Author: Sylvia Engdahl
Publisher: Atheneum Books
ISBN: 9780689301353
Category : Life on other planets
Languages : en
Pages : 201
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Book Description
Surveys theories and speculations on the possibility of life on other planets throughout history and discusses current scientific thinking on this subject.
Author: Sylvia Engdahl
Publisher: Sylvia Engdahl
ISBN:
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 272
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Book Description
Interest in exoplanets--the worlds of other stars--is not new. From the late 17th century until the end of the 19th, almost all educated people believed that the stars are suns surrounded by inhabited planets--a belief that was expressed not in science fiction, but in serious speculation, both scientific and religious, as well as in poetry. Only during the first half of the 20th century was it thought that life-bearing exoplanets are rare. This is not a science book--rather, it belongs to the category known as History of Ideas. First published by Atheneum in 1974, it tells the story of the rise, fall, and eventual renewal of widespread conviction that we are not alone in the universe. In this 2012 updated edition the chapters dealing with modern speculation have been revised to reflect the progress science has made during the past 40 years, including the actual detection of planets orbiting other stars. However, it is not intended to be more than a brief introduction to today's views; its focus is on little-known facts about those of the past. Why should we care what our forebears believed? Now, the question of ET life is a matter for investigation by science. Yet it's significant that most educated people of past centuries were convinced that other inhabited worlds exist, without any scientific evidence whatsoever. This historical fact reveals that human beings have an instinctive sense of kinship with the wider universe and a desire to see the realms that lie beyond this one small planet--and perhaps, eventually, to go there. Our ancestors conceived of such voyages only in a spiritual sense, as occurring after death. But we who have taken our first small steps into space are aware that our descendants may set foot on the worlds of other suns. Just as in the 17th century people were initially upset by the new knowledge that the stars are suns scattered in space rather than lights fixed to a nearby sphere, the growing awareness that Earth is not safely isolated from whatever lies beyond makes many of our contemporaries uneasy. Thus today's predominant feelings about spaceships are ambivalent. Nevertheless, if an impulse toward belief that we are not alone in the universe is indeed an innate characteristic of human beings, as the past spread of belief in inhabited exoplanets suggests, we can be sure that those who follow us will not turn back from becoming spacefarers.
Author: Sylvia Engdahl
Publisher: Sylvia Engdahl
ISBN: 9781535449526
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 272
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Book Description
Interest in extrasolar worlds is not new. From the late 17th century until the end of the 19th, almost all educated people believed that the stars are suns surrounded by inhabited planets--a belief that was expressed not in science fiction, but in serious speculation, both scientific and religious, as well as in poetry. Only during the first half of the 20th century was it thought that life-bearing exoplanets are rare. This is not a science book--rather, it belongs to the category known as History of Ideas. First published by Atheneum in 1974, it tells the story of the rise, fall, and eventual renewal of widespread conviction that we are not alone in the universe. In this updated edition the chapters dealing with modern views have been revised to reflect the progress science has made during the past 40 years, including the actual detection of many planets orbiting other stars. In addition it contains a new Afterword, "Confronting the Universe in the Twenty-First Century," discussing the relevance of past upheavals in human thought to an understanding of the hiatus in space exploration that has followed the Apollo moon landings.
Author: Sylvia Engdahl
Publisher: Sylvia Engdahl
ISBN: 9780615645179
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 268
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Book Description
Surveys theories and speculations on the possibility of life on other planets throughout history and discusses current scientific thinking on this subject.
Author: Engdahl Sylvia (author)
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781452491639
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Author: Sylvia Engdahl
Publisher: Sylvia Engdahl
ISBN:
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 204
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Book Description
Much has been said about the positive effect of the photos of Earth obtained by Apollo 8, which for the first time showed our planet as a globe, a fragile refuge amid barren surroundings, and thereby launched the environmental movement. The negative impact--the subconscious apprehension resulting from realization that space is an actual place containing little that's familiar to us and perhaps much that we'd rather not meet--is not spoken of. But it may be no less significant. Could this be one of the reasons why widespread interest in space died so soon after the first moon landing? For the past fifty years space advocates have been puzzled and frustrated by the slowness of progress in space and the failure of the public to grasp its importance not only to the future of humankind, but to the preservation of Earth's environment. But is it really cause for discouragement? In this book Sylvia Engdahl argues that in the light of history, it's not surprising that acceptance of a new outlook on the universe is slow. All past human advances have been made by visionary minorities without the support of their contemporaries, and our transformation into a spacefaring species will be no exception. This book also includes all of Engdahl's earlier essays about space, such as "Space and Human Survival," which has been popular on the Web for nearly twenty years, plus new ones about the priority of Mars and the question of whether we'll ever meet hostile aliens. In addition, an Epilogue contains the quotations from her Web page "Space Quotes to Ponder" about why a presence in space is vital to humankind. X-Ray is enabled and includes biographical information about all the quotation authors as well as the people mentioned in the essays.
Author: United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Astronautics
Languages : en
Pages : 452
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Book Description
Author: Tennyson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 868
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Book Description
Author: Alfred Tennyson Baron Tennyson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 498
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Book Description
Author: Sylvia Engdahl
Publisher: Sylvia Engdahl
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 246
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Book Description
Here are the author's collected essays about her Newbery Honor book Enchantress from the Stars and other Young Adult and adult science fiction novels, plus two autobiographical essays. Her comments on Enchantress deal with issues she would like all its readers to be aware of. This is one of three books of essays that replace Reflections on the Future: Collected Essays, which has grown too long and covers too many topics. Most of the essays included appeared there, so if you already have that book you don't need this one. The other two replacement books, including a number of new essays, are focused on space and on the human mind.
