The Search for Life in the Universe (Third Edition)

Book Description

Long recognized as the "Gold Standard" text for astrobiology courses, The Search for Life in the Universe now appears in a completely revised and updated Third Edition. This book engages students in astronomy by presenting a great, unsolved mystery: How likely is life beyond earth, and how can we find it if it exists? The text covers the fundamentals of astronomy and astrophysics, including the discovery of more than 55 planets around other stars, and also provides an overview of biology, geology, evolution, and the possibilities of interstellar travel and communication. Written for readers with no background in mathematics, the book includes 24 color insert pages and brilliantly rendered illustrations by Jon Lomberg.

Customer Reviews:

Jack Kennedy.......2006-02-27

This book is used as a text by the University of North Dakota Space Studies program where I was exposed to its content. It is an excellent book filled with the recent nuggets of information about the search for life in the universe. It is an excellent guide to understanding the cosmos in galatic and down-to-Earth terms. This book can be read for pure pleasure as well as for general knowledge of astrobilogy and astronomy.

Excellent Overview.......2003-11-07

The new edition of this book still is by far the most comprehensive introduction to Bioastronomy, touching almost every branch of science along the exciting path it follows. Remaining firmly grounded in science it shows that reality is so fantastic that it is in no way necessary to fantasize up facts and fictions. Science still is one of the greatest adventures of mankind, and the search for life in space is one of its most stimulating branches. It also is a good motivation for young college students from other subjects to further their knowledge in science - which is necessary because we live in a science dominated world.

Stefan Thiesen www.bioastronomie.de

Great for people interested in SETI ..........2001-02-27

The book deals with everything from the formation of stars and planets, to how life formed, to even the best ways to search for life and the odds of life being on other planets. It goes step by step, is easy to understand and even has review questions at the end of each chapter (along with a summary). Lots of photos, some in color, along with figures and tables to help explain and give more details. Great for people who want to understand the reasons people are searching for life on other planets, but also great for just understand the science of life on our planet too. All that and humor too.

The search for life in the spotlight........2000-09-04

This book really explaines in simple language how scientists work on this search. It is written in a way that keeps your interest on top all the way.

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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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.

Mathematics: The Science of Patterns: The Search for Order in Life, Mind and the Universe (Scientific American Paperback Library)
Average customer rating:

Mathematics is a continuous process of extrapolation of new patterns from more fundamental ones and Devlin captures that process

Excellent book!

Start here- what is mathematics?

OK

A pleasure to read

Mathematics: The Science of Patterns: The Search for Order in Life, Mind and the Universe (Scientific American Paperback Library)
Keith Devlin
Manufacturer: W. H. Freeman
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0716760223

Book Description

"The great book of nature," said Galileo, "can be read only by those who know the language in which it is written. And this language is mathematics." A richly illustrated celebration of the beauty and elegance of this ever-evolving language, Mathematics: The Science of Patterns explores the many ways mathematics helps us understand our perceptions of reality--both the physical, biological, and social worlds without, and the realm of ideas and thoughts within.

Customer Reviews:

Mathematics is a continuous process of extrapolation of new patterns from more fundamental ones and Devlin captures that process.......2007-08-10

When I teach a course entitled "Fundamentals of Arithmetic and Logic" I constantly emphasize the fact that the basics of mathematics is all about the use of more sophisticated and abstract patterns. For example, I use the following argument to demonstrate why the commutative law of addition holds:

1) Positive integers can be considered shorthand representations for piles of sticks.
2) If you have two piles of sticks, which pile you move on top of the other has no affect on the number of sticks you have.

While this is simplistic, the students find it easy to understand and they do remember it when we move on to other sets of numbers such as the rationals and the reals.
In this book, Devlin does an excellent job of taking similar, simple concepts and then abstracting it to an initial general pattern. From this pattern, he then expands it out to more generalized patterns. This is the essence of mathematics and in my experience, one that students find easier to follow when learning. Humans naturally carry out inductive reasoning, taking distinct yet similar experiences and reaching generalized conclusions. In fact, it can be argued that such activities are a signature characteristic of intelligence.
Devlin cites many examples of fundamental mathematical concepts that are the basis of mathematics. I try to include as many of them as possible in my basic math courses, because in my opinion together they form the best way for people to learn mathematics. It is natural and consistent with how humans do a large percentage of their learning.

