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Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. Hesperides Pressare republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork. ... Read more

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We Are Not Alone 1966 15th Printing Revised B/W photographs. Is Anyone There 1967. Is Anyone Out There December 1974 2nd Printing A few illustrations. Life on Other Worlds March 1954 5th Printing B/W photographs. Life in the Universe 1962 Illustrations Science Study Series S 23. ... Read more

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Originally published in 1905.This volume from the Cornell University Library's print collections was scanned on an APT BookScan and converted to JPG 2000 format by Kirtas Technologies.All titles scanned cover to cover and pages may include marks notations and other marginalia present in the original volume. ... Read more

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fails to address question on cover
Cover question is: "Is ours the only inhabited planet?" This short book of 154 pages walks through numerous necessities for life to exist - as we know it here on earth.Sir Harold Spencer Jones at the end of the book - literally the last paragraph -merely dismisses that he is qualified to speculate whether or not life exists elsewhere in the universe. ... Read more

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General Books publication date: 2009Original publication date: 1835Original Publisher: Jackson and WalfordNotes: This is an OCR reprint. There may be typos or missing text. There are no illustrations or an index.When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. You can also preview the book there. ... Read more

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Publisher: Toronto, BriggsPublication date: 1903Subjects: AstronomyNotes: This is an OCR reprint. There may be numerous typos or missing text. There are no illustrations or indexes.When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. You can also preview the book there. ... Read more

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Authoritative but readable scholarship
In this now classic work, Professor of German Art and Culture Karl Guthke surveys the intellectual history of the plurality of worlds in Western culture, from the ancient Greek rationalists up to the mid-twentieth century.Drawing on original sources in several languages,Guthke deftly analyes the major works about life and intelligence beyond the earth, both in fiction and in scientific speculation.He captures the spirit of each age as its intellectuals confronted the question of whether or not we are alone.He describes the encounter with the alien, as either an enemy or a guardian, as the philosophical and imaginative adventure of modern times; we are exploring the last frontier we can think of.Originally published in German in 1983, the book has been ably translated into English. ... Read more

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Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more

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Does life exist elsewhere in the universe? Recent discoveries have made it more likely than ever that we will know the answer to this age-old question in our lifetimes -- and that the answer most likely will be yes. No longer a subject relegated to the fringes, the search for extraterrestrial life is now a mainstream scientific pursuit. In Other Worlds, Michael Lemonick introduces us to the pioneering researchers who are using brand-new technology to explore the universe, looking for elusive signs of life.

Within recent years, tantalizing suggestions of extraterrestrial life have materialized, including new data from Mars and discoveries about Europa, one of Jupiter's moons. Lemonick describes these remarkable breakthroughs, including the very recent discovery that there are more planets outside our solar system than in it -- an idea that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago.

Other Worlds takes us inside the observatories, from the world's most powerful telescopes, situated at the top of a volcanic mountain in Hawaii, to the giant radio antennas in a bucolic West Virginia valley, used to listen for alien signals. It is in these places that scientists like Paul Butter and Geoff Marcy analyze the data that led to their discovery of new planets trillions of miles away, and where astronomer Seth Shostak helps run Project Phoenix for the SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) Institute. Even NASA has now begun its Origins Program, hoping the search for extraterrestrial life will do for the agency what the mission to put a man on the moon did in the 1960s.

Michael Lemonick has been called "an inspiring explainer of some of the most mind-expanding ideas in contemporary cosmology" in the Los Angeles Times and "[one of] the best of today's astronomy popularizers" in The New York Times Book Review.

Lively and anecdotal, Other Worlds is a fascinating look at one of the most compelling areas of scientific research today and the scientists behind it, as well as a thought-provoking reflection on how the search for extraterrestrial life affects the way we regard our place in the universe.Amazon.com Review
The first planet around a sunlike star was finally detected in1995, after decades of false alarms. It was inevitable that within acouple of years a flood of books on extrasolar planets would gushforth. Michael Lemonick is the senior science writer at Timemagazine, and his account is the most readable and vivid yet.He hasa fluid, anecdotal style, with a good ear for the sort of simile thatreally speaks to the average reader, as when he describes hooking up aradio telescope being like "setting up a new computeryourself. Sometimes it just plain doesn't work, and you can't for thelife of you figure out why."

