Life in the Universe (2nd Edition)

Book Description

Key Message: Life in the Universe takes readers on a journey through the solar system and beyond, using a rigorous yet accessible introduction to astronomy, biology, chemistry, and geology to explain natural phenomena and explore unanswered scientific questions. The Second Edition has been thoroughly revised to include updated scientific discoveries, optional quantitative coverage, an enhanced illustration program, and expanded coverage of the solar system and stellar material. Key Topics: Introducing Life in the Universe: A Universe of Life?, The Science of Life in the Universe, The Universal Context of Life. Life on Earth: The Habitability of Earth, The Nature of Life on Earth, The Origin and Evolution of Life on Earth. Life in the Solar System: Searching for Life in Our Solar System, Mars, Life on Jovian Moons, The Nature and Evolution of Habitability. Life Among the Stars: Habitability Outside the Solar System, The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, Interstellar Travel and the Fermi Paradox. Epilogue: Contact – Implications of the Search and Discovery Market: For all readers interested in a rigorous yet accessible introduction to astronomy, biology, chemistry, and geology, while exploring fundamental pan-scientific questions such as: How did life begin on Earth? What are the most extreme forms of life currently known? What are the challenges of trying to colonize another planet?

Customer Reviews:

Expensive, but worth it.......2006-06-24

This is a really expensive paperback, but it should have an honored place in your home, next to your dictionary, your atlas, your Roget's Thesaurus and your Holy Bible, Koran or any other book that is important to you.

Its opening chapter, "A Universe of Life," is awe-inspiring, summoning up as it does the almost-endless, vast reaches of known creation and inviting us to consider how MUCH there is out there that might be home to any form of life --from the submicroscopic to beings, well, something like us (although not much of the book is given over to the latter possibillity).

It tackles the place of religion, too, in all of this -- including Creationism and its offshoots -- and gives you some pretty good reasons for setting aside your feelings and just going along for the scientific ride in this 346-page stunner (plus appendixes).

The artwork is superb. Worth the price of admission by itself.

So, drag out the old credit card and put yourself even deeper into literary debt, because you will return to this book again and again over the years.

A good college text for non-science majors.......2006-01-22

This book seems to have two goals. One is to teach the reader something about astrobiology. The other is to be a text for a science course for college undergraduates (in most cases, underclassmen majoring in something other than science).

The book begins by discussing how stars and planets are formed. And then comes a major point: biology may be common in the universe given evidence that organic molecules form fairly easily, life appears to have originated early in the Earth's history, and there's evidence that Earth life can survive under a wide range of conditions. Next, there's a section on the nature of science and the scientific method. And then some material on the definition and nature of life. From there we go to the Earth's geological record. And there's a useful discussion of greenhouse gases, possible high surface temperatures on Earth when life first developed, and a possible "Snowball Earth" much later.

Now comes a key chapter: how did life get started? And when. The text shows that it was not all that long after the Earth emerged from forming and being heavily bombarded. And that hyperthermophiles may well have been the common ancestor of life on Earth today. The book speculates that the process was: synthesis of organic precursor molecules, development of replicators (RNA), development of protocells (enclosing membranes), primitive cells (the RNA world), and then DNA-based cells. It also addresses the question of whether life could have migrated to Earth from Mars or elsewhere. There's a discussion of the rise of oxygen in the atmosphere. And how primitive life evolved into the intelligent life that now exists.

These are certainly the right topics to start with. But I wish this book, even with the constraint of being for non-science majors, had gone into just a little more detail on all of them. It does just that on the rest of the topics.

The book continues with an excellent section about possibilities of life elsewhere in our planetary system, including the environmental requirements. We look at Mars (including evidence from Martian meteorites), Jovian moons, and Titan. And we see why Venus is too close to the Sun to be in the "habitable zone." I hope that the next edition of this book, due out in 2006, will mention the Saturnian moon Enceledus as well.

After that, there is a discussion of extrasolar planets and the serach for extraterrestrial intelligence. If anything, there is an excess of material here, including speculations about the possible technology levels of an intelligent society and interstellar travel. But this does lead to a worthwhile discussion of the Fermi paradox: if there are relatively nearby extraterrestrials, why aren't they here by now?

Writing an overview of this field for non-science majors is a daunting task, and I think the authors did a really good job. After reading such a book, I think one will find it much easier to understand any advances made in this field in the future.

A Very Delightful Book.......2005-04-22

This is the ONE Science Textbook I will keep forever and ever.

A good college text for non-science majors.......2004-12-02

This book seems to have two goals. One is to teach the reader something about astrobiology. The other is to be a text for a science course for college undergraduates (in most cases, underclassmen majoring in something other than science).

The book begins by discussing how stars and planets are formed. And then comes a major point: biology may be common in the universe given evidence that organic molecules form fairly easily, life appears to have originated early in the Earth's history, and there's evidence that Earth life can survive under a wide range of conditions.

Next, there's a section on the nature of science and the scientific method. And then some material on the definition and nature of life. From there we go to the Earth's geological record. And there's a useful discussion of greenhouse gases, possible high surface temperatures on Earth when life first developed, and a possible "Snowball Earth" much later.

Now comes a key chapter: how did life get started? And when. The text shows that it was not all that long after the Earth emerged from forming and being heavily bombarded. And that hyperthermophiles may well have been the common ancestor of life on Earth today. The book speculates that the process was: synthesis of organic precursor molecules, development of replicators (RNA), development of protocells (enclosing membranes), primitive cells (the RNA world), and then DNA-based cells. It also addresses the question of whether life could have migrated to Earth from Mars or elsewhere. There's a discussion of the rise of oxygen in the atmosphere. And how primitive life evolved into the intelligent life that now exists.

These are certainly the right topics to start with. But I wish this book, even with the constraint of being for non-science majors, had gone into just a little more detail on all of them. It does just that on the rest of the topics.

The book continues with an excellent section about possibilities of life elsewhere in our planetary system, including the environmental requirements. We look at Mars (including evidence from Martian meteorites), Jovian moons, and Titan. And we see why Venus is too close to the Sun to be in the "habitable zone."

After that, there is a discussion of extrasolar planets and the serach for extraterrestrial intelligence. If anything, there is an excess of material here, including speculations about the possible technology levels of an intelligent society and interstellar travel. But this does lead to a worthwhile discussion of the Fermi paradox: if there are relatively nearby extraterrestrials, why aren't they here by now?

Writing an overview of this field for non-science majors is a daunting task, and I think the authors did a really good job. After reading such a book, I think one will find it much easier to understand any advances made in this field in the future.

At Home in the Universe: The Search for the Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity

Average customer rating:

At home in the universe, A New Proposal...
Proposals to Unanswered Questions
Fascinating Science Applicable to Evolution and Business
A fascinating look at self-organization
Fantastic and enlightening

At Home in the Universe: The Search for the Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity
Stuart Kauffman
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Hidden Order: How Adaptation Builds Complexity (Helix Books)
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ASIN: 0195111303

Amazon.com

The best treatment I have yet encountered about how order emerges naturally -- and possibly even necessarily -- out of chaos. Profoundly important, and considerably more informed than better-known pop-science treatments of chaos theory. Very highly recommended.