Excellent book!.......2006-07-06

This book helps the lay reader understand the meaning of why we study math. I recommend it to all of my students!

Start here- what is mathematics?.......2006-06-16

I am updating this review, original one is below the dotted line.

Keith Devling takes us through a grandiose tour de force on the question wahts is mathematics, by starting from its originis as the "sceince of numbers .. and space" a concept that is 2.300 years old and was the one I had in my mind, until Mr.Devling noted it was a bit dated.

This book does call for some sort of sophistication form the reader. It is not atextbook, so some of the examples and invitation to solve certain problems (such as to discover Aristotle's logic mistakes by using Boolean algebra) are a bit challenging to the unitiated.

The graphics and examples of mathematical explanations abound, and just for this the book is worth it.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Its from Scientific American, its written by K. Devlin, its wonderfully ilustrated.. what more can you expect?!

Yes its math explained

OK.......2005-05-02

This book has a lot of good information along with some excellent illustrations.

It is undoubtedly a very good book for one who is a great lover of mathematics. It is not, however, a book that is difficult to put down. It did not captivate me and convince me about all I am missing by not being a math junkie.

A pleasure to read.......2001-11-25

The book is fun to read ,very informative and very clear.
It doesnt matter if you know some university mathematics or not ,anyhow you will find this book a pleasure to read ,and if you dont know nothing about mathematics it will change your perspective on the world. I suggest you will get a copy and read it.Excellent book!.

Looking for Life in the Universe: The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (Scientists in the Field Series)

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Looking for Life in the Universe: The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (Scientists in the Field Series)
Ellen Jackson
Manufacturer: Houghton Mifflin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Project Ultraswan

ASIN: 0618548866

Book Description

Human beings have always looked at the heavens and asked: Are we alone? Is there life elsewhere in the universe? What is that life like? Unfortunately, people can't actually travel to other solar systems. Even the closest stars are too far away to visit. Today, astrophysicists such as Jill Tarter are looking for other ways to search for extraterrestrial life. Jill is the director of Project Phoenix at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California. SETI stands for "Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence." Twice a year, Jill and her team travel to the mountains of Puerto Rico where they use the world's largest radio telescope to examine nearby stars. They search the sky, listening for radio signals that, if found and verified, would provide strong evidence that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe. Author Ellen Jackson and photographer Nic Bishop introduce us to a dedicated scientist and her thrilling, rigorous, and awe-inspiring work in the field.

The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe

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really good play and a great source of monologues
A play full of human insight, wit and wisdom
Done it and loved it
This book/script is ....... there are no words!!!
Putting reality on a back burner

The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe
Jane Wagner
Manufacturer: Harper Paperbacks
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0060920718

Book Description

Jane Wagner's masterpiece--The first play in
more than 20 years to become a national
bestseller--is now a motion picture!

Customer Reviews:

really good play and a great source of monologues.......2005-08-23

This play is just what my title says....very entertaining and if you are in the theatre world, guys, but especially girls, should look into a purchase of this play for potential monologues for auditions.

A play full of human insight, wit and wisdom.......2003-12-05

Trudy the Bag Lady has made a life for herself on the streets, offering her own bits of wit and wisdom to the passers-by. Before she wound up on the streets, she was in and out of hospitals, receiving so much electro-shock therapy that she believes her nervous system has been re-wired and now tunes into the bio-rhythms of people around her.

Trudy takes us, along with her two alien companions, on a discovery trip to find out what it means to be human and imparting her own impressions on life. She tunes in a wide array of people, ranging from Agnus Angst, a 15-year-old punk performance artist; Agnus' grandparents Lud and Marie; Chrissy, a recently unemployed workout enthusiast; Lily, an actress currently performing a one-woman show; and many others, both men and women, gay and straight.