Lemonick structures Other Worlds around Geoff Marcy and PaulButler, whose Extrasolar Planet Search Project at the University ofCalifornia, San Francisco, is the most successful program so far, withsix planet discoveries to its credit by the end of 1998.Lemonick'sother touchstone is the Drake Equation, which he hyperbolically calls"the second most important equation of the century." If we could fitin values for the seven terms in this equation, we could say somethingsensible about the number of civilizations in the galaxy.So far, theSearch for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) has not come up withany actual data, but, as one researcher says, it's "the world'sbiggest carrot," and worth enduring a considerable number ofsticks. --Mary Ellen Curtin ... Read more

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Learn how new planets are being found
The classic Drake equation is an estimate of the number of civilizations there are in the galaxy, and for years, all but one of the terms was based only on speculation. For some of the terms, it was reasoned, but for others the value was the wildest of guesses. The formula is N = R * F(p) * N(e) * F(L) * F(I) * F(c) * L, where N is the number of civilizations, R is the rate at which Sun-like stars are formed, F(p) is the fraction of those stars that form planets, N(e) is the number of planets per star that can support life, F(L) is the fraction of planets where life emerges, F(I) is the fraction of such planets where intelligence emerges, F(c) is the fraction of such planets where the inhabitants develop interstellar communication and L is the length of time that the civilization actually communicates. Originally put forward in 1961, there was little improvement in the understanding of the parameters for decades.
However, all of that began to change in the last few years as advances in instrumentation is allowing astronomers to detect bodies revolving around stars. The preliminary results, which are withstanding intense scrutiny, are twofold. The first is that many (perhaps even most) stars have bodies revolving around them and the second is that the definition of planet is a vague one. Quite naturally, the first such bodies discovered are rather large and probably fit the definition of a star better than that of a planet. Nevertheless, such bodies appear to be very common and are being found in unexpected places. The people conducting the searches, the mechanisms being used and the conclusions to date is the main theme of the book.
I was aware of some of the results, but had no knowledge as to the specific tactics being used in the search for "planets." The descriptions in the book are understandable to anyone with a basic knowledge of the physics of light. I was captivated by the search strategies and was very impressed by the ingenuity of the astronomers. A second theme is the search for radio signals from other civilizations. While this section was interesting, I found myself surprised that the SETI@Home project was not mentioned. This is a collaborative effort where people donate the idle time of their computers to process segments of data captured by radio telescopes. As someone who has donated almost eight years of computer time to the project, to me it would have been a natural program to mention.
There is no question that the resolution of the question concerning the existence of civilizations on other planets is one that will forever alter the human condition. If we are indeed the only intelligent species, then the only thing that will prevent us from taking over the galaxy is us. However, if we are not the only one, then most likely there are a very large number and we most likely are insignificant in the eyes of some other species. In this book, you will find an understandable explanation of much of the recent work, nearly all of which makes it seem more likely that there is life elsewhere than on Earth.

I just hope we keep searching
This starts out rather excitingly, as though a kind of science drama, butdissipates into a not bad book about how the recently discovered planetsaround other stars were discovered.Lemonick, a Time science writer, triesto make the characters come alive, and they do to some extent, althoughthis is no novelistic work.Lemonick emphasizes the equipment, telescopes,etc. and the techniques used.He does a good job.

