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The Great Silence explores the multifaceted problem named after the great Italian physicist Enrico Fermi and his legendary 1950 lunchtime question "Where is everybody?" In many respects, Fermi's paradox is the richest and the most challenging problem for the entire field of astrobiology and the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence (SETI) studies.
This book shows how Fermi's paradox is intricately connected with many fields of learning, technology, arts, and even everyday life. It aims to establish the strongest possible version of the problem, to dispel many related confusions, obfuscations, and prejudices, as well as to offer a novel point of entry to the many solutions proposed in existing literature. Cirkovic argues that any evolutionary worldview cannot avoid resolving the Great Silence problem in one guise or another.
List of contents
- 1: Fermi's Paradox / Great Silence problem
- 2: What's past is prologue: Cosmological and astrophysical background
- 3: Underlying philosophy: Realism, naturalism, Copernicanism, and all that
- 4: L'Année dernière à Marienbad - Solipsist solutions
- 5: Terra Nostra - "Rare Earth" and related solutions
- 6: In the Mountains of Madness - Neocatastrophic solutions
- 7: The Cities of the Red Night - Logistic solutions
- 8: The tournament: How to rate solutions and avoid exclusivity
- 9: The last challenge for Copernicanism?
About the author
Milan M. Ćirković is a research professor at the Astronomical Observatory of Belgrade, and a research associate of the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University. His primary research interests are in the fields of astrobiology (Galactic habitable zone, SETI studies, catastrophic episodes in the history of life), risk analysis (global catastrophes, observation selection effects, epistemology of risk), and philosophy of science (anthropic principles, philosophy of physics, future studies).
Summary
Researchers believe that the universe is vast enough that life has evolved and become technological many times, - yet we have seen no trace of extraterrestrial intelligence. This conundrum, known as the Fermi pardox, is the deepest mystery in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Put simply, where is everybody?
Additional text
A detailed, logical, impartial and much-needed exploration, examining one of the most fascinating controversies of this (or any) era.
Report
First and foremost, it offers the most extensive, meticulously researched, and scientifically current analysis of Fermi's paradox to date. It is also likely to become the go-to text on the theoretical foundations of SETI research. Cirkovic expounds complicated scientific concepts in instructive and clear language without over-simplification, an achievement that makes the book accessible to a wide non-specialist audience. Cansu Hepçaglayan, Aja Watkins, Russell Powell, Acta Biotheoretica
