so we should come up with scientific ways to find small smart probes (or even gigantic spacecraft, though these are less likely). My recent paper at http://www.ieti.org/tough/articles/strategy.htm urges science to widen its array of search strategies in remarkably similar directions, even though it was written before I read this superb book. ALIENS: CAN WE MAKE CONTACT WITH ETI is definitely worthwhile reading for anyone curious about how the biggest breakthrough in the history of science might actually occur. It lists useful websites and books at the end.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