The material on theMars rock brings us up to date, circa 1997 or thereabouts: they've provednothing, yet my guess is that we will find that microscopic life existed onMars three and a half billion years ago.When this happens it will be abig media event, yet it will meanlittle to the average person.WhenINTELLIGENT life is found on other planets in another solar system, if thatever happens, it will be a big time media event and will have anEXTRAORDINARY impact on the culture of this world.My guess, after readingthis and several other books on extraterrestrial life, is that life iscommon, but intelligent life rare; consequently, considering the amazingdistances in interstellar space, I don't expect any kind of contact in mylifetime.In fact a half life for contact time (just a stab) might be athousand years or more, assuming that intelligent life exists in, say,every hundred million star systems.Question: will we last a thousandyears?

Lemonick celebrates the Drake equation (N=R* Fp Ne Fl Fi Fc L)where N is the number of detectable civilizations, R* the rate at whichSun-like stars form, Fp the fraction of stars that form planets, Ne thenumber of planets per solar system hospitable to life, Fl the fraction ofplanets where life emerges, Fi the fraction of life bearing planets whereintelligence evolves, Fc the fraction where the inhabitants developinterstellar communication, and L the length of time such civilizationscontinue to communicate.

Well, they might add "Fw," the fraction that arewilling or care to communicate.

As far as just the bare existence ofextraterrestrial life is concerned, it might be that we would not evenrecognize the life forms if they tapped us on the shoulder since they mighttake a form that is pure energy or pure something else we know nothingabout.It's not far fetched to say they might be invisible to oureyes.

The material about Europa and the possibility of life under itsfrozen surface in a great ocean is interesting.Lemonick says (and we'veread this elsewhere) that it is now believed that life probably did notoriginate in wading pools as has been long thought, but probably deep underthe ocean protected from the constant bombardment of comets and meteorites,nourished not by the sun but by heat escaping from the inner earth.Thisseems highly plausible to me because of the recent discoveries of strangelife forms deep in our oceans where the animals live on bacteria nourishedby heat vents several miles deep.I still like the panspermia idea fromHoyle and others that life originated outside our solar system.For somereason Lemonick doesn't seem to put much stock in this.

The Process of Discovery: Struggle and Success
Are Earth-like planets a rarity in the universe? Is our Solar System, with its 9 peaceful planets in circular orbits, some fluke or a godsend among the 100 billion stars in our Milky Way Galaxy? Is intelligent life in theuniverse such a rarity that we may be cosmically alone?

Mike Lemonick hasproduced a book that is exquisitely accurate and humanly compelling aboutthe discovery of alien worlds around other stars.The book captures thedifficulties of forging ahead toward new scientific techniques that oftenlead to failures. But in this case, Lemonick describes how severalastronomers worldwide pushed forward despite those obstacles.Ultimately,these astronomers captured the most sought-after discovery in astronomy:the first true New Worlds, outside our Solar System.

Lemonick revealsthe quirky personalities of the astronomers who made the 10-year trektoward these discoveries.Along the way, this book describes the chancesthat Earth-like planets may lead to life elsewhere in the universe.Thebook beautifully explains the ultimate human exploration: travelling to thenew worlds in search of our biological roots out among the stars.

Thisbook is a great read, and will stand as a historical benchmark about agreat moment in scientific discovery.

Has there been a better science writer?
Finally.Somebody who knows how to write about complex scientific issues in a way that even scientifically-challenged readers like myself can understand. Mr. Lemonick knows how to make science interesting and fun.As a college student who spends most of her time doing required reading, it's seldom that I read a science book unless it's assigned.But this book caught my eye as I walked past it.The more of it I read,the less I was able to put it down and had to buy it.Great, great book!(And wow... smashing cover, I might add.Way, way cool.)Oprah... if you're out there... you've got to get this guy on your show. I know you're hung up on the "feelings thing" but aliens have feelings too you know. ... Read more

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Contents:
At this moment there is more than a possibility...perhaps even a probability...that signals from other civilizations are impinging on earth. So startling is the idea that when the National Academy of Sciences held a meeting to discuss the subject, it did so privately in fear of the obvious sensational publicity.

