Alien Life Imagined :Communicating the Science and Culture of Astrobiology

Publication subTitle :Communicating the Science and Culture of Astrobiology

Author: Mark Brake  

Publisher: Cambridge University Press‎

Publication year: 2012

E-ISBN: 9781139847551

P-ISBN(Paperback): 9780521491297

Subject: Q693 space biology (universe)

Keyword: 天文学

Language: ENG

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Alien Life Imagined

Description

One day, astrobiologists could make the most fantastic discovery of all time: the detection of complex extraterrestrial life. As space agencies continue to search for life in our Universe, fundamental questions are raised: are we awake to the revolutionary effects on human science, society and culture that alien contact will bring? And how is it possible to imagine the unknown? In this book, Mark Brake tells the compelling story of how the portrayal of extraterrestrial life has developed over the last two and a half thousand years. Taking examples from the history of science, philosophy, film and fiction, he showcases how scholars, scientists, film-makers and writers have devoted their energies to imagining life beyond this Earth. From Newton to Kubrick, and Lucian to H. G. Wells, this is a fascinating account for anyone interested in the extraterrestrial life debate, from general readers to amateur astronomers and undergraduate students studying astrobiology.

Chapter

The Atomists and life in the void

Set the controls for the heart of the Sun

Whither the Greek alien? Enter Plato's dark side

Aristotle's lifeless universe

The scala naturæ

A True Story: Greek alien fiction

Notes

2 The world turned upside down: Copernicanism and the voyages of discovery

The voyages of discovery

The medieval cosmos

The medieval Throne of God and the alien

The Copernican revolution

Crisis of the imagination

The world turned upside down

The far-seer

The dark side of Moon

The killing Moon

And the planets may be earths ...

The Man in the Moone

Fiction and the new physics

Beyond the new physics

Notes

3 In Newton's train: pluralism and the system of the world

The System of The World

The long road to cosmic pluralism

Empires of Moone and Sun

The Empire of the Moone

The Empire of the Sun

Talking alien

Life and ETI in the Renaissance Solar System

The telescope and Renaissance solar systems

Cosmotheoros

God among the aliens

The Newtonians

God's physicist

Alien invasion: Gulliver's Travels and Micromégas

Notes

4 Extraterrestrials in the early machine age

The machine age, man-bats, and the Great Moon 'Hoax'

Pluralism in the machine age

The Caledonian canons

The many worlds of Dr Dick

William Whewell: Giordano Bruno of the machine age?

On the plurality of worlds

Whewell goes all Goldilocks

Whewell as geocentric champion

Notes

5 After Darwin: The War of the Worlds

The Great Chain of Being

Beings and beasts in the Islamic Golden Age

From The Throne of God, to the Meanest Worm

The Origin of Species

Darwin, Wallace, and extraterrestrial life

Other worlds than ours

A brief excursion into subterranean alien life

La Pluralité Des Mondes Habités

Flammarion: alien fiction in spacetime

H. G. Wells on time and space

Notes

6 Einstein's sky: life in the new universe

Man's place in the cosmos

Pluralism and anthropocentrism

Alfred Russel Wallace and the privileged position of man

Wallace's rare Earth hypothesis

Wallace: the last great anthropocentrist?

Life in an expanding universe

The part played by alien fiction in the space race

Last and First Men

Star Maker

The origin and nature of life

The Black Cloud

Notes

7 Ever since SETI: astrobiology in the space age

Pioneers of the airwaves

Solaris

The problems with contact

His Master's Voice

2001: A Space Odyssey

The Ultimate Trip

A 'scientific definition of God'

Rendezvous with Rama

The Brothers Strugatsky

Science fiction and the elusive alien

Roadside Picnic and the elusive alien

The future alien

Notes

Index

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