This play is full of marvelous insight into the human condition and life in the 1980's. This is very apparent in the incredible second act, in which we follow Lyn from the consciousness-raising times of the 1970's through her rise and fall in the business ranks of the 1980's and her turbulent family life. Also, all the characters, in one form or another, have some influence on the life of the other characters in the play, whether or not they actually meet: Lyn has an affair with Agnus's mother; Kate, a rich trendsetter, finds a suicide note left by Chrissy lying in the street; Trudy takes the aliens to see Lily's play in order to show them goosebumps.

The book also includes still images, from the stage production, of Lily Tomlin, many of which were shot by Annie Leibowitz. Jane Wagner also created some montages of Lily as the many characters in the play.

Full of wit, insight and tenderness, this play stands as a perfect glimpse into understanding society.

Done it and loved it.......2000-01-02

I'm in an arts/high school program, PCCA. I came in after all of the other students had already been there for over a year. This was the first piece I ever performed there. I did a section of it where Trudy is Trudy, in the beginning.

The character was so rich. So many different quirks. The audience loved it, so did the other performers who did the same piece. This is one funny script.

I wasn't nervous when i performed it at all. I just kept thinking how funny the script was, and that, not matter how terrible the acting, the audience would still enjoy the performing.

This book/script is ....... there are no words!!!.......1998-12-18

This one woman plays many characters, and will take you on a journey of laughter, and much more, and leave you smiling for long after you put it down...

Putting reality on a back burner.......1997-10-18

As she tries to explain human beings to extraterrestrials who are searching for signs of intelligent life in the universe, Trudy, the bag lady, channels among others: Agnus Angst, a throwaway teenage punk; Chrissy, an unemployed young woman who doesn't know what to do with herself; Kate -- a rich socialite bored with everything. It's a tough job, but Trudy is up to it -- she refuses to be intimidated by reality.

Wagner weaves together the stories of these separate lives with speculations about time, space, reality, art, and human nature. From Trudy's skewed perspective a vision forms of the interconnectedness of human life -- maybe of all intelligent life in the universe. Filled with laugh-out-loud one-liners and characters whose words and feelings ring true, this one-woman play is masterful writing from a deep and generous heart. If you didn't see Lily Tomlin's performance on Broadway, don't miss reading the book. It's more than a story; it's an experience.

Journey With Fred Hoyle: The Search For Cosmic Life
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Journey With Fred Hoyle: The Search For Cosmic Life
Chandra Wickramasinghe
Manufacturer: World Scientific Publishing Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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THE SEARCH FOR SIGNS OF INTELLIGENT LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE
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THE SEARCH FOR SIGNS OF INTELLIGENT LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE
Jane Wagner
Manufacturer: Harper & Row
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000H42SQI

Science, Society, And the Search for Life in the Universe
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Examines the search for extraterrestrial life from a scientific AND social perspective

A serious, scholarly, non-metaphysical discussion of life in outer space.

Science, Society, And the Search for Life in the Universe
Bruce M. Jakosky
Manufacturer: University of Arizona Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0816526133

Book Description

Are we alone in the universe? As humans, are we unique or are we part of a cosmic society? What is life's future on Earth and beyond? How does life begin and develop? These are age-old questions that have inspired wonder and controversy ever since the first people looked up into the sky. With today's technology, however, we are closer than ever to finding the answers. Astrobiology is the relatively new, but fast growing scientific discipline that involves trying to understand the origin, evolution, and distribution of life within the universe. It is also one of the few scientific disciplines that attracts the public's intense curiosity and attention. This interest stems largely from the deep personal meaning that the possible existence of extraterrestrial life has for so many. Whether this meaning relates to addressing the "Big Questions" of our existence, the possibility of making contact with alien beings, or the potential impact on our understanding of religion, there is no doubt that the public is firmly vested in finding answers. In this broadly accessible introduction to the field, Bruce Jakosky looks at the search for life in the universe not only from a scientific perspective, but also from a distinctly social one. In lucid and engaging prose, he addresses topics including the contradiction between the public's fascination and the meager dialogue that exists between those within the scientific community and those outside of it, NASA's public relations campaign, and what has become some of the most impassioned political wrangling ever seen in government science funding.

