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Title: If the Universe Is Teeming with Aliens... Where Is Everybody? Fifty Solutions to Fermi's Paradox and the Problem of Extraterrestrial Life
ISBN: 0387955011
Author:
Stephen Webb
Publicate Date: 2002-10-04
Publish: 2002-10-04
List Price: $27.50
Average Customer Rating: 4.0
Format: Hardcover
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $17.22
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $14.00
Amazon Merchant Price: $18.15
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| Customer Review: |
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1: Where is everybody? Great question.
If your level of concsiousness is high and you posess a fair knowledge of science then you are going to enjoy this book. Are we the norm or the exception? Sure enough, both possibilities are thrilling. This book provides you with the most educated guesses that can be made, with the present knowledge of science, about this fascinating question. Furthermore, in this book you'll find arguments both in favor and against your favorite view, be it norm or exception. But what I enjoyed the most was the fact that the author, after so much time of entertaining the question himself, shares with you his own insight.
This is a great book, one of a kind.
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2: If the Universe is Teeming with Aliens. . . Where is Everybody?
I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in SciFi. Not only is the book consciousness-expanding and thought-provoking, but the author uses a methodical, scientific approach to present his case.
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3: Reviews reviewed
Save a precious few, almost all of the comments of this book have been awful. I was fascinated by the book, yet it left me with many questions and I was intrigued to know what other Amazon reader's comments might be. Instead of interesting comments (save a couple of great ones) I found book reports ! It should be painfully obvious that Amazon does not want you to write a 'student type book report', rather, they and we, want you to make an INTERESTING observation or to further the discussion, if and only if you have something to say. And, again, to be 1000% clear, there is no need to summarize the book for us (Amazon already does.) In truth, many will have nothing to add and if such is the case, then it would be best for you to abstain from commenting. We do not need to know that 'you loved reading the book' and other such nonsense that adds zero to the discussion and only serves to stroke your ego that you wrote something.
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4: 50 answers to a very good question
This fine book by Stephen Webb offers fifty different solutions for the Fermi paradox. In short, Enrico Fermi wondered that since universe is so big and should contain lots of life, where are they? Why haven't we seen any evidence at all of extraterrestrial intelligence?
Well, there are plenty of good explanations, as this book proves. The solutions are divided in three categories: "they're already here," "they exist but we can't communicate with them," and "we're alone". Since there's a real lack of proper knowledge about these things, reader will find plenty of educated guesses, hazy probabilities and that sort of thinking, but that's the nature of the whole question.
I'd definitely recommend this book to anybody who's interested in the existence or non-existence of extraterrestrial life. While there are no set answers, this book will give the reader a lot of material to chew on. (Review based on the Finnish translation.)
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5: If a tree falls and no one hears it, does it make a noise?
Fermi gets all the credit from his own community for apparently making an observation nobody else had. However, that Fermi was the first to ask "Where is everybody?" is hardly proven, and really not worth the effort, brief though it was, that the author makes to paint Fermi as some sort of Second Coming. Fermi was good, but I doubt he was the first or only person to have thought about this "paradox" that now carries his name.
While full of science nuggets and amusing discussion, this book fails to prove anything, and or nothing, at the same time. As it should be.
Judging whether or not other life exists in the universe simply on the basis that WE haven't found it or been visited by it - YET - is hardly the science of Fermi and his colleagues.
So don't look to this as some sort of final decision on the existence of ET, you will be disappointed. It is as advertised: A collection of solutions to the Fermi's paradox, and the arguments for and against them.
Should provoke some great water cooler, fireside, morning commute in the car discussions.
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