The Science Of Aliens
By (Author) Clifford Pickover
Basic Books
Basic Books
26th November 1999
United States
Tertiary Education
Non Fiction
001.9
Paperback
240
248g
If extraterrestrials ever landed on Earth, they would find us extremely strange. Their first intimation of our existence might well be a Super Bowl broadcast or a stray transmission from the Playboy channel. But, of course, they might seem equally strange to us. How strange Their senses could be entirely different from oursthey might see in the infrared or hear radio waves. What would aliens look like An intelligent octopus-like creature is certainly plausible. What about odd numbers of limbsa three-legged alien with three arms and three eyes What about an entire planet of immobile, silicon-based trees that communicate with each other via electrical signalsThe Science of Aliens gets weirder still. Could a giant interstellar cloud be alive and intelligent Could creatures live at extremely high pressures and temperatures And which of these many possibilities would be similar enough to us that they could communicate with them, or they with us Would they have any interest in abducting us Would they want to have sex with usIn classic Pickover style, here is speculation at the far edge of knowledgeand beyond.
Clifford T. Pickover is on the research staff of the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research centre, Yorktown Heights, N.Y. He is a regular columnist for Discover Magazine and an associate editor for the magazines Computers and Graphics, Computers and Physics, Odyssey, and Theta. His many previous books include Mazes for the Mind Keys to Infinity Computers and the Imagination Can You Escape Black Holes: A traveller's Guide and The Alien IQ Test.