Book Description

A major scientific revolution has begun, a new paradigm that rivals Darwin's theory in importance. At its heart is the discovery of the order that lies deep within the most complex of systems, from the origin of life, to the workings of giant corporations, to the rise and fall of great civilizations. And more than anyone else, this revolution is the work of one man, Stuart Kauffman, a MacArthur Fellow and visionary pioneer of the new science of complexity. Now, in At Home in the Universe, Kauffman brilliantly weaves together the excitement of intellectual discovery and a fertile mix of insights to give the general reader a fascinating look at this new science--and at the forces for order that lie at the edge of chaos. We all know of instances of spontaneous order in nature--an oil droplet in water forms a sphere, snowflakes have a six-fold symmetry. What we are only now discovering, Kauffman says, is that the range of spontaneous order is enormously greater than we had supposed. Indeed, self-organization is a great undiscovered principle of nature. But how does this spontaneous order arise? Kauffman contends that complexity itself triggers self-organization, or what he calls "order for free," that if enough different molecules pass a certain threshold of complexity, they begin to self-organize into a new entity--a living cell. Kauffman uses the analogy of a thousand buttons on a rug--join two buttons randomly with thread, then another two, and so on. At first, you have isolated pairs; later, small clusters; but suddenly at around the 500th repetition, a remarkable transformation occurs--much like the phase transition when water abruptly turns to ice--and the buttons link up in one giant network. Likewise, life may have originated when the mix of different molecules in the primordial soup passed a certain level of complexity and self-organized into living entities (if so, then life is not a highly improbable chance event, but almost inevitable). Kauffman uses the basic insight of "order for free" to illuminate a staggering range of phenomena. We see how a single-celled embryo can grow to a highly complex organism with over two hundred different cell types. We learn how the science of complexity extends Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection: that self-organization, selection, and chance are the engines of the biosphere. And we gain insights into biotechnology, the stunning magic of the new frontier of genetic engineering--generating trillions of novel molecules to find new drugs, vaccines, enzymes, biosensors, and more. Indeed, Kauffman shows that ecosystems, economic systems, and even cultural systems may all evolve according to similar general laws, that tissues and terra cotta evolve in similar ways. And finally, there is a profoundly spiritual element to Kauffman's thought. If, as he argues, life were bound to arise, not as an incalculably improbable accident, but as an expected fulfillment of the natural order, then we truly are at home in the universe. Kauffman's earlier volume, The Origins of Order, written for specialists, received lavish praise. Stephen Jay Gould called it "a landmark and a classic." And Nobel Laureate Philip Anderson wrote that "there are few people in this world who ever ask the right questions of science, and they are the ones who affect its future most profoundly. Stuart Kauffman is one of these." In At Home in the Universe, this visionary thinker takes you along as he explores new insights into the nature of life.

Customer Reviews:

At home in the universe, A New Proposal..........2007-04-05

In this book, Stuart Koaffman opens new doors to us. Through the theory of the chaos, proportions fractals and their networks boulinas, give an interesting speculation us on the origin of the life, the complex systems and the societies. It is hour to be on the awares and to try to focus to us in new horizons. This book took to him of the hand by these new horizons. It is hour to know our house in the universe...

Proposals to Unanswered Questions.......2006-09-16

Stuart Kaufman's At Home in the Universe is a lay redaction his scientific hypotheses from his Origins of Order, a rich, fascinating, sophisticated, and complementary set of hypotheses added to Darwin's theories of evolution. For the moment, at least, they are the promising fruit of speculative or theoretical biological hypotheses (with physics, chemistry, geology, paleontology, mathematics, game theory, and economics thrown in), but they go a long way to filling in many of the gaps that strict Darwinists seem content to ignore. And some of his hypotheses, he readily admits, are heretical.

One of the obvious problems, if not primary one, that Kaufman sets to answer, Is how can natural selection work, culling the fittest to survive, without something to act on? In other words, natural selection operates on the already existent (i.e., regressive engineering), not in the formation of the entity itself. Another problem is that 4 billion years, long as that is, is still not sufficient time for natural selection to have acted through a totally random, step-by-step process in determining today's survivors. Even 100 billion years would not be enough. Another problem is how could so many species have come into existence and failed to survive (99.9%), leaving a mere 100 million for the present, in the span of a mere 4 billion years (mathematically impossible on Darwin's theories alone).

The central theme of Kaufman's work is Self-organized Criticality, a scientific twist on the notion of irreducible complexity (from the Discovery Institute's lexicon, no less), where a minimal degree of inherent complexity in a subcritical-supercritical phase transition is what spontaneously orders the animate world and generates and sustains life in accord with other, as yet, unknown, but implicit laws. From the moment that a sufficiently critical diversity of molecules reached the ideal phase transition, life itself was "spontaneously generated" as inevitable, not by accident. Once life appeared, the acts of natural selection, adaptation, coevolution, evolution of coevolution, cellular, morphological, and physiological differentiation, ontogeny, niches, populations, stable cum-chaotic dynamics, etc., could operate, but in addition to forces beyond natural selection. And while speculative, apparently many scientists share Kaufman's intuitions, inferences, and insights.

But the "other" force or forces is not mystical, much less divine, even if they may be truly awesome. Rather, it is in the nature of the universe, and more particularly in our evolving earth, that these implicit laws work in tandem with Darwin's laws. At this point, these laws are posited from the empirical knowledge we do have, but have not yet demonstrated in the scientific manner to make them even hypotheses. But Kaufman's speculative biology is not a whimsical or arbitrary metaphysics, but logical inferences based on laws and facts already in place. Having done the easy work (thinking the notions of what these other general laws of nature must be like), now science must work in earnest to confirm or reject his speculative hypotheses.

The key word and concept throughout this humorous, heady, and exacting exposition is "complexity" and within the manifold complexities of lives, environments, and mutually intersecting dynamics is a spontaneous order that arises "for free" that in turn sustains stable and steady systems just at the subcritical-supercrticial phase transition (e.g., horizon, or "edge of chaos"). Another key word and concept is "dynamic." Steady-state and homeostasis are often thought of as a static plateau, but that is mistaken, as such states are actually in a fluctuating dynamic at the phase transition between equilibrium (death) and disequilibrium (disorder). Indeed, on many different levels, living organisms are born, dwell, and die precisely at this phase transition between the subcritical (stasis, moribund) and supercritical (chaotic, disordered) states. And the key thesis is that order ("for free") is embedded in the delicate balancing act precisely at this phase transition.

