Aliens: Can We Make Contact With Extraterrestrial Intelligence? - Hardcover

David Clark, Ph.d., author of Cosmos from Space, led the Space Astronomy research team at the Rutherford Appelton Laboratory in Oxford. His son, Andrew Clark, is a physicist and philosopher. They both live in Oxford, England.

A spirited, optimistic discourse on the search for extraterrestrial life. A father-and-son team of scientists (David is the author of The Cosmos from Space, 1987, etc.) explore the possibility of extraterrestrial life from a purely scientific perspective. Beginning with a famous equation (gasp) that attempts to calculate the likelihood of intelligent life in the universe, Aliens tackles arguments both for and against this possibility. The search for extraterrestrial intelligence, or SETI, begins in the 1960s with teams in both the US and the Soviet Union hunting for alien radio signals. Throughout the book the authors make every effort to give the nontechnical reader some basis of understanding the enormous distances and time scales involved for interstellar travel. To adequately explain the scientific issues involved, the Clarks give clear, qualitative explanations of mathematical concepts such as probability and the inverse square law. Although the authors offer ample evidence showing that simple life forms (``slime'') may be relatively abundant in the universe, the conditions that would allow for complex life forms are far more scarce. If aliens do exist, its far more likely we will find them through a search for their electronic transmissions rather than a search for their crashed saucers. The conditions that would allow for interstellar travel, assuming that extraterrestrials would even want to make such a trip, would require a herculean effort on their part. Its therefore obvious that the authors hold little regard for unsubstantiated tales of alien abduction. They even debunk some of the myths that surround SETI, including the idea that scientists listen for aliens on headphones. The irrepressible spirit of the authors of this fine tome is best described in their own words: What a wonderful challenge! What a noble endeavor SETI is!'' Good luck to them both. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.