The book entitled: “Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth” by Avi Loeb was fascinating and compelling on several fronts.
Professor Loeb begins with writing: “When you get a chance, step outside and admire the universe. This is best done at night, of course. … Just looking up, I find, helps change your perspective.” Moreover, he states: “This book confronts one of these profound questions, arguably the most consequential: Are we alone?” The author reminds us: “The world will end, of course, and most decidedly with a bang; our Sun, now about 4.6 billion years old, will in about 7 billion years turn into an expanding red giant and end all life on Earth. This is not up for debate, nor is it an ethical matter.”
As Professor Loeb states: “I remind my students that, as Galileo Galilei argued after looking through his telescope, evidence doesn’t care about approval.” The author goes on to set the stage “Contemplating the sky and the universe beyond teaches us humility. Cosmic space and time have vast scales. There are more than a billion trillion sun-like stars in the observable volume of the universe, and even the luckiest among us live for merely 1 percent of a millionth of the lifetime of the Sun . … Most of the evidence this book wrestles with was collected over eleven days, starting on October 19, 2017. That was the length of time we had to observe the first known interstellar visitor.”
The author encourages the reader to open their minds to the possibility of life beyond earth and goes on to explain why including explicit observations that support that hypothesis. His writing style is entertaining introducing you to his background and who he is and how he got to be a professor at Harvard. While the main theme of the book is about the discovery … “On October 19, astronomer Robert Weryk at the Haleakala Observatory discovered ‘Oumuamua in the data collected by the Pan-STARRS telescope, images that showed the object as a point of light speeding across the sky, moving too quickly to be bound by the Sun’s gravity. … The Hawaiian word ‘oumuamua (pronounced “oh moo ah moo ah”) is loosely translated as “scout.” Professor Loeb goes on to explain: “‘Oumuamua’s trajectory, its speed, and its approximate size (it was under one-quarter of a mile in diameter). None of these early details suggested that ‘Oumuamua was unusual for any reason other than its origin outside our star system.” Moreover, as he builds his case that this could be an extraterrestrial for the reader he goes on to state: “In the case of ‘Oumuamua, the object’s brightness varied tenfold every eight hours, which we deduced to be the amount of time that it took to complete one full rotation. This dramatic variability in its brightness told us that ‘Oumuamua’s shape was extreme, or at least five to ten times longer than it was wide. In a manner that he is comfortable with, Loeb states: “As with any good detective story, the evidence that emerged about ‘Oumuamua in the year after its discovery allowed us to abandon certain theories and winnow out hypotheses that did not fit the facts.”
Some of the other topics that Loeb explores include: “The Milky Way hosts tens of billions of Earth-size planets with surface temperatures similar to our own. Overall, about a quarter of our galaxy’s two hundred billion stars are orbited by planets that are habitable in the way Earth is, with surface conditions that allow liquid water and the chemistry of life as we know it.” And goes on to state “that’s counting only habitable planets within the Milky Way. Adding all other galaxies in the observable volume of the universe increases the number of habitable planets to a zetta, [or 10 to the 21st power] —a figure greater than the number of grains of sand on all of the beaches on Earth. In response to: “A billionaire entrepreneur from Silicon Valley, Yuri Milner … wanted to support a team that would engineer and launch spacecraft capable of reaching the star system closest to ours: Alpha Centauri, a group of three stars orbiting one another some 4.27 light-years from Earth.” Loeb et al. spent 6 months developing a probe that would be launched and return in less than a human’s life time. As Loeb reports: “The vision of visiting another star within our lifetimes captivated the public’s imagination in a way reminiscent of the Apollo 11 moon landing.”
Bouncing back to an earlier main topic, Professor Loeb posits: “‘Oumuamua must have been designed, built, and launched by an extraterrestrial intelligence.”
Dealing with the press: the author recalls: “the reporter asked, “Do you believe there are alien civilizations out there?” “A quarter of all stars host a planet the size and surface temperature of the Earth,” I said into the camera. “It would be arrogant to think we are alone.”” And again to the main topic of the book: “Matthew Knight, declared, “We have never seen anything like ‘Oumuamua in our solar system. It’s really a mystery still,” and then added, “but our preference is to stick with analogues we know.” … The interviewer for the German newspaper Der Spiegel put it with admirable bluntness: “According to a proverb, whoever has only a hammer will see nothing but nails.””