Kaufman extrapolates some of these implicit biological laws and applies them to human cultural and technological advancement. The "fit" is remarkably uncanny, helping us to understand some of the dynamics of technological improvements (and diminishing returns), innovation, extinction, and spontaneity of the economy. Perhaps the most salient features are the concepts of "dynamic" and "spontaneous."

Moreover, if an analogy can be drawn from the biosphere and ecology to the social and political realms, the overwhelming preponderance of biological evidence screams complexity, diversity, and interdependence of organisms and their environments, which arise spontaneously and reciprocally to each other, in a constant dynamic that is vibrant, active, and always on the threshold of "chaos," but retains some stability through change. It is only those social and political forms that are "adaptive" that are socially and politically the "fittest," and democracy and market economies are obviously the most adaptive mechanisms to adapt to changing human needs.

Frederick Hayek addressed himself to these very issues over 50 years ago, and called the market economy and democracies "spontaneous" associations, in contradistinction to "planned" economies and governments. The former "adapt" to changing environments and circumstances, while the latter lack flexibility, and thus do not easily yield to adaptive mechanisms. "Planned" economies attempt to calculate rationally human desires, motivations, and needs in either an abstract or a priori fashion, then calculate the mode of production, the degree, and whether to accommodate, as if some "Absolute Human Mind" could anticipate all contingencies and changes by a simple mathematical formula. The problem is that bureaucrats are notoriously theory-laden and too calculating to include, much less advance, diversity (think Medicare Part D for "planned" absurdity). In practice, socialisms impede innovation and stifle ingenuity. With no means of adaptation, there is no "fittest," much less any mechanism to adapt to the actual dynamics of the world.

Communism's planned economy is an extreme case of an irrational calculus asserting what the government will allow, applying the lowest-common denominator as a criterion of sufficiency. We all know of the U.S.S.R.'s food lines, limited products, forced housing, inferior merchandise, and minimal labor investment. But even weaker forms of the rational calculus, such as socialism, does not do much better. At least their democracies allow policies to change, even if it becomes years for government to adapt to the new exigencies. Even the most socialized societies have "capitalist" outlets, to provide some barometer of social wants and meeting them. Social insurance makes sense on many fronts, but social or state "planning" of economics has rotted state and worker. Kaufman's biological analogies explain why.

Postscript: Kaufman's book is a provocative, challenging, and fascinating (sometime heady) read. Even if all of his hypotheses in the abstract are found to be untrue, at least he captures the reader's imagination, and asks the questions that most of us non-dogmatic Darwinians have raised for some time. In a time when the "easy" and "orthodox" are all too convenient for slipping under the rug, Kaufman's questions (and suggested answers) go the the very nexus of the difficulties. His suggested answers are at once perhaps too simple, on the other hand, perhaps too complex. What is refreshing, above all, is that he's not afraid to ask, and even less fearful of suggesting solutions. Thank gawd for the Sante Fe Institute, where brave and curious minds still ask questions.

Fascinating Science Applicable to Evolution and Business.......2006-05-17

Stuart brings the science of complexity and complex adaptive systems to a broad range of topics from evolution to business to learning curves. The book is masterly written to allow you to skim over the formulas without lossing the excitement or to dig into the technology to understand its broad application.

A fascinating look at self-organization.......2005-01-18

We see a great deal of order in living systems. Where does this order come from? Is it entirely from natural selection? The author says no. He explains that much of the order we see in the world is spontaneous, such as in the symmetry of snowflakes, and that much of the order needed for the origination of life and in living organisms is of this spontaneous nature.

Kauffman is making a non-trivial point here, as the extent to which spontaneous order is more important than selected order is not entirely obvious. While a snowflake is indeed an example of a system that is highly ordered as it gets synthesized, that's not true of, say, a solar system, in which short-lived bodies quickly depart the scene in favor of long-lived ones. It's clearly significant that disordered entities tend to be shorter-lived and unable to replicate.

The author then addresses theories of the origin of life. Could it have started with RNA? After all, replicating RNA could then produce the needed proteins. Kauffman says no. The amino acid chains one would need would be too long to replicate accurately enough (the "error catastrophe"). I tend to agree. Besides, RNA is awfully fragile (DNA is not fragile). And once one hypothesizes that RNA has a template to keep it safe, one's theory is that templates came first.

Of course, the "error catastrophe" is devastating if the minimum complexity of a living cell is rather large. Kauffman argues that this minimum complexity is indeed large, and that it is no accident that there are hundreds of genes in pleuromona, perhaps the simplest free-living (non-virus) organism.

Spontaneous order also refutes the argument of Hoyle and Wickramasinghe that life could not have arisen on Earth because the chance of creating the 2000 functioning enzymes would be too small: 1 in 10 to the 40,000. Well, given that life does exist here, the Hoyle argument is almost certainly wrong anyway (with a chance that small, the odds would be overwhelmingly small for life to arise anywhere, ever, so the chance that the argument is wrong must be huge, since a correct argument might then give a much higher probability for life to appear).

The author then asks how we get the large polymers we need. After all, life is basically autocatalysis (that's what I was taught in the 1960s, and that's what Kauffman says as well). How does this big autocatalytic set get into gear? The author makes an analogy to putting connectors between random pairs of entities. At first the length of a connected chain will be small. But once the number of connections is about half the number of entities, the longest chain quickly becomes almost as large as the number of entities. That raises the question of how all these entities can interact, but Kaufmann says that having reactions on a substrate, effectively reducing the region to two dimensions, helps. So does having less water around.

We then get to the question of homeostasis. That requires plenty of order. Is there a way to get that order "for free?" The author says there is, and here is where he makes his most dramatic point. He points out that a network with 100,000 entities (call them "light bulbs") with two states each, has 10 to the 30,000 possible states. One might expect such a network to cycle through the square root of the number of states, or 10 to the 15,000. But it actually tends to cycle through the square root of the number of binary variables, which is only the square root of 100,000 or about 317. That is a huge amount of "order for free!" And it argues strongly for life's origination to be unsurprising. As Kauffman puts it, this changes life on Earth from being "We, the improbable," to "We the expected."

There's plenty more in this fine book. The author discusses order in ontogeny. And he has a chapter on the relationship between the diversity of species in an ecosystem and the diversity of organic molecules added from outside. And there's also plenty of material on "fitness landscapes."

One question that arises in this book is statistical: how long does a species tend to last? That has implications for the question of how long humans will last. It may not be that long. But that doesn't bother me, as long as we're replaced with something better. After all, I'm for progress!

