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| View Larger Image | If the Universe Is Teeming with Aliens... Where Is Everybody? Fifty Solutions to Fermi's Paradox and the Problem of Extraterrestrial Life
by Stephen Webb
| | List Price: | $27.50 | | Price: | $18.15 | | You Save: | $9.35 (34%) |  | | Available: | Usually ships in 24 hours | | | | | Sales Rank: | 133154 | | Studio: | Springer | | | Binding: | Hardcover | | Number Of Pages: | 288 | | Publication Date: | October 04, 2002 | | Publisher: | Springer |
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Product Description
FROM THE REVIEWS: "Webb offers coherent, understandable, and sometimes humorous coverage of a diverse range of topics. He provides readers with non-trivial insights into research fields they may not have encountered previously . . . I think everyone who has ever considered the possibility that other intelligent civilizations exist elsewhere within our galaxy will enjoy Where Is Everybody? They will find much to agree with, and much to argue about, in this very accessible volume." -SCIENCE "WHERE IS EVERYBODY? is a delightful mental romp. With a light-hearted, enthusiastic tone, Webb offers lively coverage of UFOs, crop circles, and the books of Erich von Däniken, the infamous proponent of the idea that aliens visited the Earth in the distant past. Science-fiction fans will enjoy the frequent references to Star Trek, and science buffs will appreciate mention of the ideas of Carl Sagan, Fred Hoyle, Frank Drake, and Freeman Dyson. This book is a must-read for anyone who has ever pondered the question, "Are we alone?" -ASTRONOMY "[Webb] is a polymath, able to write informatively - even authoritatively - on an exceedingly wide range of subjects, including physics, astronomy, biology, and neurobiology. His writing is encyclopedic in scope, lucid, often poetic - and in the end it is both enormously inspiring and a little sad if he's right, as I'm afraid he might be, in concluding that we are the only advanced civilization in the Galaxy. Readers are free to differ with Webb's conclusion, but they will be surprised to learn how convincing it is. I have read a good number of astronomy books this past year; but this is the one I regard as indispensable. If I were Robinson Crusoe - shipwrecked and lonely on an island in space - I would want this book with me." -MERCURY During a Los Alamos lunchtime conversation that took place more than 50 years ago, four world-class scientists agreed, given the size and age of the Universe, that advanced extraterrestrial civilizations simply had to exist. The sheer numbers demanded it. But one of the four, the renowned physicist and back-of-the-envelope calculator Enrico Fermi, asked the telling question: If the extraterrestrial life proposition is true, he wondered, "Where IS everybody?" In this lively and thought-provoking book, Stephen Webb presents a detailed discussion of the 50 most cogent and intriguing answers to Fermi's famous question, divided into three distinct groups: - Aliens are already here among us. Here are answers ranging from Leo Szilard's suggestion that they are already here, and we know them as Hungarians, to the theorists who claim that aliens built Stonehenge and the Easter Island statues. - Aliens exist, but have not yet communicated. The theories in this camp range widely, from those who believe we simply don't have the technologies to receive their signals, to those who believe the enormities of space and time work against communication, to those who believe they're hiding from us. - Aliens do not exist. Here are the doubters' arguments, from the Rare Earth theory to the author's own closely argued and cogently stated skepticism. The proposed solutions run the gamut from the crackpot to the highly serious, but all deserve our consideration. The varieties of arguments -- from first-rate scientists, philosophers and historians, and science fiction authors -- turn out to be astonishing, entertaining, and vigorous intellectual exercises for any reader interested in science and the sheer pleasure of speculative thinking. Stephen Webb is a physicist working at the Open University in England and the author of Measuring the Universe. |
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.0 based on 45 reviews)
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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.
June 16, 2008 | |
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.
February 08, 2008 | |
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.
November 10, 2007 | |
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.)
August 10, 2007 | |
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.
May 15, 2007 | |
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