Going back, Loeb states: “Perhaps long, long ago, ‘Oumuamua was not junk but extraterrestrial technological equipment built for a distinct purpose. Perhaps it was something closer in intent to a buoy.” Professor Loeb values an open mind stating: “For me, it echoes a much older thought, one attributed to Heraclitus of Ephesus: “If you do not expect the unexpected, you will not find it.””
This reviewer has long been aware of natural tensions between those who mostly belief in theory and those who mostly belief in data; indeed some great theoretical physics work occurred because opportunities to work with data were restricted. Clearly, Professor Loeb is more data oriented stating: “Too often astrophysics can lose itself in theories that float free of any evidence, taking funding and talent with them.” As additional insight into the techniques that the professor employs, this reviewer is more familiar with the concept of writing an hypothesis and collecting data to either refute or support the hypothesis, for the ‘Oumuamua situation, the data is the data and the investigators are driven to look at it from all different aspects but not allowed the benefit of collecting more data; this is quite a challenge and may explain the reluctance of many scientists to move outside of their comfort zone
Professor Loeb is an excellent spokesperson for funding of science but he is not shy of objecting to the restrictions placed on science investigations by review committees and questions some investments made, stating, for example, “Just a bit under five billion dollars was spent to construct the Large Hadron Collider, a particle accelerator built in hopes of attaining confirming evidence of supersymmetry, and running it costs another one billion dollars a year. … when they insist that the multiverse must exist despite there being no data to support the theory, they are wasting precious time and money and talent. And we have not only finite funds to spend, but finite time.”
The author states: “Science is a work in progress, and the pursuit of scientific knowledge is never-ending. But that progress does not follow a straight path, and the obstacles encountered are sometimes of humanity’s own making. … in August 1909, Edward Charles Pickering argued in a Popular Science Monthly article that telescopes had reached their optimal size, fifty to seventy inches, and there was thus little point in building instruments with larger apertures. … Pickering was mistaken, of course; telescopes with larger apertures collect more photons, allowing scientists to see farther out into the cosmos and deeper into the past. … Pickering had erred due to his arrogance. … Unfortunately, Pickering was not unique in this particular blunder. Indeed, it is a recurrent mistake throughout the history of science.”
Loeb writes: “We date the birth of the universe, the Big Bang, to some 13.8 billion years ago. Fascinating, revelatory work has been done that has produced theory, data, and confirmed predictions concerning the universe’s earliest origins, including the common agreement that after the first hundred million years, everything was cloaked in darkness. Until, that is, the first star was born. … Because light travels at a finite speed, the farther out we look, the farther back in time we see.”
In terms of finding other life, the author writes: “Fermi raised a simple, provocative question: How do we explain the paradox that, given the vastness of the universe, the probability of extraterrestrial life seems high, yet there is no certain evidence for anything but terrestrial life? If life is common in the universe, he asked, “Where is everybody?” … Over the years, many answers have been formulated.
In 1998, the economist Robin Hanson published an essay titled “The Great Filter—Are We Almost Past It?” … Hanson argued, that throughout the universe a civilization’s own technological advancement overwhelmingly predicts its destruction. The very moment when a civilization reaches our stage of technological advancement—is also the moment when its technological maturity becomes sufficient for its own destruction…
Professor Loeb argues for a new discipline Astro-Archaeology stating: “We are greatly in need of a new branch of astronomy, what I have termed space archaeology. Similar to archaeologists who dig into the ground to learn about, say, Mayan society, astronomers must start searching for technological civilizations by digging into space.” Writing of life on other planets, Loeb goes on: “Over the past two decades, we have learned that the universe contains numerous exoplanets (the technical term for any planet residing outside the solar system). This spate of discoveries began in 1995, when astronomers Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz became the first to find definitive observational evidence for an exoplanet— … Their pioneering work ushered in the new era of hunting exoplanets and earned them a Nobel Prize in 2019.”
Loeb brings up some potentially controversial topics including the concept of sending biological seeds from our planet: “Selective and spontaneous adaptations that increase life’s ability to persevere is the bedrock of Darwinian biology. Life’s aim is survival, which means propagation. Those seeds need not even be restricted to bacteria. Certain viruses, which are also capable of Darwinian evolution, have proven themselves sufficiently durable. … How to ensure life is safely ejected from a planet? Eject it yourself.” He is also optimistic or perhaps naïve to expect superior beings to be benevolent.