Fantastic and enlightening.......2004-03-21

This particular book is a fantastic revelation and study of the boundary between order and chaos as it applies to the evolution of life, culture, technology and anything else in the universe. Its goal is to seek a universal law regarding the emergence of order in what we've traditionally considered unordered or random sets of fundamental stuff. For example, one of the observations that it makes is that evolution as Darwin revealed it is by itself not a sufficient explanation (scientifically) for why and how creatures like us could be here at all. In other words, natural selection is not sufficient to accomplish what life has accomplished in this world of ours. It needed the help of a very important other "force"... the life force, I might call it, and to which I've alluded many times in many forms through my writings. It's that special something about the nature of the universe that brings about the cooperation of systems, the autocatalytic closure which makes "hanging together" and "existing" some sort of "goal" deeply encoded in the nature of it all. You might be able to see how I might identify these ideas very closely with that term "lifetoward". What goal-oriented force brought life to be and continues to make life strive for ever more order and complexity? This book answers I think very well with: it's not a force, per se, but rather a fundamental aspect of the basic nature of the universe. To quote the book, "We the expected." We as living beings belong here and are an integral part of an incredibly awe inspiring process of creation of meaning and order in a world aching to give birth to it. The book closes with a nice summary, which much like a message I had posted to the lifetoward@yahoogroups.com list some time ago, extols the development of a new and enlightened faith, based on a realization of the wonder of the way the universe deeply is and how we are in it.

In terms of the meaning and importance of this book, I would recommend it to everyone. However, I will warn you that it may be a significant challenge to read. It calls on a deeply considered understanding of a variety of disciplines, including most notably evolutionary biology, organic chemistry, mathematics, anthropology, and economics. It proceeds with an assumption that the reader has realized or can quickly recognize the common ground between these different areas of study. It uses a lot of mathematical models and visualizations of 2, 3 and hyperdimensional spaces to discuss the nature of this common law and its emergence in the world around us.

Average customer rating:

Sagan's first book a real treasure...

The single best scientific book on intelligent life in the universe

Great Read

An Absolutely Essential Read

This is the first rational book to address the probability..

Intelligent Life in the Universe
Carl Sagan , and I. S. Shklovskii
Manufacturer: Holden-Day
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Customer Reviews:

Sagan's first book a real treasure..........2006-11-15

I was very happy to find this book on a visit to a local used book store (where interestingly enough I also found a copy of the first book published under John F. Kennedy's name being "Why England Slept").

Though I've been a big Carl Sagan fan since reading Cosmos, Dragons of Eden, Broca's Brain, Contact and his other eighties works back during my college days I was always curious to see if he was just as good when he first started writing.

And the answer of course was...duh, of course yes.

Though admittedly one third of the book (relating to cosmic origins) is dated because it was written over forty years ago, the remaining two thirds -- relating to the origins of life generally and speculations on the possibilities of life elsewhere -- actually hold up amazingly well.

Sadly, as it relates to the later topic, being the search for intelligent life elsewhere, part of the reason why Sagan's book still holds up is because of the paucity of research that has actually been done.

In this way, this wonderful book becomes both a commentary on Sagan's abounding foresight and the lack of foresight so obvious in those academicians who've failed to follow in his able footsteps.

The single best scientific book on intelligent life in the universe.......2005-12-07

I used this book as an undergrad in a 400 level Astronomy class. At the time, the book was a real challenge for me in that I wanted to understand the mathematical and physical foundations of intelligent life. By the end of the course, and the book, I was, and have remained, absolutely convinced that intelligent life is plentiful in the universe, at least as can be "proved" mathematically using our physical laws. I was also convinced that human type life is in fact highly unlikely to be duplicated elsewhere in the universe. Finally, it is likely that many of this other intelligent life is perhaps vastly superior to our own. No, I'm not a nut, and I'm not a scientist, but I am convinced, even in the absence of physical evidence. Read this book, you'll make your own mind up. One warning, this is not "light reading". It is a college level textbook, that if you stay with it, will reward you in the end. What a shame we have lost such a great mind as Carl Sagan. To date, no one has stepped up to replace him.

Great Read.......2003-06-26

If you are interested in this issue, I highly recommend the book. This book is extremely thorough, so thorough it could be used as a textbook on an astrobiology class. It was written in the sixties so yes its out of date here and there, but much of the information is surprisingly current. You also get a great early taste of Sagan's writing style.

An Absolutely Essential Read.......2003-01-17

I first read this book in the early 1970s, and have read many
since then, and it pained me somewhat to find that the book is now out of print. I can honestly say this is still, without any doubt
in my mind, the *best* starting place for the study of astronomy,
cosmology, astrobiology/xenobiology (call it what you will) and
all things extraterrestrial. The book gives you all the background information available at the time of its publication to understand
problems that are still profound to this day, in a step by step
method that is both an absorbing read and and a good bit of education in itself. Invaluable for both its conclusions and for the historical background it gives to current issues, well illustrated and beautifully far reaching, I most highly recommend this rare and wonderful book.

This is the first rational book to address the probability.........1998-02-09

of life elsewhere inthe universe.

I read it first sometime in the late Sixties or early Seventies as an undergrad in engineering/physics/math. Carl Sagan created a wonderful book which has stayed with me over the course of almost 30 years now.

Amazon.com

Every step you take in A Walk Through Time moves you millions of years forward in Earth's history. Inspired by the idea of a one-mile stroll through the evolution of life, Sidney Liebes recruited some terrific writers and artists to create a traveling museum exhibit; A Walk Through Time summarizes the experience in book form, with the help of fascinating photos and intelligent, enjoyable text. The most profound realization along this temporal journey is just how small a part human history plays in the big time line. In the museum exhibit, where one foot equals one million years, human presence takes up all of one-thousandth of an inch; in the book's time line, we merit barely a speck. Our tiniest living fellows--the bacteria and blue-green algae, the amazing arthropods, the merging microbes--are the real stars of the show. Readers are treated to intriguing views of bizarre organisms like tardigrades, velvet worms, and lichens ("Taking everything we know about algae and fungi, we still never would have predicted the outcome of their synergy"), along with the microbes that once ruled the earth. Only at the very end of the line, long after the development of sexual reproduction, after the great Cretaceous extinction, after the development of flight and fur, will you find humans. Taking this walk is a great lesson in perspective, a cautionary tale about hubris and longevity that every human should read. --Therese Littleton

Book Description

Fifteen Billion Years in the Life . . A breathtaking, vibrantly illustrated history of the universe. "A valuable new way to conceive of the immensity of geological time and of organic evolution that has occurred within it. It has broad appeal to the public and will be a useful guide for science educators as well."--E. O. Wilson. "My Walk Through Time was an unforgettable experience, awe-inspiring, and humbling...rich in scientific fact and unexpectedly, exquisite humor."--Jane Goodall. A Walk Through Time is a landmark book, gorgeously illustrating the remarkable drama of the history of the universe, from the furious blast of the Big Bang to the first pulse of life on Earth, and on through the rich pageant of life's evolution from primordial microbes to the rise of Homo sapiens. Spanning 15 billion years, the story of life's greatest mysteries emerges here through 130 beautiful four-color illustrations and an absorbing narrative. Combining the knowledge of three expert authors, the text covers the most up-to-date findings, including new understandings about how the universe coalesced into galaxies and planets; how microscopic animals can survive in such superheated environments as deep-sea vents and inside the Earth's core, and the possibility that water came to our planet from space in the form of millions of tiny comets. A Walk Through Time gives readers a new perspective on awe-inspiring processes that produced us and our place in the universe. The companion to a traveling exhibition developed by Hewlett Packard and the Foundation for Global Community. * Lavishly produced by the team that created The Illustrated Brief History of Time. Brian Swimme, Ph.D. (San Francisco, CA), is a cosmologist and the director of the Center for the Story of the Universe at the California Institute of Integral Studies. He is the author of several books, including The Universe Story. Dr. Sid Liebes (Palo Alto, CA) is a senior scientist at Hewlett-Packard Laboratories. Elisabet Sahtouris, Ph.D. (San Francisco, CA) is an evolutionary biologist and consultant to the United Nations.

