Author: John Cramer
Publisher: Baen Books
ISBN: 1625799276
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 381
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Book Description
It has been 15 years since the events of Einstein’s Bridge. George and Alice Griffin and Roger Coulton have established the Iris Foundation, a powerful island-isolated research organization tasked with exploiting the technologies learned from the Makers, re-learning Maker techniques for creating wormholes, reestablishing contact with the Makers, and protecting Earth from Hive invasions. Sparked by a new idea from Roger, Iris researchers finally master wormhole technology and use accelerated wormholes to create Fermi Station in the Oort Cloud. Contact is established with the Makers and the Centaurs, a justice-seeking robotic civilization in our galaxy. The triple alliance mounts a three-pronged attack on the Hive world, destroying the Hive and one of its colonies. A second Hive colony cannot be located and could pose a future problem. Iris launches an armada of accelerated wormholes to probe nearby star systems and establishes a colonization base on Orca, an Earth-like moon of Bowhead, a giant planet in the Tau Ceti system. Mankind has reached the stars. At the publisher's request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management).
Author: Stephen Webb
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 0387955011
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 294
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Book Description
In a 1950 conversation at Los Alamos, four world-class scientists generally agreed, given the size of the Universe, that advanced extraterrestrial civilizations must be present. But one of the four, Enrico Fermi, asked, "If these civilizations do exist, where is everybody?" Given the fact that there are perhaps 400 million stars in our Galaxy alone, and perhaps 400 million galaxies in the Universe, it stands to reason that somewhere out there, in the 14 billion-year-old cosmos, there is or once was a civilization at least as advanced as our own. Webb discusses in detail the 50 most cogent and intriguing solutions to Fermi's famous paradox.
Author: John Cramer
Publisher: Courier Dover Publications
ISBN: 048680450X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 386
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Book Description
Gripping novel of hard science fiction by physicist author recounts discovery of the Twistor Effect, which opens doors into countless alternate universes and draws dangerous attention from industrial spies and corporate killers.
Author: Milan M. Ćirković
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192552872
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 416
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Book Description
The Great Silence explores the multifaceted problem named after the great Italian physicist Enrico Fermi and his legendary 1950 lunchtime question "Where is everybody?" In many respects, Fermi's paradox is the richest and the most challenging problem for the entire field of astrobiology and the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence (SETI) studies. This book shows how Fermi's paradox is intricately connected with many fields of learning, technology, arts, and even everyday life. It aims to establish the strongest possible version of the problem, to dispel many related confusions, obfuscations, and prejudices, as well as to offer a novel point of entry to the many solutions proposed in existing literature. Ćirković argues that any evolutionary worldview cannot avoid resolving the Great Silence problem in one guise or another.
Author: Enrico Fermi
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226121119
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 300
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Book Description
The volume also features extensive university archival material - including correspondence between Fermi and biophysicist Leo Szilard and a letter from Harry Truman - with new introductions that provide context for both the history of physics and the academic tradition at the University of Chicago."--Jacket.
Author: Charles River
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 74
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Book Description
*Includes pictures *Includes a bibliography for further reading "The size and age of the universe incline us to believe that many technologically advanced civilizations must exist. However, this belief seems logically inconsistent with our lack of observational evidence to support it. Either (1) the initial assumption is incorrect and technologically advanced intelligent life is much rarer than we believe, or (2) our current observations are incomplete and we simply have not detected them yet, or (3) our search methodologies are flawed and we are not searching for the correct indicators, or (4) it is the nature of intelligent life to destroy itself." - The Fermi Paradox As technological advances and the creation of flying aircraft became realities, the sighting of UFOs increased, as did the interest in potential contact with aliens. While incidents like the one at Roswell led to conspiracies and a craze among those who insisted the government was hiding proof of extraterrestrials' existence, governments across the world were actually secretly studying UFO sightings by the mid-20th century. Given all of that, it would hardly be groundbreaking for scientists in the 20th century to have a lunchtime discussion in which the search for extraterrestrial life arises, and the question of where it might reside is innocuous enough. However, a furor was created somewhat innocently when physicist Enrico Fermi voiced his "casual lunchtime remark" in the presence of colleagues in 1950. The august company included Edward Teller, a Hungarian physicist, Herbert York, am American nuclear physicist whose lineage included Mohawk heritage, and Emil Konopinski, a nuclear physicist of Polish origin. Fermi himself, an Italian-American born in Rome, was renowned for developing a statistical base for subatomic phenomena, work on nuclear alterations caused by neutrons, and for leading the first controlled chain reaction from nuclear fission. In pursuit of managing the atom, he created the first nuclear reactor. A gifted theoretician, he advanced the field of statistical mechanics, and won the Nobel Prize over a decade before he asked his important question. The four men represented a fair percentage of the research core during the Manhattan Project that developed and produced the atomic bomb. Despite the sophisticated conversation that appears to have followed, Fermi's oft-asked question soon became elevated within the scientific community as the Fermi Paradox. The subsequent musings on our search for extraterrestrial life have grown to such proportions that extensive lists of solutions to the inquiry proliferate with each passing year. Not only is the core of the question bombarded with speculative theory, but the viability of the term paradox is itself called into question. Merriam-Webster characterizes a paradox as "a statement that is seemingly contradictory or opposed to common sense and yet is perhaps true." The definition adds to the same contradictory statement the caveat of appearing to be true at first. By every account of the Fermi conversation, the physicist raised a question as to where extraterrestrial life might be hiding, not a statement as to whether it existed. For a contradictory statement to be true on a first hearing would require a reversal for the case of extraterrestrial search, as it requires a first observable example. It must begin as an untrue statement, or one that is perceived so. Evidence-based science must proceed then, from the most skeptical position to a hopeful reversal. Similarly, the Merriam-Webster paradox requests a premise steeped in a reasonable model. With no external observations accomplished, our own is the only one available. Human physiological, technological, and cultural structure may be a shaky platform on which to rely against the vastness of potential galactic worlds.
