Book review: 'The Eerie Silence: Are We Alone In The Universe?'

The Eerie Silence: Are We Alone In The Universe?
Paul Davies
Penguin
242 pages
Rs1,360

The possibility of aliens being ‘out there’ has always tickled our imaginations. Imagine for a moment, a signal from the depths of our galaxy carrying a message, any message, for humans on Planet Earth — what possibilities could it hold for us?

Close the book, turn the TV off, step into the real world governed by science and alas, the odds are stacked against the existence of intelligent life. But that doesn’t mean the possibility doesn’t exist. Scientists working on a sliver of hope are doing research to answer the question printed on the cover of this book: Are we alone in this universe?

The Eerie Silence takes a look at the approaches being taken by researchers in myriad fields such as physics, astronomy, cosmology, astrobiology to look for alien life.

Of course, as Davies mentions in his book, whether such an undertaking can be considered science in the first place is debatable.

That’s because aliens do not exist in theory. For example, scientists at CERN are using a particle accelerator (a rather large one) hoping to find the Higgs Boson. But at least the existence of the Higg’s Boson is proved in mathematical terms — meaning it exists in theory, and we just haven’t seen it yet.

On what theoretical basis do we look for aliens then?

The possibility of finding evidence for ET is so fantastic it’s difficult not to get polarised. In that sense, Davies has done a good job of sticking to the middle ground. A physicist, cosmologist and astrobiologist working in this area, Davies is a firm optimist. But that hasn’t prevented him from taking a critical look at the issue.

For example, Davies argues that listening to radio signals from outer space presumes that aliens are using radio communication, which might be considered outdated by a technologically advanced civilisation.

In a similar manner, Davies presents and raises doubts on every approach being taken by scientists. However, in Davies’ book, having doubts isn’t reason to give up, it’s reason to improve our methods.

Davies begins by raising a pertinent question: given a set of conditions (the sort that existed on ancient Earth) will life necessarily spring from non-life? Or was genesis a freak event that occured only on Earth? Having discussed various initiatives to resolve this question, he moves on to the next question: once life has sprung up, will it necessarily evolve into complex and then intelligent life?

Is science (which has made radio communication possible) an imperative? In this discussion Davies moves beyond biology. 

‘Suppose an asteroid had hit Paris in 1300 and destroyed European culture. Would science ever have emerged on Earth?’ asks Davies who argues that science which is taken for granted today as default, emerged due to societal factors (especially monotheistic religion) that existed in Europe.

One can question Davies’ authority to come to such conclusions, but it is an interesting thought nonetheless.

From thereon the discussion swings between the scientific — based on what we know — and stuff science fiction is made of. For example, why should we assume an alien civilisation, technologically advanced than ours, should use radio communication? Why shouldn’t they use, say, nano probes — nano sized probes can store a lot of information and because of their small sizes can easily be accelerated to high speeds?

Some approaches are plain whacky. Assuming that aliens would use the world wide web to get information about humans, a group of SETI enthusiasts have set up a dedicated website (www.ieti.org) inviting ET to log on. The book goes on to talk about the SETI Post-Detection Taskgroup, which basically is looking at how we should react once a message from ET finally arrives.

Science is technical to a large extent, but its broader goals are invariably exciting. Davies has the gift of storytelling and is passionate about his work — this has resulted in a book that manages to talk about the broader goals of SETI giving only the necessary technical details. It helps that he is dealing with an aspect of science where imagination is as important as laws that govern it.