Customer Reviews:

An exciting dance through time........2001-01-16

I never had the opportunity to see the "Walk Through Time" exhibition, initiated by Sidney Liebes and supported by Hewlett-Packard, but it must have been a marvelous experience. What rivets my attention in this book, however, even more than the beautiful pictures of the exhibit, is the text written by Elisabet Sahtouris, who expresses her own "cosmovision" with an incomparable eloquence and vitality. While her words are grounded solidly in the most advanced theoretical and empirical evolutionary science, she takes the reader not on a walk but an exciting dance through time. If I were asked to recommend just one book that best told the story of how the universe conspired to bring us into being this would be it. It's a real "roots" story but the roots are not merely those of a particular individual or family or species but of all life, reaching back to the point where time itself loses meaning.

Keith Chandler, author of Beyond Civilization

most interesting book i've read in years!.......2000-09-25

this is the most interesting book i've read in years; prof. liebes presents the history of evolution from stardust to us, at the end of the book one relizes that all of us humans are actually single cells of a larger life form, the planet earth. In an informative and easy to read way, "a walk through time" presents a holistic theory of evolution that emphasises symbiotic co-evolution of geo-bio-matter admidst the theme that while life starts out in a state of competition, all life forms even on a cellular level learn to cooperate, develop symbiotic relationships that enable life to first develop and then evolve billions of years to present day. the glory of the sheer will of all life,(particularly at the cellular level) reminds me very much of shoupenhauer,nieztche,spinoza, henri bergson and hegal. i would recomend this book to all people,especially those who enjoy philosophy and those theologians seeking a more meaning cosmology.

most interesting book i've read in years!.......2000-09-25

A global view which necessary means a lack of details.......2000-01-26

I've just terminated to read this book and it was very interesting in many respects: - The text is well written and a pleasure to read; - Sometimes you have a fact per line, which shows the incredible work done by the author to synthesize a huge amount of knowledge on the subject; - Essential things are said and you'll have doors open for further readings; - The fact that timescale is respected as the text goes on gives a striking perspective of life's evolution over the millions and millions of years; - The first stage of evolution (unicelled creatures) is longly explained; - The incredible role of living creatures (especially bacteria) in shaping our planet is highlighted; - Emphasis is put on the unity of life in it's diversity.

But there are some shortages : - Pictures are of poor print quality; - There is a lack of details, especially after the microbial stage.

Globally speaking, if you want the life's story before animals and plants, it's a good book, but otherwise, the Book of Life by S. J. Gould is better. However, in my opinion, it's a good buy and one can learn many many things by reading this book.

The interconnected web of existence.......2000-01-19

A Walk Through Time - From Stardust to Us - The evolution of Life on Earth.

A Walk Through Time (AWTT) is an incredibly well done book, from all aspects. The artwork and printing make it suitable for display and the content challenges us to re-think our position in the world and the decisions we are making.

The explanation of evolution is both plausible and understandable to the lay person. Yet the mystery of life is not diminished or hidden, so there is more than enough room for those who understand our existence through their love of God.

Beginning more than 5,000 MYA (5,000 Million Years Ago, or 5 Billion Years Ago) we are told, the "universe did indeed begin in an explosion of energy powerful enough to send all matter flying apart for billions of years into the future." From that starting point, AWTT traces with considerable detail the evolution of our living earth of which we are a part. And everywhere the mystery of "the life force" is to be found.

One can read the prose or follow the exhibition text along the bottom of the pages, or take in both to re-enforce what is being explained. Sidney Liebes managed to convince HP of the merits of creating a 1mile "walk through time." That project is staffed by volunteers and has been presented in a dozen venues in three countries. The "exhibition text" mentioned above is from that project.

The final paragraph of the book summarizes the challenge for our existence in this totally interconnected web of life. "Is it possible that a sense of awe, wonder and humility, of origins, place, possibilities, and recovery of a belief in the sacredness of nature, can, and perhaps must, become operational imperatives in guiding humanity into the future? Rather than pondering the illusive purpose of life, can we not accept and appreciate the gift, live the life we are given, respect all life, and preserve options for the future. Though none of us has the power to control the future, each of us is free to determine how we will contribute to the circumstance out of which the future will evolve."

Perhaps the purpose of life is simply to ensure that life continues. Then there is much in this book to set us on the right path.

Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution
Average customer rating:

Good Overview

Origins Review

A science masterpiece! Breaks new ground in presentation of material.

How it all began

Excellent Book

Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution
Neil deGrasse Tyson , and Donald Goldsmith
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton & Company
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Binding: Hardcover

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NOVA - Origins

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ASIN: 0393059928

Amazon.com

In this companion volume to the two-part NOVA television special by the same title, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson and astronomy writer Donald Goldsmith attempt to cram 14 billion years of history into 300 pages. The result of this audacious exercise is a surprising and engrossing book, one that far surpasses the droning tone of so many astronomy texts. Starting (of course) with the Big Bang and ending with the search for extraterrestrial life, the authors synthesize the results of several scientific fields to present a sort of cosmological consilience. They also emphasize the scientific method and its inherent skepticism as the only way to understand such mysteries as dark matter, stellar formation, and the origin of life on Earth. Although several books are published each year that provide overviews of various branches of science, what's different about this one is the accessible tone of the writing. The authors use mild humor throughout to keep readers going in difficult sections; for instance, when assessing the question of why we live during the rare time when the amounts of dark and not-dark energy are roughly equal in the universe, they relate that cosmologist Michael Turner calls the situation the "'Nancy Kerrigan problem,' in honor of the Olympic figure skater, who asked... 'Why me? Why now?'" Combining 21st-century astronomy, astrobiology, astrochemistry, and other disciplines, Origins is a fine guidebook with which to journey "back to the beginning of everything." --Therese Littleton

Book Description

Basis of the PBS Nova series: an illuminating excursion into the beginnings of the universe—from the big bang to the birth of life itself.

Origins explores cosmic science's stunning new insights into the formation and evolution of our universe—of the cosmos, of galaxies and galaxy clusters, of stars within galaxies, of planets that orbit those stars, and of different forms of life that take us back to the first three seconds and forward through three billion years of life on Earth to today's search for life on other planets.