Author: Michael Bodin
Publisher: Trafford Publishing
ISBN: 1490749209
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 331
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Book Description
In a universe as large as this, it would be surprising if earth was the only inhabited planet. Everything we know about cosmology today, suggested that life should be common. Almost certainly some of that would be similar to ourselves, and would also probably be using radio technology in much the way that we do. We should be able to pick up these signals, with the powerful radio telescopes we have today, and the surprising thing is that after 50 years of continuous listening, we have not yet detected a single one. Fermis paradox relates to this finding, but in its original form, was posed as a question, as to why, in a universe such as this, we have no knowledge of the extraterrestrial life which should be common. Many answers have been proposed, none of them satisfactory, and this book looks at the changes which have taken place since Fermis day, both with respect to the origin and evolution of life, and the advancing trends in modern cosmology, to provide current information from which readers can form their own opinion. The author presents a personal view, which is hypothetical and speculative, but consistent with facts nonetheless.
Author: Milan M. Ćirković
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199646309
Category : Extraterrestrial anthropology
Languages : en
Pages : 424
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Book Description
The Great Silence explores the multifaceted problem named after the great Italian physicist Enrico Fermi and his legendary 1950 lunchtime question "Where is everybody?" In many respects, Fermi's paradox is the richest and the most challenging problem for the entire field of astrobiology and the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence (SETI) studies. This book shows how Fermi's paradox is intricately connected with many fields of learning, technology, arts, and even everyday life. It aims to establish the strongest possible version of the problem, to dispel many related confusions, obfuscations, and prejudices, as well as to offer a novel point of entry to the many solutions proposed in existing literature. 'Cirkovi? argues that any evolutionary worldview cannot avoid resolving the Great Silence problem in one guise or another.
Author: John Cramer
Publisher: Baen Books
ISBN: 1625799268
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 480
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Book Description
Somewhere in the Multiverse, in a lab distant from the Makers’ Planet, Tunnel Maker, Creator of Bridges, answers an alarm. His inter-universe probe is detecting signals from another bubble universe, indicating that some new high-intelligence alien species is doing high-energy physics and creating hyperdimensional signals. Tunnel Maker knows that, in another bubble universe, the predatory Hive Mind should be receiving the same signals. It is time to make a Bridge . . . George Griffin, experimental physicist working at the newly-operational Superconducting Super Collider (SSC), observes a proton-proton collision that doesn’t make sense. He chases it down and discovers a Bridgehead, a wormhole link to the Makers’ universe. With help from theorist Roger Coulton and writer Alice Lancaster, he establishes communication with the Makers, only to learn that a Hive invasion of Earth is imminent. As the Hive invasion is destroying humanity, by wormhole the Makers transport George and Roger back to 1987, where they must undertake the task of manipulating the Reagan, Bush, and Clinton administrations to change the future and prevent construction of the SSC. At the publisher's request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management).
Author: Duncan H. Forgan
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316732312
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 433
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Book Description
The search for extra-terrestrial intelligence (SETI) has for sixty years attempted to solve Fermi's paradox: if intelligent life is relatively common in the universe, where is everybody? Examining SETI through this lens, this volume summarises current thinking on the prevalence of intelligent life in the universe, and discusses sixty-six distinct solutions to the so-called paradox. It describes the methodology of SETI, and how many disciplines feed into the debate, from physics and biology, to philosophy and anthropology. The presented solutions are organised into three key groups: rare-Earth solutions, suggesting planetary habitability, life and intelligence are uncommon; catastrophist solutions, arguing civilisations do not survive long enough to make contact; and non-empirical solutions, those that take theoretical approaches, such as that our methodology is flawed. This comprehensive introduction to SETI concludes by looking at the future of the field and speculating on humanity's potential fate.
