The Eerie Silence : Searching for Ourselves in the Universe

If aliens ever contact us, it will be perhaps the single most significant event in human history. And Paul Davies will be responsible for saying something back. For fifty years, the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence has been scanning the skies. Now Davies, head of SETI's Post Detection Task Group, with 'a rare talent for making physics mind-bogglingly vivid and exciting' (Times Higher Education), explores what the mysterious silence it has so far encountered could mean. Here, he looks at exciting new ways to make contact with extra-terrestrial life. He considers what form advanced alien intelligence is likely to take if it exists. And perhaps more importantly, what exactly it would mean if it didn't - how extraordinary it would be if we were alone, to be human and here in this staggering, eerie silence...

Paul Davies has achieved an international reputation for his ability to explain the significance of advanced scientific ideas in simple language. He is the author of some twenty books and has written and presented a number of TV and radio programmes. He has also won the prestigious Templeton Prize, the world's largest award for intellectual endeavour, and a Glaxo Science Writers' Fellowship. He is currently Professor at Arizona State University as well as the Director of BEYOND: Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science.