Customer Reviews:

Examines the search for extraterrestrial life from a scientific AND social perspective .......2007-07-07

XXXXX

"My goal [for this book]...is to explore...philosophical and societal issues in astrobiology [the branch of biology that investigates the existence of living organisms on planets other than Earth], to encourage members of the scientific community to do so themselves, and to begin a multidimensional dialogue between astrobiologists, people from other disciplines such as the humanities, and the public. The issues at the heart of this discussion deal with the nature of science as an intellectual endeavor and how the science of astrobiology is carried out, the parallel question of why we do science (why the public values it and why the federal government supports it, the philosophical and societal significance of finding (or of searching for and not finding) it, and the theological and religious implications of the potential for life elsewhere."

The above is taken from the preface of this extremely interesting and slim book by Dr. Bruce Jakosky, Associate Director of Science in the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado (at Boulder).

This book asks a lot of questions and tries to answer those questions.

Here is the main theme of each of its chapters:

Chapter (1): Asks scientific questions and answers them. For example, what is it about the nature of life on Earth that suggests that there could be life elsewhere? What processes are responsible for producing the present architecture of our solar system? How did these same processes play out in other planetary systems and thus what is the potential for life beyond our solar system?

(2): Explores the question, "What is life?" This is a difficult question to answer but this chapter does a good job in answering it.

(3): Discusses the question, "Is astrobiology a science?" (The author defines astrobiology as "a discipline that involves trying to understand the origin, evolution, and distribution of life within the universe.") Explains how science works in general and what science is.

(4): In this chapter, the nature of what is called "historical science" is explored along with examples taken from recent astrobiological thought.

(5): Why we do science is discussed in this chapter. This topic touches on a variety of key issues. Examples include the roles of basic science versus applied science, personal and societal motivations for science, the role of astrobiology in the process of exploring the universe, and the role that this exploration plays in our society.

(6): "Would the discovery of life [including intelligent life] elsewhere have an impact on religion?" The answer to this question has important implications for how society deals with the relationship between religion and science.

(7): "Astrobiology...touches in significant ways on the larger society. [Astrobiologists] do research that touches on issues with strong intellectual and emotional connections to the public." This chapter explores some of these connections. Also looks at how scientists expend little effort to discuss their work as it relates to society and what can be done about this.

This is, in my view, a unique, well-written, and engaging book that examines the philosophical and societal issues in science in general and in astrobiology in particular.

Finally, I found that there were two omissions in this book:

(i) This book contains no pictures! Pictures, I feel, would have added to this book and perhaps reduced its wordiness. (By the way, the strange picture on the book's cover (dispalayed above by Amazon) has the title of "DNA Galaxy.")

(ii) As mentioned, this book also discusses the possibility of finding intelligent life elsewhere. Thus, I was perplexed that there was no mention of the SETI Institute. (SETI stands for "Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence.") The scientists at this institute have been searching for over twenty years. I thought not mentioning some of the work of this institute was a major oversight.

In conclusion, this is a rare book that blends science, society, and the emerging discipline of astrobiology. I leave you with this book's final sentence:

"Understanding the universe and the potential and actual distribution of life within it will illuminate our own existence here on Earth and help us to comprehend our own species, our own society, and our own individual lives."

(first published 2006; preface; introduction; 7 chapters; main narrative 140 pages; references and additional reading; index; about the author)

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A serious, scholarly, non-metaphysical discussion of life in outer space........2006-11-05

Written by Professor Bruce Jakosky, who has been involved in several space missions including the upcoming Mars Science Laboratory rover, Science, Society and the Search for Life in the Universe introduces readers to the field of astrobiology - the fairly new but rapidly growing discipline of striving to understand the origin, evolution, and distribution of life in the universe. Chapters address the questions of "Is there life elsewhere?" "What is life?" and "Why do we do science?" as well as the intersection between issues of astrobiology, science, and religion. Accessible to lay readers and scholars alike, Science, Society and the Search for Life in the Universe stresses the importance of adherence to the highest-level quality scientific principles above all, in the quest for greater understanding. Highly recommended for anyone genuinely interested in a serious, scholarly, non-metaphysical discussion of life in outer space.

