The aliens are coming! The extraordinary science behind our search for life in the universe

Ben Miller, 1966-

Book - 2016

"The Aliens Are Coming! is a refreshingly clear, hugely entertaining guide to the search for alien life. Miller looks everywhere for insight, from the Big Bang's sea of energy that somehow became living matter, to the equations that tell us Earth is not so rare, to the clues bacteria hold to how life started. And he makes the case that our growing understanding of life itself will help us predict whether it exists elsewhere, what it might look like, and when we might find it"--

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Subjects
Published
New York : The Experiment 2016.
Language
English
Main Author
Ben Miller, 1966- (author)
Item Description
"First published in the United Kingdom by Sphere, an imprint of Little, Brown Book Group"--Title-page verso.
Physical Description
293 pages : illustrations ; 21 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages [289]-290).
ISBN
9781615193653
  • 1. Extremophiles
  • 2. SETI
  • 3. Planets
  • 4. Universes
  • 5. Life
  • 6. Humans
  • 7. Aliens
  • 8. Messages
  • Further Reading
  • Acknowledgments
  • About the Author
Review by Choice Review

In this book, Miller (a trained quantum physicist, an actor, and a comedian) interestingly addresses the question of whether humans exist alone in the universe and how this question can be answered. The author helpfully explores the cosmology and thermodynamics that shape human reality and how these affect the possibility of other forms of life. He explains what is known about the possible origin of life and the timing of how it evolved, attempting to conceptualize how human experience might inform the search for extraterrestrial life. Intelligence has evolved in various ways in animals as diverse as humans, crows, dolphins, and octopuses; thus, if complex life is frequent, then intelligent life may also be widespread. Detection of life may be possible soon, but finding and communicating with intelligent aliens poses greater problems, made worse by great astronomical distances and time lags due to the light speed limitation. With this work, Miller shows that he has a well-developed ability to explain complex concepts simply and clearly, with a dash of humor. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates and above; faculty and general readers. --Malcolm K. Cleaveland, University of Arkansas at Fayetteville

Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review

This rousing history of the search for extraterrestrial life takes us from the origins of the twentieth-century fixation on UFOs right up to present-day scientific research. It's a very entertaining book (its author is a noted British comedian), but it's also rigorously researched and intelligently presented. The story of humanity's search for extraterrestrial life is a deeply fascinating one, jump-starting in the late 1940s, when a pilot reported seeing objects in the sky, and when a UFO was alleged to have crash-landed in Roswell, New Mexico. After decades of unverifiable reports of UFO visitations, real scientists started doing real investigation. Early space exploration was depressing Venus and Mercury proved to be barren but exploration of Earth itself became breathtakingly encouraging. Miller reports, for example, that we now know that life exists on our planet in the most inhospitable environments environments that could easily exist elsewhere. Researchers across multiple scientific disciplines, we learn, are developing new ways to look for extraterrestrial life, and a new consensus is slowly becoming clear: life on other worlds exists. That is a tremendously exciting possibility, and reading about it has its own kind of excitement, too.--Pitt, David Copyright 2016 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Miller (It's Not Rocket Science), an English comedian and science writer, celebrates the human fascination with the search for extraterrestrial life and grounds it with equally fascinating science. The place to start studying aliens, Miller assures readers, is right here on Earth. Extremophiles-microorganisms that live in seemingly inimical environments such as inside rocks around deep-sea volcanic vents or frigid Antarctic lakes-show that life is "tenacious, commonplace, and infinitely adaptable." Such strange life forms might even be as nearby as the icy oceans of Jupiter's moon Europa or the methane slush on Saturn's moon Titan. Miller covers a lot of ground with humor and insight, addressing how scientists define life and how it evolved on Earth, and offering a short history of UFO sightings and scientists' continued search for life-bearing exoplanets and signals from alien civilizations. Miller's book is a lively and accessible blend of pop culture and science in which a Dire Straits encore explains the Drake Equation, the platypus introduces evolution, the second law of thermodynamics gets a workout, and readers meet Mazlan Othman, the UN's official ambassador for Earth. Pop science readers will have fun with this energetic look at the hunt for alien life. Agent: Heather Holden-Brown, HHB (U.K.). (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review

Why the search for extraterrestrial intelligence is no longer just the province of science fiction but rather the emergent belief of a generation of physicists, biologists and chemists that we are not alone.Quantum physicist Miller (Its Not Rocket Science, 2014) dates the sea change from fiction to serious science to the discovery by NASA's recent Kepler mission that planets like ours are common throughout the galaxy. This raises the possibility that our first encounter with alien life is rapidly approaching. The author makes the provocative assumption that the discovery of microbial life in such extreme conditions tells us that biology is as universal as chemistry. If life can exist in such extreme conditions on Earth as the hot springs formed by geysers in Yellowstone Park, then why not on Mars or on Jupiter's moons? More to the point, writes the author, the recent discovery of Earth-like planets by the Kepler Space Telescope raises the possibility that they, too, might harbor intelligent life. Miller concisely and entertainingly reviews the evidence substantiating his contention that the preconditions necessary for life to exist and evolve, from microbes to intelligent beings like humans, are not necessarily unique to Earth. These include a gravitational field large enough to sustain an atmosphere and the existence of sufficient water and volcanoes to provide the chemical basis for life. However, the leap from microorganisms to intelligent life here on Earth is still not fully understood. The emergence of humans still appears to be a remarkable evolutionary event. Miller concludes with a big question. Assuming that there are other intelligent civilizations out there, how can we communicate with them? First, he wisely suggests, we must learn how to communicate with each other and the other beings that inhabit our planet. A lively, thoughtful look at a scientific frontier that captures our imagination while posing a serious moral question about our responsibilities as citizens of the universe. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.