The Science Of Aliens

by Clifford A. Pickover

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 ours—they 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 limbs—a 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 signals? The 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 us?In classic Pickover style, here is speculation at the far edge of knowledge—and beyond.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Biology, Writing, Aliens

240 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Clifford Alan Pickover is an American author, editor, and columnist in the fields of science, mathematics, science fiction, innovation, and creativity. For many years, he was employed at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown, New York, where he was editor-in-chief of the IBM Journal of Research and Development. He has been granted more than 700 U.S. patents, is an elected Fellow for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, and is author of more than 50 books, translated into more than a dozen languages.

Reviews

[Broodingferret · Rating 3 out of 5]

While a fun concept, and thought provoking from time to time, Pickover could have gone much farther with this book. While the reader is exposed to a wide variety of potential lifeforms that could feasibly exist in extraterrestrial environments, the implication (and the main factor behind anyone's choice to read this book, I'd think) is that the hypothesized aliens would be of the intelligent and communicative variety. Most of Pickover's discussions, however, involve single-celled or invertebrate life, which, while fascinating and weird at times, doesn't really get the imagination churning on what E.T. might actually look and behave like. I, for one, picked up this book for inspiration in the writing of short-stories, but I found very little. The author also has an unfortunate tendency to dumb down complex concepts; there were several times in the book where I came across topics that were clear to me only because I'd been exposed to them before, but would likely have confused a less informed person. Also, Pickover doesn't appear to be too skilled at engaging his audience; while he does constantly ask questions of the reader, presumably to spur thought, he does so in a fairly bland way, engaging in none of the Socratic back-and-forth that really gets the mind working. Still, there's quite a bit of interesting and useful stuff in The Science Of Aliens, and it should definitely be perused by anyone interested in either writing sci-fi or just thinking about the hypotheticals of alien life.

[Carl Jenkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book will open your eyes to a whole new way of contemplating alien life for the imaginative story-teller in any medium. No more cookie cutter humanoids that are really just painted up Earthling homo-sapiens. It offers loads of examples and effective recommendations for each area it covers, and it explores lots of different angles and plausible science to back them up.

[Jarad · Rating 1 out of 5]

I wouldn’t bother. Purely speculative. John Mack’s “Abduction” is much more grounded in first hand experience.