(Copernicus / Springer-Verlag, ISBN 0-387-98701-0)

When I was an undergraduate at the University of Washington, I took Historical Geology from Peter Ward, as well as Invertebrate Paleontology. I can remember empathizing with his innate enthusiasm for science, and I sometimes wished that more of my fellow students did, too. Ward and fellow UW professor Brownlee (Astronomy) have written a book that's not only quite readable, but which needed to be written at this moment in history, in my opinion.

All around us in popular culture, and in science, we see the unquestioned assumption that "We Are Not Alone". As much as I love sci-fi like 'The X-Files', I sometimes wonder if its episodes will one day be viewed as early scriptures in a sort of religion. Actually, they're not "early" at all - for most of my life, I've been exposed to, and believed in, the idea that stars with habitable planets must be common. This assumption virtually guarantees a universe teeming with Vulcans, Klingons, spooky almond-eyed "greys", Ghidrah the 3-headed monster, and the super-wise beings who will eventually come along and save us from ourselves, the invaders, the looming asteroid, or whatever.

Theories of abundant extraterrestrial life originated in the 1950's and 1970's with the astronomers Frank Drake and Carl Sagan, who did science a huge favor by making us think about the subject of "exobiology" in a serious way. In a sense, the idea of widespread complex life is an extension of the Coperican view, which has proven so accurate in assessing our place in the universe. Copernicus pointed out that the earth does not occupy a central, "special" place in the solar system, and this turns out to be true on the galactic and universal scales, too. Since the earth doesn't seem to be special, there must be plenty of places like it (i.e. with intelligent beings) out there.

Ward and Brownlee's point: There's a lot of evidence that the earth is, in fact, special. We may very well be alone, or close enough for practical purposes.

The evidence ranges from the importance of the moon in stablizing the earth's seasons, to the importance of plate tectonics. And they point out a fact that should have seemed a lot more obvious before: Although simple microbial life originated early and in very harsh circumstances, about 3.8 billion years ago, complex life didn't evolve until 0.5 billion years ago. Ol' Gaia doesn't exactly have a great track record, unless you're a blue-green algae cell.

The book proposes an important 'null hypothesis' and teaches a lot of earth history along the way. Maybe we really are incredibly fortunate, incredibly unique, and incredibly alone. I still haven't re-installed SETI@home as my screen saver since I last fiddled with my computer, although I probably should. It was interesting to check the SETI@home site after reading this book - still no signals that seem likely to have come from intelligent beings.

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(Pantheon, 1995, ISBN 0-679-42645-0)

I often find myself telling students about all of the reasons to take more math. As I'm sure you're doing right now, they roll their eyes back into their heads until their optic nerves are showing. I, too, was once afraid of math and terrible at it. I'm still not that good at it, but I learned to love it by ...gasp, horror...taking more math. And it was a difficult pill for me to swallow, too. When I was a geology major, I was psyched about the fact that the only math I had to take was a year of calculus. I think that it was the day I took my last calc final...the geo department's undergrad advisor said "Well, now is a good time to tell you that if you want to go on to graduate school, you should take more science and math." Yes, I too was once a bitter, disappointed undergrad.

Emotion, passion, striving, desire, wonder...these are not things that people normally associate with math. But Berlinski does, and isn't ashamed of it. Here are a few sentences from the Introduction:

"If the calculus comes to vibrant life in celestial mechanics, as it surely does, then this is evidence that the stars in the sheltering sky have a secret mathematical identity, an aspect of themselves that like some tremulous night flower they reveal only when the mathematician whispers."

"Whatever physicists may say, both space and time, it would seem, go on and on; the imaginary eye pushed to the very edge of space and time finds nothing to stop it from pushing further, every conceivable limit a seductive invitation to examine the back side of the beyond. We are finite creatures, bound to this place and this time, and helpless before an endless expanse. it is within the calculus that for the first time the infinite is charmed into compliance, its luxuriance subordinated to the harsh concept of a limit. The here and now of ordinary life, these are coordinated by means of a mathematical function, one of the noble but inscrutable creations of the imagination, the silken thread that binds together the vagrant world's far-flung concepts. Fabulous formulas bring anarchic speed panting to heel and make of its forward rush a function of time; the tremendous flash of light showing in the moment before it subsides that those peaks are strangely symmetrical, each exisiting to sustain the other."

Math is as much about striving, desiring, and passion as is any other subject or human endeavour. The calculus is, without doubt, one of the most magnificent and beautiful creations of the human mind, ever. Berlinski goes a long way toward convincing you of that - if I can just get you to read his book!

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(Simon & Schuster, 1997, ISBN 0-684-81108-1)

So far, this is the only book on my list written by a "science writer". I normally pride myself on not being too snooty about people's titles and credentials, although I 'd be lying if I said I don't bristle just a little bit at the idea of a 'science writer' or 'science journalist', John McPhee notwithstanding. I guess there really is part of me that wants to see that union card, that needs to feel they've earned 'street cred' by getting at least one research manuscript through the gauntlet of peer review. But the fact remains that William J. Broad is a good writer, and the book will do a great job of getting people interested in deep-sea exploration, without having to resort to the cheap gimmickry of the Titanic. My favorite chapter was, of course, the one about the dives on the hydrothermal vents of the mid-ocean ridge. Also fascinating was the chapter on the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, whose scientists have access to water that's thousands of feet deep just a few miles off shore, thanks to the Monterey Canyon.

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(Perseus Press, 1998, 0-201-32839-9 )

Question: Towards which planet have human beings sent the most spacecraft?

Most people would probably guess "Mars". After all, Mars has gripped the public imagination since the 19th century. Everyone wants to know if there was once water and/or life on the Red Planet. But it turns out that we've sent the largest armada of spacecraft to Venus. To a geologist like me, it's at least as interesting to think about Venus and ask: "How did our twin sister turn out so differently?"

Venus is very nearly our twin - almost the same size and mass, and not much closer to the sun that the Earth. So why does it turn out not to have earth-style plate tectonics, and to have a poisonous, corrosive atmosphere of carbon dioxide, with temperatures at the surface that can melt aluminum?

If I had to pick just one book for a popular audience to read about planetary science, this would probably be it. Although this book is probably classified as "Astronomy" in most bookstores, it's really as much about geology and meteorology. If you don't know much about natural sciences, you'll learn a great deal from this book

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