In terms of truth in science, Loeb reminds the reader: “Galileo is supposed to have declared after looking through his telescope, “In the sciences, the authority of a thousand is not worth as much as the humble reasoning of a single individual.” Einstein, centuries later, got at the same idea when twenty-eight scholars contributed essays to a 1931 book titled A Hundred Authors Against Einstein that declared his theory of general relativity wrong. … is supposed to have replied that if he were wrong, then one author with conclusive evidence to disprove the theory would have been sufficient.”
One of the refreshing techniques in the book is that the author He is one of the few published professors I have seen who goes out of his way to explicitly credit by name several of his students and post-docs.
Bottom line about this book: it is interesting and informative and includes evidence for extraterrestrial life and how scientific methods advance our understanding of the universe; the book is worth purchasing and reading especially for those scientifically inclined.
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Customer reviews
Mostly autobiographical, and some pages where two pieces of paper pasted together.Still not bad, makes you think of space and what could be discovered if we were curious enough
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Top reviews from the United States
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Interesting and informative book about scientific methods and the evidence for extraterrestrial life
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 31, 2021
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 24, 2021
Top reviews from other countries
Kid Ferrous 🔴🟡🟢
“Extraterrestrial” is extra silly
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on February 21, 2021
“Extraterrestrial” is extra silly
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on February 21, 2021
“The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth”, the title of this book proudly proclaims. So you know immediately that you may be heading deep into Woo County. Author Avi Loeb, a Harvard professor in case you missed the 38 mentions of it while reading the book, presents his case that the mysterious space object known as “Oumuamua”, our first known interstellar visitor, was (and presumably still is) alien in origin. Whether he succeeds or not is, I feel, down to one’s own personal beliefs. Personally, I believe it is hogwash, but that’s just my opinion, and I must give a review of the book itself.Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on February 21, 2021
Having been aware of the buzz around this book and read the wildly diverging reviews on Amazon, I felt I had to read it for myself so I could make up my own mind, having a cautious interest in the subject matter. This is what I always do in such cases and I recommend this approach to everyone.
The first thing I noticed on the product page was that the book has already been translated into several languages. This isn’t always a good sign; so was “The DaVinci Code”. While some books deserve this kind of international recognition, here I suspect it is because of the author’s ego rather than a natural reason. Or a sympathetic publisher.
From the introduction - “I submit that the simplest explanation for these peculiarities [of Oumuamua] is that the object was created by an intelligent civilisation not of this Earth.”
Having read that sentence, you’ve probably already decided if you want to read Loeb’s book or not.
The book starts in chapter 1 with an overview of the first observations and swift study of Oumuamua and a mild rebuke about keeping an open mind. (This happens a lot, sometimes not so mild.) In the second chapter, for some reason, Loeb tells us his life story and the history of Israel. These scenes will no doubt be awesome in the inevitable future movie version, probably directed by Ron Howard, but are barely relevant, save for the author wanting to show us what an amazing person he is. In fact the whole book screams out “please film this!”
The book then returns to the subject as Loeb details the peculiarities of the object, and compares himself to Galileo, who initially nobody believed when he claimed the Earth orbited the Sun. Nothing beats staying humble.
For fear of this review becoming longer than the book, my main takeaway from “Extraterrestrial” is that science believes one thing, Loeb believes another, therefore Loeb is right because his thing is “more exciting so stop being so closed minded”.
I am sure Loeb would like to be seen as the new Carl Sagan. Unfortunately he comes across more like a discount Steven Greer. Carl Sagan wouldn’t have looked at a funny-shaped asteroid and convinced himself it was an alien mothership. I’m sure he’d have liked it to be, but jumping from wishing it was and thinking it is, is a dangerous leap. That’s fair enough, he’s not the first, but as for the book itself I can’t recommend it. It’s preachy, judgemental and more than a little crazy.
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𝕬𝖒𝖆𝖟𝖔𝖓𝕮𝖚𝖘𝖙𝖔𝖒𝖊𝖗
A brilliant book. The author puts forward a strong case that Oumuamua was alien made.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on February 11, 2021
Richard in Edinburgh
Exciting theory but the book is mostly autobiographical
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on February 12, 2021
