14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Runs out of gas, December 23, 2011
This review is from: Alone in the Universe: Why Our Planet Is Unique (Hardcover)
Like some kinds of stellar material, this book runs out of gas about two thirds of the way through. As usual with Gribbin's books, it is very well written, but it is just getting started when it suddenly lurches to a rapid halt. The whole idea of the book is to work out how plausible it is that there is life on other planets in the Universe (he restricts himself to the Galaxy, but whatever). He starts very nicely, by working out the percentages (possible number of planets in the two "Goldilocks Zones" (galactic and solar system), and keeps working on this. The reader naturally is expecting that at some point there will be a summation (sort of an anti-Drake equation), but this whole line of argument suddenly disappears when we get actually down to lifeforms. The whole thing is rushed. There is no attempt to determine what the possibilities of life are in other than carbon based life forms, in clouds, etc. ; no discussion of the nature of history and technology (does it need humanoidish creatures?); and then to work out some kind of anti-Drake equation as a conclusion. Even if doing this last bit is completely implausible, Gribbin doesn't even give it a shot. We are just left hanging. The last chapter is a rushed afterthought, and makes the buildup very disappointing. Where's the rest of the book?
Bizarre. But the first two thirds is good. Pretend it is a part 1 of a two part series. Otherwise you will be very, very disappointed.
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8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
"We are alone, and we had better get used to the idea", December 19, 2011
****
"The Milky Way contains a few hundred billion stars, but almost certainly contains only one intelligent civilization. In an infinite universe, on the other hand, anything is possible, but we can only explore such questions closer to home."--Astrophysicist John Gribbin
*
We live in a universe with billions upon billions of stars, many of which are very much like our own Sun, sometimes with a clutch of planets. The Kepler, NASA's space telescope, launched two years ago, has found some prospective evidence for potential life with habitable zones, in 54 planets, with liquid water and atmospheric conditions that could support life. Of whose orbits lie in those habitable zones, Kepler mission chief scientist William Borucki said, "It's very likely that life is common in our galaxy." So, even if the possibility of expected intelligent life is very small, the sheer number of stars makes it more likely we are not alone.
It may sounded phoney in the past, but increasingly more and more people believe in extra-terrestrial life. A radical shift in human psyche regarding our relationship with the rest of the universe is advancing. Until Copernicus, we assumed our world was at the universe's center, and that the sun orbited our Earth. Scientists assumed, in the Twentieth century that Earth's environmental conditions made it the only planet that could possibly support life. Using the Hubble Telescope to study Earth's atmosphere, astronomer Lou Frank proved that Earth is constantly hit by snowballs from space.
While more common than we expected, probable Earth-like planets are statistically minute. Conditions for the development of life must therefore be relatively remote. Gribbin makes a compelling case, lucid and convincing, based on astronomical observations which have shown that exo-planets, orbiting other stars, are still rare. Life is the universe's default setting. The argument against is best summed up in the words of the great physicist Enrico Fermi: "Why aren't the aliens here?" Gribbin lays out the details one by one, building a concise case that, "we are alone, and we had better get used to the idea"
The Eerie Silence: Renewing Our Search for Alien Intelligence
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10 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fascinating Study, January 7, 2012
This review is from: Alone in the Universe: Why Our Planet Is Unique (Hardcover)
I first learned about this book in a Wall Street Journal review that was positive. The review was accurate.
This is a fascinating scientific study and argument for why we are alone in the universe. As the author mentions in the last sentences of the book: "The reasons why we are here form a chain so improbable that the chance of any other technological civilization existing in the Milky Way Galaxy at the present time is vanishingly small. We are alone, and we better get used to the idea." As he goes through the improbable events that I'll summarize below, I kept coming back to the analogy of a lottery - but not winning the lottery once but many times in a row. The chances of this happening are so improbable as to be impossible. It gave me the impression that a miracle occured to result in life on earth...
The author starts with the galaxy and universe initially and why our area of the universe is unique versus others and continues on to life on earth over the 5 billion+ years of its existence. Here's a summary of the improbable events.
1. There are very few places in the Milky Way Galaxy where life could exist. Most areas of the Galaxy have very intense radiation, gases and stars too close and colliding with each other.
2. Then there is the size of the star. A star that is too large destroys planets and doesn't last long enough for life to exist. A star that is too small doesn't enable enough heat and light for life to exist. The sun is just the right size. (And, forget about the multi-star solar systems dreamed up in Hollywood.)
3. Then there is the solar system. Having Venus, and Jupiter where they are results in cover for the Earth. Instead of hitting the Earth, many asteroids and comets hit Jupiter (pulled by its gravity) as happened in the 1990s.
4. Then there is the moon. There are no planets that have a moon revolving around it that has the comparable size in comparison to the earth. And, in fact, the moon resulted from a collision with the earth more than 600 million years ago that caused life to start on Earth.
5. Then there is the Earth itself. We have a large magnetic force around our planet that keeps radiation to a minimum. The Earth travels around the sun 365 days for a year which is enabling to life. The tectonic plates help for carbon dioxide and oxygen to form and enable life.
6. Then there are the events that happened on the earth over 600 million years that enabled life to develop and intelligent life to develop including the magnetic poles, the tectonic plates, the collisions with meteors (to cause the dinosaurs to disappear because if they hadn't, we wouldn't have appeared), the rise and fall of Ice Ages.
7. Finally, there is the fragility of intelligent life, which almost disappeared from Earth thousands of years ago, due to volcanic eruptions (e.g. Yellowstone) and/or meteor hits (e.g. larger than the Siberia one of the early 20th century) and the population of possible intelligent life initiators was down to a handful. And, then the fact the dinosaurs and other previous life resulted in fossel fuels that helped our civilization develop. Finally, the possibility of another similar event in the near future destroying our civilization.
And there is the "Fermi Paradox", introduced early in the book, and continued to be used later, which essentially states that if there are other intelligent societies out there, why aren't they here? For example, the Milky Way Galaxy started 10 billion years ago. As mentioned in the book, using spacecraft that travel .2% the speed of light, which we could do today using Jupiter and the Sun to help propel it, and Von Neumann computers (or robots) that reproduce themselves, that we could also use today, if we didn't want to use humans because of the length of time to travel in space, it would take an intelligent society 10 million years to visit the possible earth like planets in the Galaxy. So, why haven't they done it (as Fermi a leading physicist asked)?
As I read the book, it became more and more apparent to me that for this to happen again in the Milky Way Galaxy and even the universe is so improbable as to be impossible. So, in spite of the all the movies out there that fantasize about other life in the Galaxy by Steven Spielberg and others (e.g. Star Wars, Star Trek, Avatar and other Hollywood productions that take advantage of this false premise), and probably make it hard for some of us to believe these results, we need to recognize that WE are the only intelligent society in the Galaxy and possibly the universe and handle that accordingly.
For anyone who is interested in the truth about our Galaxy, the Universe and life, this is an excellent book.
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