Drawing on the current cross-pollination of geology, biology, and astrophysics, Origins explains the thrilling daily breakthroughs in our knowledge of the universe from dark energy to life on Mars to the mysteries of space and time. Distilling complex science in clear and lively prose, co-authors Neil deGrasse Tyson and Donald Goldsmith conduct a galvanizing tour of the cosmos revealing what the universe has been up to while turning part of itself into us. 32 pages of color illustrations.

Customer Reviews:

Good Overview.......2007-08-23

This is the best summary of our cosmic history, written for the intelligent laymen. Dr. Tyson is a master at bringing things down to a intellectually respectable level without resorting to baby talk.

Origins Review.......2007-07-03

Highly recommend. Prof. Tyson is good teacher, and despite his position and impressive curriculum vitae, personally responded to some questions that arose from reading the book. Inspirational topic and author.

A science masterpiece! Breaks new ground in presentation of material........2007-05-06

Here it is about 10 years since Carl Sagan passed away, and we are now being treated to works by Neil deGrasse Tyson. I believe that Tyson can be mentioned in the same breathe as Sagan without suffering by the comparison.

If you are a science fan, you owe it to yourself to read this one. There is an economy, style and comprehensiveness here that appear flawless. The Hundred Greatest Stars Reading the Mind of God Cosmos Horizons: Exploring the Universe (with TheSky CD-ROM, AceAstronomy?, and Virtual Astronomy Labs)

How it all began.......2007-04-22

Imagine a time in the future when space travel is perfected: you can zip between the stars in a day, rather than the millennia it would currently take. You decide to go on a "road" trip and tour the Milky Way. Even with super fast travel, if you visited only one star per day, it would still take you millions of years to complete your tour. And that's just the Milky Way; if you wanted to see the whole universe, a trillion years wouldn't be enough. The universe is that big and has that much stuff in it; more stunning is that all the stars and planets take up only a very small fraction of the total space. The cosmos is an awesome place and Origins by Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Donald Goldsmith discusses how it all began and what our place is in this vastness.

Logically enough, the book pretty much starts at the beginning, namely at the Big Bang. Actually, it starts slightly later, when the universe was 10 to the minus 43 seconds old; before that, things are shrouded in mystery. From there, we see how the universe evolved, from a haze of pure energy and subatomic particles to one where matter, well...mattered. We then read of the formation of galaxies, then of stars and planets, and finally of life itself.

Are all the answers known? No, of course not, but certain theories have been dismantled (such as the steady state theory of the origin of the universe), others are still sketchy (like how the Earth and other planets formed and a few are really speculative (like how much intelligent life there is beyond the Earth). Somehow, though, the fact that there are still mysteries out there is more pleasantly tantalizing than frustrating.

There can be alternate explanations involving supernatural entities which may provide simpler answers but are not really theories as they cannot pass scientific scrutiny. Tyson and Goldsmith touch on these alternatives, but mainly just on their inadequacy from a scientific standpoint. That is to say, if you believe in "creation science", this is probably not the book for you.

If you have read a lot about astronomy and cosmology already, such as Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe, then Origins will not offer much that you don't already know. This book is designed more for the layperson whose knowledge of these fields is more limited. On the other hand, the authors write with a lot of wit and clarity, so even if you know most of the information within, it is presented in a refreshing enough manner to still make it worth your while.

Excellent Book.......2007-03-14

I am a recently graduated high school student, going on to university in September. I am by no means a physicist or astronomer.

This book has done an incredible job of describing the known universe in the simplest way possible to me. It is full of information, lucidly written and definitely a starting point for anyone interested in the subject. Both quantum theory and physics of space are excellently dealt with in this book, and I strongly recommend it, for anyone mildly interested.

Life's Origin: The Beginnings of Biological Evolution

Average customer rating:

A Great Tool!
Breathtaking

Life's Origin: The Beginnings of Biological Evolution

Manufacturer: University of California Press
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Life on a Young Planet: The First Three Billion Years of Evolution on Earth (Princeton Science Library)
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Oxygen: The Molecule that Made the World (Popular Science)

ASIN: 0520233913

Book Description

Always a controversial and compelling topic, the origin of life on Earth was considered taboo as an area of inquiry for science as recently as the 1950s. Since then, however, scientists working in this area have made remarkable progress, and an overall picture of how life emerged is coming more clearly into focus. We now know, for example, that the story of life's origin begins not on Earth, but in the interiors of distant stars. This book brings a summary of current research and ideas on life's origin to a wide audience. The contributors, all of whom received the Oparin/Urey Gold Medal of the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life, are luminaries in the fields of chemistry, paleobiology, and astrobiology, and in these chapters they discuss their life's work: understanding the what, when, and how of the early evolution of life on Earth. Presented in nontechnical language and including a useful glossary of scientific terms, Life's Origin gives a state-of-the-art encapsulation of the fascinating work now being done by scientists as they begin to characterize life as a natural outcome of the evolution of cosmic matter.

Customer Reviews:

A Great Tool!.......2007-08-24

The only reason I gave it 4 stars instead of five is simply because it is a little rough around the edges as far as a "page turner." I suppose it's all in the way you look at it but none the less, this book is packed with facts about research. It's the presentation of the research, I suppose, that I found to be a little anticlimactic.

Onto the book. Wow! Page after page of research and facts! For a guy like me, I couldn't appreciate it more. One thing I loved about this book is how honest it is. First, it will lay down all of the research done in a certain area, then, only to go back and raise the issues with its plausibiliby regarding the present theory on the actual process it must undergo.

I believe that we were created. I really enjoy reading books of this caliber due to the fact that it only further strengthens my belief. On the chapter pertaining to the origin of biological information, this book is completely silent. Only giving current theories on how it is possible that information could have begun to be "stored," not the origin of information. The section regarding The RNA World, it reads "The idea that there was once a protein-independent biological world, the so-called RNA World, has now come to be widely excepted (although it remains unproven)." (Life's Origin pg142)

In regards to natural affinities that molecules have for one another. This is quite true. But to examine this issue further one must look at its role on the origin and/or expanding of information. In digital information, like we see in RNA and DNA, natural affinities of molecules would be completely detrimental to its production. When a programmer writes a program, if he/she were restrained to only writing code in a certain order using only predetermined texts, there is no way that they could produce new information via evolution.

Racemic mixtures. This book hints at a few ways to get around it but again, the odds are insurmountable.

Actually, this book shows many techniques and procedures that have contrived many organic molecules independently. The astronomical task is having all of these perfect conditions present at one period in time to bring them all together. It's not that I'm pessimistic. I know my biochemistry.

This book is a great tool to have if you want to further your knowledge in using biochemistry to try and explain the origin of life through natural, undirected processes.

Of course I HAVE to promote "Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution" by Dr. Michael Behe. To all you biochemists, read this book, it will change your lives, promise.