Sullivan not only offers the reader a tour of the universe, showing the likelihood of our sharing it with other civilizations, but also discusses the historical background of our attempts to communicate with other worlds. ... Read more

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Garrett Putnam Serviss (1851-1929) was an astronomer, popularizer of astronomy, and early science fiction writer. He took a law degree at Columbia. In 1876 he joined the staff of the New York Sun newspaper. Serviss showed a talent for explaining scientific details, leading Andrew Carnegie to invite him to deliver The Urania Lectures on cosmology, astronomy, and geology. Serviss toured the United States for over two years delivering these lectures, then settling down to become a popular speaker in the New York area. He gained a syndicated newspaper column devoted to astronomy and other sciences and wrote frequently for the leading magazines of the day. Serviss's favourite topic was astronomy, as shown by the fact that of the fifteen books he wrote, eight are devoted to that science. His works includes: Astronomy Through an Opera Glass (1888), A Columbus of Space (1894), Edison's Conquest of Mars (1898), The Moon Metal (1900), Pleasures of the Telescope (1901), The Moon (1907), Astronomy With the Naked Eye (1908), Curiosities of the Sky (1909), Round the Year With the Stars (1910), and Astronomy in a Nutshell (1912). ... Read more

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Will it be possible to communicate with intelligent extraterrestrial life forms if we find them? How could we establish this communication, where would we begin? What does it mean to say that mathematics is a universal language? How could math be used to communicate with ETs? This book summarizes the work of SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, and other search programs and considers the implications of, and concerns about, their possible success. Surely the next step after finding life elsewhere would be to try to communicate with it. The author of this book will suggest concrete ways to approach this problem.This book, published in Spanish first, tells us what scientists currently know about the origin of life and its possible presence in the rest of the universe. It also describes the various methods used today to search for life in the universe. But the major focus of the book is on communicating with ET and, using animals on Earth as an example, why we should feel encouraged that we will be able to do just that. The author even provides step by step instructions in a kind of language that could be used to converse with intelligent alien beings. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (30)

The universe, from solid physics to educated speculation.
This is an excellent concise exposition of the current state of theoretical cosmology, particularly the ideas and variations of the inflationary universe scenario. The physics is described well, though necessarily without any technical detail. This field spills over onto both sides of the (somewhat murky) divide between the empirically verifiable and the wildly speculative, and happily Vilenkin does a decent job of telling you which side he's on throughout the book. The last parts are the most speculative, though perhaps the most interesting from a philosophical perspective. He gives a good description of his "tunneling from nothing" (or "vacuum genesis") view of the origin of the universe and contrasts it with the competing no-boundary proposal of Hartle and Hawking (or "quantum genesis," for which see Hawking's _A Brief History of Time_). The book also contains entertaining anecdotes about Vilenkin's experiences with other physicists, for example his trips to the Catalan region of Spain to discuss cosmic recurrences with Jaume Garriga. Overall we get a sense of Vilenkin's playful and wide-ranging imagination as well as his passion for understanding our universe.

a mind stretcher for the adventurous thinker
The idea of multiple co-existijngn universes is one of those recent concepts like string theory that leave room for endless speculation and alot of intellectual fun. This volume is a fine survey of the latest thought right or wong and is a good introduction to what is going on in this area. Read it and philosophize at will.

Here we are again...
Great reading, indeed! Very entertaining. Mathematical formalism of Mr.Vilenkin's theory of quantum tunneling of the universe (or multiverse) from *nothingness* without causation is a good scientific proof that *nothingness* (or better *Nothingness*) has really great sense of humor...
Well, let's label this *Nothingness* Sunyata, or Cosmic Consciousness, and here we are, at Yogacara or Vijnanavada. Aren't we? Principle (law?) of quantum tunneling has to have some dwelling somewhere, so to say... In Nothingness in this case.