Cosmic Company: The Search for Life in the Universe

Average customer rating:

Good Basic Intro.
Superficial and trivial
If you're an Earthling, then you MUST read this book!!!
Great read
The SETI Snapshot

Cosmic Company: The Search for Life in the Universe
Seth Shostak , and Alex Barnett
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0521822335

Book Description

In Cosmic Company, Seth Shostak and Alex Barnett ponder the possibility of aliens visiting the Earth, as well as the consequences of receiving a signal from the cosmos proving we're neither alone, nor the most intelligent life forms. They explain why scientists think life might exist on other worlds, and how we might contact it. Shostak and Barnett, experienced writers of popular astronomy, provide an accessible overveiw of the science and technology behind the search for life in the universe. Seth Shostak is a Senior Astronomer at the SETI Institute where he is involved in many of the outreach activities of the Institute, including editing the newsletter, overseeing the Web site, giving talks and writing magazine articles about SETI. He also teaches several informal education classes on astronomy and other topics in the Bay Area. Before coming to SETI, Seth did research work on galaxies using radio telescopes at observatories and universities in America and Europe. Alex Barnett is Programme Director at the National Space Centre. She is well-known in the science centre, planetarium and media worlds, particularly for public and educational programmes involving space and astronomy. She presents BBC's Final Frontier a space and astronomy programme.

Customer Reviews:

Good Basic Intro........2007-09-29

COSMIC COMPANY is a good basic introduction which modernizes Sagan's INTELLIGENT LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE. That work is over thirty years old. In those intervening 30 plus years, the equipment being used in SETI has improved both in performanence capability, signal to noise improvement, increased frequencies or bandwidths, etc.. This can only increase the probability of the reception of an extraterrestrial orginating signal, which is what SETI is all about. This book describes the basic reasoning for such searches, and introduces the new technologies being used. It also re-visits the Drake equation, but with actual numbers for the factor of planets in the Galaxy, a factor simply a guess in the older books.

I highly recommend this book both as an introduction and as an update to Sagan's earlier work.

Superficial and trivial.......2006-06-05

I read this book hoping that the glib one-liners and poor in-jokes would give way to something substantial but they never did. It's written in such a trivial and superficial style that makes one think all the time whilst reading it "where's the beef?" It's full of cliches and what the authors obviously thinks is funny but it really is an unsatisfactory read.

The publishers should have worked on the text more as it is obvious that the author cannot write in other than soundbytes in what I would call a type of division four Saganesque. The author obviously thinks he is an authority on the subject of life in space but only displays a superficial and incomplete grasp of the field.

My advice is to get anything by Sagan instead. It's obvious that Shostak regards himself as a kind of successor to Sagan however I have news for him....

If you're an Earthling, then you MUST read this book!!!.......2005-12-23

+++++

"This book is about a truly exciting adventure: the serious [or scientific] attempt to learn if we are alone in the Cosmos. For thousands of years, humans have explored the world in search of new places and other cultures. Now, finally we are exploring the realm of the stars."

The above is found in the last paragraph of this book's introduction. This book was written by Dr. Seth Shostak, senior astronomer at the SETI Institute in California and Alex Barnett, CEO of the Chabot Space Center also in California. (SETI stands for Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence.)

This book is an incredibly easy-to-read, well-laid-out, concise, enjoyable, and sometimes humorous overview of the science & technology behind the search for life in the universe and discusses the real possibility of finding life elsewhere.

The book's index is mainly made up of main headings or topics with sub-topics that elaborate on the main heading. For example, under the main heading "Mars" are four sub-topics: face on, life on, water on, and Martian meteorite.

