The Eerie Silence: Renewing Our Search for Alien Intelligence - Hardcover

Davies, Paul

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0547133243 ISBN 13: 9780547133249

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010

Synopsis

One of the world’s leading scientists explains why—and how—the search for intelligent life beyond Earth should be expanded.

Fifty years ago, a young astronomer named Frank Drake first pointed a radio telescope at nearby stars in the hope of picking up a signal from an alien civilization. Thus began one of the boldest scientific projects in history, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). After a half-century of scanning the skies, however, astronomers have little to report but an eerie silence—eerie because many scientists are convinced that the universe is teeming with life. Physicist and astrobiologist Paul Davies has been closely involved with SETI for three decades and chairs the SETI Post-Detection Taskgroup, charged with deciding what to do if we’re suddenly confronted with evidence of alien intelligence. He believes the search so far has fallen into an anthropocentric trap—assuming that an alien species will look, think, and behave much like us. In this provocative book Davies refocuses the search, challenging existing ideas of what form an alien intelligence might take, how it might try to communicate with us, and how we should respond if it does.

About this title

Review:

A magnificent cosmic tour d'horizon of what we know, and what we might yet encounter out there, in the apparent emptiness of deep space (Christoper Hart Sunday Times)

An immensely readable investigation of the SETI enterprise (Michael Hanlon New Scientist)

Davies is the most engaging of writers (Clive Cookson FT)

In an area more given to fabulation than fact, [Paul Davies'] level-headedness is positively refreshing. If you ever start worrying about why no one is talking to us, this is the book to calm you down (David Papineau Observer)

From the Back Cover:

“Refreshing . . . A penetrating analysis of the assumptions that underlie SETI and the entire enterprise of searching for life beyond Earth.”—Chris McKay, Nature

Fifty years ago, Frank Drake pointed a radio telescope at nearby stars in the hope of picking up a signal from an alien civilization. Thus began one of the boldest scientific projects in history, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). However, astronomers have little to report but an eerie silence—eerie because many scientists are convinced that the universe is teeming with life. Could it be, wonders the physicist and astrobiologist Paul Davies, that we’ve been looking in the wrong place, at the wrong time, in the wrong way?

Closely involved with SETI for three decades, Davies now chairs the SETI Post-Detection Taskgroup, charged with deciding what to do if we’re confronted with evidence of alien intelligence. He believes the search so far has fallen into an anthropocentric trap—assuming an alien species will look, think, and behave like us. In this mind-expanding and provocative book, he refocuses the search, challenging existing ideas of what form an alien intelligence might take, how it might try to communicate with us, and how we should respond if it does.

“An immensely readable investigation of the SETI enterprise . . . [A] wonderful book.”—New Scientist

PAUL DAVIES is an internationally acclaimed physicist, cosmologist, and astrobiologist at Arizona State University. He is the author of more than twenty books, including The Mind of God, About Time, How to Build a Time Machine, and The Goldilocks Enigma.

 

About this edition

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0547133243
• ISBN 13: 9780547133249
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 242