A ringside seat at the circus of the bizarre that is modern Cosmology.
Alex Vilenkin is a real physicist and he's been at the cutting edge of cosmology research so it's no surprise that he has a solid grip on the theoretical underpinnings and major issues and problems facing modern cosmology.What's unexpected is that he is such a fluid and comprehensible author.Dr. Vilenkin writes beautifully - with humor, vision, impeccable organization - and great mercy for the layman.He spares us the math, but gives us a real mental picture of the issues at play.This is a great review and explanation of the modern scientific picture of the creation of the universe.

And what a picture it is.Exotic states of vacuum engendering faster than light expansion; infinities contained in bubbles inside finite spaces; multiverses with endless variations in the laws of physics, most inhospitable to life.We see the history of the subject from Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, and Newton up through Einstein and into the modern period.We get a great view of how Guth's expansion theory resolves a host of problems and suggests, tantalizing, the nature of the stuff that gives birth to our universe (higher energy false vacuums).Much of the resulting weirdness comes about as consequences contingent on expansion.There's a great explication of the cosmological constant and how the recent observational proof of it shatters particle physics independence from the anthropic principle (the notion that our presence here as observers is evidence that must be used to help gauge odds in a scenario of multiverses in which only some outcomes are hospitable to life such as ourselves.I find myself thrilled by these ideas and enthralled that Vilenkin gives me the impression that I'm really following along.

I'd give it an unqualified rave except that I have a major problem with his central thesis that a consequence of our island universe's infinite size is an infinity of parallel worlds and an infinity of identical earths with identical "you"s doing the same things.It's poetic, and certainly shocking and gets the point across that infinity is a really weird concept with very strange consequences.However, his assumption that the quantum fudge factor necessary to his proof of truly duplicate universes can give rise to a truly duplicate earth with duplicate people betrays an empiricist fallacy of particle physics' reductionism:the same particles will not build the same individual life forms because emergent complexity makes liberal use of chaotic recursive phenomena.It's the genotype/phenotype divergence.Even if the all the particles end up in the same places (by pure chance alone like monkeys typing Shakespeare, since there's an infinity of universes, some will bound to have all the particles in the same places) the way these particles code for complex emergent phenomena like life, brains and social structures makes use of chaos' sensitive dependence on initial conditions to yield divergence on the quantum fudge factors alone - in direct contradiction to Dr. Vilenkin's central conclusion.

So - I'm totally down with "Many Worlds in One" as the best explication I've encountered on the history and evolution of the ideas and theories of particle physics as it relates to cosmology.But I'm completely at odds with Vilenkin's central wowser that there's an infinity of each of us in a weird cosmic hall of mirrors because it's an inescapable consequence of infinity.I think that's just too simplistic and reductionist a reading of how particles combine to manifest the complex emergent phenomena all the way up from molecules to life forms and higher levels of reality.The way Vilenkin blithely ignores emergent complexity reflects physicists bias that particles are an ultimate reality completely encapsulating all higher order reality in and of themselves.It's a pretty picture; but it just isn't that easy.Maybe my insistence that the infinities involved in chaos and emergence trump the infinity of universes reflects my own cowardice and bias - but I couldn't help being disappointed that Vilenkin didn't seem to have recognized that issue with that facet of his really cool theory.Ultimately, my issue here is really just a quibble since that aspect is just one in a long series of amazing ideas that get presented here.On the whole, this book is the most stimulating thing you can expose yourself to from a philosophical, spiritual, and intellectual perspective.I might dock it a point because I don't like the pop aspect of the central thesis, but I'd highly recommend it to anyone at all for all the rest of it.

A special note on the Kindle edition: footnotes are rendered with direct links, but end notes are not (forcing you to jump locations manually - annoyingly - if you want to read the end notes).The index is totally lost because of the relative locations - there are no listed page numbers, no live links, no location numbers - nothing - on the index.So if you want to use the index - buy the printed book because the Kindle version has no functioning index.The Kindle edition also has a some spelling errors from the scan, but the pictures are OK and it all works fine otherwise.