Breathtaking.......2004-04-18

This book just slayed me. A series of beautifully-written and well-supported essays covers, very quickly, the turn-of-the-millennium status of research on the subject of how life got started at the very, very beginning. How did 'pre-biotic' molecules ever get started replicating themselves, eventually turning into 'biotic' molecules? The answers aren't all in, but there's some really exciting work going on; scientists are relentlessly chipping away at the problem and they have made a surprising amoutn of progress. You know, these days the creationists are getting a lot of press. And they keeep hammering on the idea that the pre-biotic genesis of life is simply impossible; it had to require some sort of divine intervention. This is a lie. Take astronomer Fred Hoyle's famous simile -- that the accidental genesis of life would be like a tornado ripping through a junkyard and assembling a 747. While I read 'Life's Origin', I thought often of Hoyle and how much I'd like to throttle him. The origin of life requires NOTHING like the accidental assembly of a jet aircraft. It requires something much more like the lifting of two magnets into the air, so they can snap together, each magnet's noth pole snapping to the other's south. Molecules have natural affinities. They were 'born' to snap together. 99.9% of all the matter in the universe is either carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, or nitrogen: the stuff of life. Once the Earth had cooled down from its fiery birth, life couldn't wait to get started. And once it got started, it was by its very nature almost unstoppable. This is not an easy book. It's written for a lay audience (and there's a helpful glossary at the back), but there's a ton of orgo in it, so if you're not a chemist you had best be a quick study: the kind of layperson who, having once heard (for example) the word 'racemic' defined, can use it in a coherent sentence the following day. If you're that kind of smart, you will get a real kick out of this book. This crazy world is more beautiful -- life is more strange and fantastic and marvelous, than we ever suspected. Read and enjoy.

Between Necessity and Probability: Searching for the Definition and Origin of Life (Advances in Astrobiology and Biogeophysics)

Average customer rating:

An interesting book about a fundamental question

Between Necessity and Probability: Searching for the Definition and Origin of Life (Advances in Astrobiology and Biogeophysics)
Radu Popa
Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 3540204903

Book Description

This study investigates the major theories of the origins of life in the light of modern research with the aim of distinguishing between the necessary and the optional and between deterministic and random influences in the emergence of what we call ‘life.’ Life is treated as a cosmic phenomenon whose emergence and driving force should be viewed independently from its Earth-bound natural history. The author synthesizes all the fundamental life-related developments in a comprehensive scenario, and makes the argument that understanding life in its broadest context requires a material-independent perspective that identifies its essential fingerprints.

Customer Reviews:

An interesting book about a fundamental question.......2004-11-08

How did life originate? Well, it's a wide open question. As Popa tells us, an explanation that is missing a critical step won't do. There are plenty of clues. But Popa shows us that there are still many approaches to putting the clues together.

There are plenty of approaches that are being pursued today. Popa tells us about many of them. Still, let's remind ourselves of some of them. One is to look for fossil evidence and DNA evidence of our earliest ancestors. Say that these turn out to be hyperthermophiles. Use that information, as well as the stability properties of RNA and DNA, to deduce the environment life originated in. A second idea is to look at the way we synthesize RNA (or DNA) today. Use that information to speculate about how the first RNA and DNA evolved. A third idea is to look at the self-assembly properties of entities for clues. A fourth idea is to note the similarity of ATP and the nucleic acid adenine. Assume this is no coincidence! A fifth idea is to do all sorts of experiments with collections of monomers and see if they arrange themselves into replicating strings. A sixth idea is to concentrate on computer simulations of all this. Computer simulations of the origin of replication show that there are some dangers, such as the "selfish RNA catastrophe," the "short-circuit catastrophe," the "population collapse catastrophe," and simply the risk of too many replication errors. Draw conclusions from the fact that these hazards were successfully avoided. A seventh idea is to at least answer the question of what came first, replication, metabolism, or cellularization. And so on. It seems that there is a great deal we aren't at all sure of.

Popa starts with the issue of the issue of the development of cellularization, metabolism, and replication. He asserts that since all are needed for life, they must have evolved together, not serially. He states that the ATP coincidence probably is unimportant, with ATP's use as an energy carrier being a late development. And he takes on the mathematical modelers by stating that they generally omit first order effects by not tracing the energy flow and the degradation of the evolving entities.

The issues Popa dwells on most are the energy sources, bioinformation, chirality, and the origin of specificity (as opposed to "metabolism" or "homeostasis"). Of these, the part on chirality was the most interesting to me. Popa discusses the implication that life's chirality implies the existence of some large-scale chiral driver, such as rotating vortices or asymmetries in right and left circularly polarized light.

There's also quite a bit of useful material about the definition of life. Popa is right to make the point that "life" and "living entities" are not at all synonymous.

Anyway, it is an interesting book about a tough problem: I'm glad I can just read about it and don't have to solve it!

The Universe, the Eleventh Dimension, and Everything: What We Know and How We Know It

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Highly recommended for the non-specialist general reader.
Useful volume

The Universe, the Eleventh Dimension, and Everything: What We Know and How We Know It
Richard Morris
Manufacturer: Four Walls Eight Windows
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Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1568581408
Release Date: 1999-09-17

Amazon.com

Some books have a hard time living up to their titles, but The Universe, the Eleventh Dimension, and Everything does just fine. Physicist and writer Richard Morris seeks to explain the current state of knowledge in cosmology and subatomic physics; as if that weren't enough, he goes on to give us his take on how scientists do their work. What would have been three short works in the hands of a lesser writer becomes a challenging, enlightening book that pushes readers forward from the first page. Morris's gift for explanation is a wonder--few can get across the intricate ephemera of superstring theory without losing the audience at some point, but before we know it, we've already covered the scary stuff and are on to something new.

Perhaps the most important section of the book is its last, "The Scientific Imagination." Here the author lays out his thoughts on scientific work--saying, for example, "there is no scientific method"--and shows us that research and theorizing are just as creative and playful as painting and singing. Examples from such greats as Einstein and Galileo cement his arguments and inspire the reader to see the white-coated lab technician as just another stereotypical fantasy. It may not answer the Great Questions (we're not close yet), but The Universe, the Eleventh Dimension, and Everything is a satisfying survey of what we know and how we learned it. --Rob Lightner

Book Description

From the formation of the universe to a theory of matter to life on earth, Richard Morris delivers a clear and concise picture of what we know, how we know it, and what the limits to future knowledge might be.

Morris begins by discussing the various ideas about the ultimate destiny of the universe: whether it will continue expanding or eventually collapse. Next he addresses the search for a unified theory of matter that will encompass the four known forces in nature: gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces. Finally, Morris looks at the origin of life. Once conditions were hospitable, life evolved on Earth almost immediately. But how? This is the subject of a number of theories the book outlines.

Customer Reviews:

Highly recommended for the non-specialist general reader........2000-04-04

What is the fate of the universe, and what are the implications of a unified theory of matter? The Universe, The Eleventh Dimension, And Everything provides an introduction to the scientific revolutions which have revealed new concepts and fostered new discoveries. Chapters are geared to the lay reader yet include plenty of scientific background.