To give you an idea of the material covered, I will state the fourteen main headings and beside these, I will give their number of sub-topics:

(1) aliens (15)
(2) Drake equation* (4)
(3) intelligence (7)
(4) Jupiter (2)
(5) life (10)
(6) Mars (4)
(7) Moon (2)
(8) planets around other stars (3)
(9) radio telescopes (2)
(10) Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, SETI (13)
(11) space travel (2)
(12) Solar System (2)
(13) stars (5)
(14) UFOs (5)

*The Drake equation is an equation for estimating the number of communicative civilizations in our Galaxy. Named after Dr. Frank Drake, co-founder of the SETI Institute.

Of course, there are a few single-topic entries in the index such as Big Bang, crop circles, and dinosaurs.

A feature of this book is that it has "blue boxes," that is topics that are discussed in more depth separate from the main narrative. For these separate discussions, the words are printed on a light blue background. I found these extremely interesting. Two of my favorite blue boxes are entitled "Looking for Earth-size worlds" and "What if we don't get a [alien] signal?"

This book has beautiful, stunning, mainly color images (illustrations and pictures) throughout that enhance the reading.

I recommend two other books besides this one: "Is Anyone Out There?" (1992) by Frank Drake & D. Sobel and "Rare Earth: Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe" (2000) by Ward & Brownlee.

Finally, I was surprised that the mission of the SETI Institute was not mentioned. Its mission is to "explore, understand, and explain the origin, nature, and prevalence of life in the universe."

In conclusion, this is a fantastic, easy-to-read overview of the science and technology behind the search for life in the universe!!!

(first published 2003; acknowledgements; introduction; 7 chapters; main narrative 155 pages; further reading; image credits; index)

+++++

Great read.......2005-08-14

I got this title from the SETI website, and was quite pleased (so much so that I bought another one they recommended). This is a great book. I finished it in two days - it is hard to put down. It is fairly light on the science. If you're looking for a detailed description of the science behind life (necessary conditions for a planet, etc.), this is not it. However, it gives a great description of the search for alien signals. The discussion of how human intelligence has maxed out is by itself worth the purchase price. This one is a fun read that won't strain your brain. Buy it!

The SETI Snapshot.......2004-01-03

The search for life in the universe must be a complex subject, involving nearly every scientific discipline: physics, astronomy, mathematics, etc; so, where can the average reader, who has an above average interest in SETI, go to learn the latest? "Cosmic Company" is a great place to start.

A moderate amount of insightful, conversational text complemented by colorful and sharp, sometimes stunning photographs, illustrations and artwork describes this book.

The authors will take you on a 'cook's tour' of the search for cosmic company: habitats where life might exist; what aliens might look like; whether they might read, or simply feed on, the pages of the text; the liklihood of alien contact; communication tools, passive and active; an elegant way to estimate the number of civilizations in our galaxy that have sent signals reaching earth; and a look into the future of SETI including the technology humans will have at their disposal to find evidence of life in the universe.

Book Description

The year 2003 was the 50th anniversary of the seminal experiment of Stanley Miller. This was a unique opportunity for highlighting the current interest in this most interdisciplinary subject. The leading space agencies: the European Space Agency (ESA) as well as NASA, the American Space Agency, have planned missions that will elucidate some of the still unknown questions underlying research in the origin of life. New results are surpassing our ability to keep well informed: the reviews that we were presented at the Trieste meeting will bring the readers of this well-documented and timely book up to date in this fast-moving area.

An important component of the conference was the review of the Cassini-Huygens mission due to arrive in the Saturn system just one year after the conference convened in Trieste. There was particular interest in the status of the experiments that will take place inside the atmosphere of Titan, the large satellite, which is a testing ground for the theories and experiments in the field of chemical evolution.

The Jovian system is currently under study with the view of investigating the possibility of life underneath the frozen surface of the Galilean moon Europa; the ESA mission "Mars Express" and Mars Odyssey received special attention. Some of the world leaders in the field gathered in Trieste in September 2003 - that was a most timely date for reviewing recent data and discussing the prospects of future research.

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