Follow-up 1/28/09:
Time to eat some crow.I had a nice long conversation about Mr. Vilenkin's theory via e-mail with Mr. Vilenkin himself and he very patiently worked the idea through with me and I am forced to admit that if there are an infinite number of O-regions, then there must be duplicate Earths.All that quantum weirdness, chaos and self organizing complexity just ups the number of possible histories each particle can take.But in a universe of finite age and finite size the number of those particle histories is certainly vast but unavoidably finite, just like Mr. Vilenkin says in the book.All the ranting I just did in my review about 'physicist's arrogance about particles constituting an ultimate reality' really was just intellectual cowardice - just like I hinted it might be.

Our conversation isn't quite finished yet.I'm still clinginging to a shred of hope - that the central mechanism that gives our island universe an infinite number of O-regions might not give us an infinite number of particles to populate those regions at any particular moment in time - but only trends towards infinity over infinite time.This particular objection has nothing in common with the failed avenue of attack I make in my original review.I'll wait to hear more about that.

The real upshot here is that this book is incredibly stimulating, mind bending, and mind expanding.If you really read this, you'll never be the same.Highly recommended.

Final update - I have nowhere to hide with Dr. Vilenkin; I lack the background to either full understand or debate his points about the equation of infinite time on an island universe viewed from the outside equating into infinite volume (and infinite matter present simultaneously).I'm going to have do a lot more studying.Meanwhile - definitely read this book.There's nothing else out there like it.

Direct From the Theorists Mouth
This is an excellent guide to inflation theory, and the doors that it opens up- Multiverse etc.After all if you can't trust Vilenkin, Guth or Linde to to tell you about their theory, who can you trust? What is most important about this theory is that it vindicates Christianity - indirectly of course. ... Read more

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An amazing journey throughout the universe in a search for other planets and the possibility of extraterrestrial life. ... Read more

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In the disastrous years before and during the Second World War, when confidence in a harmonious future was as difficult as it was crucial for spiritual survival, two German artists in exile wrote what would become their late masterpieces. The composer Paul Hindemith conceived an opera on the famous astronomer Johannes Kepler s mature life and theories, The Harmony of the World; the poet and novelist Hermann Hesse wrote a complex literary collage, The Glass Bead Game. Both works address the topic of universal harmony in the fabric of creation and culture, as well as the urgent problem of how such harmony can heal the spiritual, mental, and emotional developments of individuals and of society at large. The two quests are mirrored into circumstances that are almost equidistant from the mid-20th-century period in which their stories are being told Hindemith s opera centers on an outstanding intellectual in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, while Hesse s work focuses on this intellectual s counterpart projected into a fictional world of the early 23rd century. In both cases, the quest for harmony and truthful proportion manifests at all levels of the stories told and of the works telling them. Siglind Bruhn s thought-provoking interdisciplinary study is organized along the lines of the seven areas in which scholars of the Pythagorean tradition from Plato to Kepler and beyond found universal harmony paradigmatically realized music, arithmetic, geometry and astronomy (the quadrivium of the medieval liberal arts) complemented by metaphysics, psychology, and art. ... Read more

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A contemplative discussion of the connections between music study, world cultures, and cosmology
Musicologist, concert pianist, and interdisciplinary scholar Siglind Bruhn presents The Musical Order Of The World: Kepler, Hesse, Hindemith, a contemplative discussion of the connections between music study, world cultures, and cosmology, particularly as researched by great scientific minds. Covering topics from "Music's Moral Power in Ancient China and Hesse's Castalia" to "The Eternal Realm of Numerical Relations", to an extremely close reading of Kepler's poetry concerning the meaning of death. The Musical Order Of The World is a thoughtful and perfectly attuned blend of advanced music study, ground-breaking scholarship, and metaphysical awareness.
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FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND LIBRARIES ONLY. Looks at the world before the telescope was invented, and explores how it has changed our world and our perceptions of the world. ... Read more