If long news articles or complicated research articles make your head spin, then these books might help you find your new passion.
Extraterrestrial by Avi Loeb
I picked this book up on a warm spring day at the Columbia University bookstore, passing time after a campus tour. I didn't expect to find anything until I stumbled across a sales section bookshelf.
As I ran my fingers over the spines, familiar names jumped out at me - Cixin Liu, Christopher Paolini, and this book. I knew I needed to buy it the second I read the title and hurried to the cashier to purchase it along with the other two sci-fi books.
Flipping through the pages while the hubbub of university students surrounded me, I realized I truly wanted to pursue SETI. It wasn't just a side interest; there was a fanatical curiosity gnawing at me, marveling at the possibilities the universe had to offer.
In Extraterrestrial, Prof. Loeb of Harvard University explores the implications of a unique interstellar object that passed by Earth in October 2017. He proposes several theories about the identity of this object: a very oddly shaped asteroid, or perhaps a relic from an extraterrestrial civilization. Though they have undergone scrutiny within the astrophysics community, Prof. Loeb makes an argument for a change in mindset when discussing extraterrestrials.
The Space Barons by Christian Davenport
The two main players in this book are perhaps the two most well-known people in the world. Elon Musk, with the electric car company Tesla, is now fearlessly expanding his reach into space with SpaceX. His pursuits are characterized by charismatic public appearances, daring experimental launches(and explosions), and a burning passion for the future of spaceflight. Jeff Bezos, in turn, has been less public about his ventures with Blue Origin. However, we can take a look inside his ongoing race with Musk and the quiet romanticism for space he's harbored since childhood.
Other stories making an appearance in the book include Richard Branson of Virgin Galactic, the competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin for NASA's cooperation, and the various test pilots for the rockets these space barons build. It's a fascinating account of the modern space race to endlessly better rockets and colonization. It's unlikely that these dreamers who look up at the stars will ever be satisfied; they will continue to strive to go farther and faster than anyone in the history of human civilization.
Physics of the Future by Michio Kaku
As he states in his introduction, countless attempts to predict the future have been made by writers who didn't have the necessary scientific background to justify their claims. However, his insintoht in astrophysics and simple explanations work together to paint a compelling portrait of our future as a technological civilization grounded in realism.
One of my favorite sections of this book is near the very end, concerning the evolution of planetary civilizations. Although humans have come a long way since hunting and gathering in small populations, it's theoretically possible that our civilization will experience further growth. Kaku refers to the Kardashev scale in this section, which ranks civilizations into types by their capabilities - harnessing the energy of their home planet(Type I), their neighboring star(Type II), and their galaxy(Type III). I'll discuss the Kardashev scale further in another blog post.
Kaku also dives into additional fields besides astrophysics in detail, such as computers, AI, nanotech, and medicine, in the other chapters.
These are all the books I have for you today, and as always, see you in the next one!
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