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Why Aren't They Here?: The Question of Life on Other Worlds
 
 
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Why Aren't They Here?: The Question of Life on Other Worlds [Paperback]

Surendra Verma
2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Paperback: 240 pages
  • Publisher: Icon Books Ltd (1 May 2008)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1840468653
  • ISBN-13: 978-1840468656
  • Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 12.8 x 2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,199,823 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Surendra Verma
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Product Description

Review

"'A calm, intelligent and witty survey of the history of mankind's search for extraterrestrial life' Daily Mail 'A masterpiece of science writing and journalism - in-your-face, direct and beautifully written... a gem of wisdom, scholarship and fun.' BBC Focus"

Product Description

The rate of expansion of our universe is mind-blowing: imagine a pea growing to the size of the Milky Way in less time than it takes to blink. In all this infinite space that we cannot even see, let alone explore, it seems certain that there is some life on other worlds.From Aristotle to ET via radio, religion and reincarnation, Surendra Verma's fast-moving narrative examines the history of our search for alien life, and dispels the myriad myths on the subject, before focusing on the real possibilities lurking in space.In a popular and easy-to-read style, Verma uses current research to speculate what life is like on other planets, how we might communicate with it, and what Earth might seem like to visitors.

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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews

4 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
2.8 out of 5 stars (4 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Great book for the layman, 9 Oct 2007
Surendra Verma has done for me what many years of school couldn't. He's made Astronomy, Physics and Chemistry cool and interesting.

Let's not beat about the bush, a lot of the book is Science, but it's good, interesting science, not the stuff you learn in school.

My favorite chapters were "Messages" and "Questions", simply because they allowed Mr Verma to move beyond explaining the science and into theorising the possibilities out there. Very interesting read!
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2.0 out of 5 stars disappointing, 13 May 2011
I've recently read three books connected with Fermi's paradox- If there is intelligent life in the universe then why aren't they here. This book is the most disappointing of them, probably because it's written by a journalist rather than a scientist- and in places it shows. The whole approach seems to be to re-present a lot of snippets of information that the author has collected from various science journals. Whilst this might impress some with the width of the author's reading it does end up feeling like a magpie's collection bits of information, not all of it terribly relevant, rather than a coherent whole.
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2.0 out of 5 stars Not what I expected, 26 Sep 2010
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Having had an interest in buying and reading books on related subjects that began with an interest started reading the facinating and insightful views of Carl Sagan, I bought this looking for further insightful exploration on this subject. I was dissapointed with how short the book was, and the lack of any meaningful look into the main subject of the book! The first half of the book provides historical backgrounds that I had read countless times before without really leading into the point of the backgrounds. There follows a barrage of summaries of various astrophysicists, authors, biologists on every possible account of life on other planets and why they are not here, including some so outlandish that they should't really be in the book. Unlike the Sagan books, the author does not take a particular standpoint as he takes you through these hypothses so you are left with a bewildering bombardmemnt of every conceivable idea on the same subject. This has a confusing effect as each is introduced by saying how the views of of the 'renowned' or 'respected' person, each of who has an entirely different view to the other. All in all, although there are intestesting sections, it did'nt inspire as well as other books on this subject.
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