Anybody home?

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To get an answer to the question posed on the cover Are We Alone in the Universe? one has to reach the very last page. There,the physicist in Paul Davies,who is also the 1995 recipient of the Templeton Prize,tells us he believes we are probably the only intelligent beings in the entire observable universe. He also says he wouldnt be surprised if the solar system contains the only life found in the universe too. And if that wasnt gloomy enough,when the philosopher in Paul Davies sometimes wonders what all that stuff out there is for if only we get to see it,he quickly quotes some of his hard-headed colleagues who tell him that believing the universe has a purpose is just a hangover from religion.

So the obvious question which immediately arises is how come Davies is associated with the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) project which uses radio telescopes to look for electromagnetic transmissions from civilisations on distant planets. In fact,hes not just associated with it but even holds the Chair of its Post Detection Task Group whose brief is to prepare for the big day when ET comes riding on EM waves. And curiouser and curiouser: hes involved in this despite the fact that in the 50 years of SETIs existence not a single shred of an alien presence anywhere has been found. The eerie silence.

In between,however,lies a heartbreaking conundrum. After all,there are about 400 billion stars in our Milky Way galaxy alone and about the same number of galaxies in the universe which means there should be over 150 trillion stars with potential planets orbiting them. Okay,so most of them are so far away that even a signal travelling at the speed of light would take many millions of years to reach us,but what about signals from our own galaxy? At one point,it was thought planetary formation was an extremely rare or one-off event but now with the discovery of some 400 extrasolar planets,astronomers are confident the Milky Way is teeming with planets. Wouldnt life have arisen and intelligence developed in at least a significant number of Earth-like ones? So whats with the silence? Wheres everybody?

This is where Davies takes us on an increasingly dizzying,hypervelocity tour de force of possibilities ranging from the mundane to the mind-bending. Perhaps the aliens are so advanced that they dont wish to communicate with us for the same reason we wouldnt try to communicate with,say,a newly discovered species of ants. Perhaps their mode of communication has moved so far beyond radio transmissions that they communicate in ways we cant even begin to imagine. How can we look for signatures of alien technology when we have no idea how it would be manifested? writes Davies.

Or perhaps theyve deliberately transformed into post-biological entities and melded with machines into hybridised mega intelligences,possessing quantum minds with inconceivable agendas and aspirations,whove retreated into an inner intellectual landscape,effectively disconnecting with the universe that human beings inhabit.

Or,who knows,perhaps aliens are here already only we havent looked. Its a fascinating theory. As Davies puts it: No planet is more Earth-like than Earth itself,so if life does form readily in Earth-like conditions… then it should have started many times over right here on our home planet. Perhaps it did. If so then either it could still be found or traces should be around. All we need is to discover one single organism like a microbe whose internal structure its DNA for instance turns out to be fundamentally different from that found in any other organism. It would be a profound discovery because it would mean life is not a one-in-a-zillion flukey occurrence and can happen elsewhere too.

But finally,and heres the worst case scenario,perhaps there really is nobody besides us either out there or in here. Which brings us back to why Mr Davies continues to work with SETI.

Well,for one thing,the detection of an unmistakable signal confirming that an alien civilisation exists and is transmitting would easily rank as one of the greatest transformative events in the history of humankind: that we are not alone in the cosmos. Imagine if we could get to know that in our lifetime. What happens immediately afterwards too would be equally momentous. Should the world be told at once? How disruptive would it be for people,society and governments? Would there be panic? Will we ever be the same again? More importantly,what next? If we are to reply,what do we say and who speaks on behalf of Earth? Then again,should we reply at all because that would give away our location in case ET is hostile and has malevolent designs?

Its a dream scenario and,sure enough,that aspect of him comes out in the penultimate paragraph of this amazingly lucid and brilliantly written book. The dreamer in Paul Davies says,yes,he can feel at home in a universe in which intelligent life is commonplace. Yet its more of a want,he says,than a belief.

I believe we all want the same belief.