Useful volume.......2000-02-11

Morris specializes in making physics understandable to those of us who are terrified by mathematical formulas.

The Universe necessarily repeats some of the material he has covered in earlier works, since it is written for those who may have only a smattering of knowledge about the vast and complex world of physics. But the repeated material can also be of help to the physics buff who hasn't completely caught up with the latest in the field.

Unfortunately, however, the book is plagued by errors. While little harm is done when "pseudoscience" comes out as "psuedoscience" or when the title of Copernicus' famous treatise on the solar system is misspelled, other mistakes are serious. For someone who is trying to learn more about the mysterious world of physics, a photon mistakenly labeled as an electron or the substitution of 1033 for 1033 will leave the less knowledgeable reader utterly confused.

That being said, Morris provides a considerable service with this small volume. His is a lucid explanation of just how science in general, and physics in particular, works. And a step-by-step explanation of what we know today in physics and what is still speculative is a truly important contribution to the interested public's understanding of that science. The section on The Scientific Imagination alone is worth the price of the book.

Book Description

With stunning regularity, the search for our cosmic roots has been yielding remarkable new discoveries about the universe and our place in it. In his compelling book, Origins: The Quest for Our Cosmic Roots, veteran science journalist Tom Yulsman chronicles the latest discoveries and describes in clear and engaging terms what they mean. From the interior of protons to the outer reaches of the universe, and from the control room of one of the world's most powerful particle accelerators to an observatory atop the tallest mountain in the Pacific basin, Yulsman takes readers on a fantastic voyage at the cutting edge of science. How could the universe have sprouted from absolute nothingness? What is the origin of galaxies? How do stars and planets form? And despite what now seem to be incredible odds, how did Earth come to be a rich oasis of biodiversity-one that has given rise to a species intelligent enough to ask these questions? In laying out the answers, Origins addresses some of the most profound issues humans have ever confronted.

Customer Reviews:

The Mysteries of the Universe and Life revealed.......2003-12-06

Tom Yulsman has succeeded in explaining extremely difficult concepts, such as quantum mechanics, planet, star and galaxy formation, as well as theories on the creation of the universe and life, in a concise, interesting and understandable way. His writing is both humerous and gripping and kept me intrigued, thirsting for more information with every turn of the page.

an excellent book.......2003-04-23

I highly recommend this book. It is a clear and fascinating account. Highly readable and informative. If you ever wondered about this topic before, read this book!

Average customer rating:

Brilliant Book For The Armchair Scientist
Astrobiology: An Attractive Introduction
Review of "Astrobiology: A Brief Introduction"

Astrobiology: A Brief Introduction
Kevin W. Plaxco , and Michael Gross
Manufacturer: The Johns Hopkins University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Life in the Universe: Expectations and Constraints (Advances in Astrobiology and Biogeophysics)
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Origins: How the Planets, Stars, Galaxies, and the Universe Began (Astronomers' Universe)
Contact with Alien Civilizations: Our Hopes and Fears about Encountering Extraterrestrials

ASIN: 0801883679

Book Description

Astrobiology -- the study of the intimate relationship between life and the cosmos -- is a fast-growing field that touches on aspects of cosmology, astrophysics, and chemistry. In the first scholarly overview of this dynamic field, biochemists Kevin W. Plaxco and Michael Gross tell the story of life from the Big Bang to the present.

Emphasizing the biochemical nature of astrobiology, Plaxco and Gross examine the origin of the chemical elements, the events behind the developments that made the Universe habitable, and the ongoing sustenance of life. They discuss the formation of the first galaxies and stars, the diverse chemistry of the primordial planet, the origins of metabolism, the evolution of complex organisms, and the feedback regulation of Earth's climate. They also explore life in extreme habitats, potential extraterrestrial habitats, and the search for extraterrestrial life.

This broadly accessible introduction captures the excitement, controversy, and evolution of the dynamic young field of astrobiology. It shows clearly how scientists from different disciplines can combine their special knowledge to enhance our understanding of the Universe.

Customer Reviews:

Brilliant Book For The Armchair Scientist .......2006-09-27

Imagine that your best friend were some brilliant world-famous scientist. Now imagine that the two of you were sharing a beer one night, and you carelessly asked the question: "I wonder if there is life elsewhere in the Universe?"

This book would be his answer.

"Astrobiology," by Kevin Plaxco and Michael Gross, is the perfect book for the armchair scientist. It should sit on your bookshelf beside Hawking's "Brief History of Time." It would also be an excellent book for the curious undergraduate.

Plaxco and Gross fill the book with easy, accessible prose, and lots of great science. Best of all, the sidebars, with which the book is liberally sprinkled. They make you feel like you are busy bending an elbow with a scientist that has a wicked sense of humor. After all, how many science books can you think of that use the word `flummoxed'?

If the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" had a chapter on astrobiology, this would be it.

Astrobiology: An Attractive Introduction.......2006-08-07

Biology is not complete without the astro-physical environment that produces the sun, the earth and the building blocks of life.
We can never fully understand life and evolution if we don't include the universe.
At bottom it is ecology extended to the cosmic environment.
A huge eye-opener for me was Barrow & Tippler (1994) The Anthropic Cosmological Principle.
They showed that my biology training was hopelessly incomplete.
A second eye-opener was Tibor Gánti (2003) The Principles of Life.
For the first time in my life I had the feeling that I truly understood what the essence of life is and what the origin of life problem actually is, despite reading many books about the origin of life.
Now we have the science of astrobiology which combines both the universe as a cradle for life and insights into the nature of life.
I have been looking for some time for a suitable introduction into astrobiology until I found
Kevin Plaxco & Michael Gross (2006) Astrobiology: A Brief Introduction.
It is a very attractive book: a pleasure to read, enthusiastically and fluently written, full of relevant information, not loaded with boring details, the right price (indeed there are far more expensive introductions and textbooks).
Despite being an introduction, it is nourishing and thanks to being an introduction it is very digestible.
The book contains many stimulating thoughts and facts. Kevin Plaxco is a professor of chemistry. I think that chemistry
is the right science here: it is in the position to connect biology and astronomy (physics cannot bridge biology and astronomy because it differs too much from biology).
Michael Gross is a science writer. I suspect that a great part of the attractiveness of this book can be ascribed to him.
In the hands of Plaxco and Gross an otherwise boring table of yields of amino acids in the Miller-Urey experiment
becomes fascinating.
The book is richly illustrated with black and white illustrations and photographs (but fortunately no expensive glossy paper is used) and has many interesting sidebars.
[...].

Review of "Astrobiology: A Brief Introduction".......2006-07-18

I found this book to be a highly readable, thorough, accurate, well
balanced treatment of a topic that is increasingly capturing the
interest of scientists and anyone curious about their place in the
universe.

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