- Paperback: 240 pages
- Publisher: Perennial (Dec 2000)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0380793466
- ISBN-13: 978-0380793464
- Product Dimensions: 18.8 x 12.4 x 3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,524,781 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I liked this book a lot for the thoughts it provoked as much as what it contained. The notion that we send messages across deep time whether we intend to or not is fascinating. I recommend this book for people who want to think.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This book really gets you thinking in a new way: going beyond your own petty life and petty concerns to think about the far past and the far future. So you think computer disks are so cool? Egyptian pyramids have a better record of surviving down the ages - already some of our data media are disintegrating and we don't have any working equpment to read them! When you call something the "way of the future," Benford points out, you need to think about exactly how far in the future you are looking.
Time capsules? We go to so much trouble to send trivial junk into the future...sometimes for only a few decades. A future archaeologist would probably learn more from mining our landfills, as we do from digging in ancient garbage heaps.
Benford also distinguishes between serious, scientific efforts to send a message to aliens (eg the plaques/records on the Pioneer space probes) and the "Kilroy was here" impulse ("Send your name on a CD-ROM to the stars!") being marketed so heavily. The latter, he notes, amounts to graffiti, worthless in the end except to someone's ego.
Finally, there are sections on saving the environment and biodiversity, to make sure we HAVE a future. Benford strikes a balance between the in situ/ex situ (conservation/zoos) approaches to saving species and the Puritan/technology prophet approaches to solving the greenhouse effect, a balance that is desperately needed when most so-called experts seem to be passionate ideologues one way or the other.
This book draws broadly on numerous disciplines and from a lot of research but leaves you really thinking in the end, and perhaps rethinking some of your assumptions about the future.
Format:Hardcover
A very intriguing look at the complexities of communicating and preserving information over vast periods of time. Mr. Benford presents an unique, thought-provoking perspective on the subject... well-informed and unpretentious.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
very interesting look at the problem
This is a very interesting and informative look at the problem of communication and the ideas that have been spawned to solve such problems. Read more
Published on 25 May 1999
Deep Time
Greg Benford points out an implication of Deep Time that I have never before considered. Thank-you, sir. Read more
Published on 8 April 1999
A GREAT BOOK--NOTHING ELSE LIKE IT!
Tis is an extraordinary view of humanity in a long dimension of time--beautifully written, based on real experience, but not pontifical. Read more
Published on 19 Mar 1999
A GREAT BOOK!
This is a profound work, the only treatment of truly large perspectives in time. A tremendous eye-opener and beautifully written, for humanist and scientist alike.
Published on 19 Mar 1999
Fascinating look at the past and future of humanity
This is an intersting look at mankind's attempts to communicate across the ages from the pyramids to timecapsules to messages on spacecraft and to current efforts to mark... Read more
Published on 13 Feb 1999
Useful reading
IF you're interested in saving the world, literally, then this book is required reading. Fascinating inside accounts of various projects to communicate across millenia, archive... Read more
Published on 24 Jan 1999
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