A tantalizing, probing inquiry into the possibilities of alien life.
Have we been visited by aliens?
Harvard astronomer Loeb believes we have, basing his assertion on “evidence…collected over eleven days, starting on October 19, 2017,” at a Hawaiian observatory. That’s when the author, the director of the Black Hole Initiative and the Institute for Theory and Computation, and his fellow scientists unexpectedly observed the “first known interstellar visitor.” It was a small object: “highly luminous, oddly tumbling, with a 91 percent probability of being disk-shaped.” Moving roughly 58,900 miles per second, it “passed through our solar system and, without visible outgassing, smoothly accelerated from a path that deviated from the force of the sun’s gravity alone.” Loeb and his colleagues named it “Oumuamua,” a Hawaiian word that roughly translates to scout. Though the scientific debate continues, writes the author, “the likelihood of scientists ever observing demonstrable proof is very remote.” Loeb meticulously analyzes the evidence they have so far: No “confirmed interstellar object had ever been observed in our solar system,” and it wasn’t a comet or asteroid. Further research revealed that it rotated every eight hours and was approximately 100 yards long and less than 10 yards wide. Its unique, “smooth and steady” acceleration and deviation from the sun led the author to a hypothesis that charmed the media but generated “intense controversy and pushback” from other scientists. Loeb also delves into the object’s spin rate, unchanging rotation, and the possibility that it might be another civilization’s space hardware. After all, we’ve been “junking-up” space for years. Loeb issues a clarion call for a team of astro-archaeologists to increase research into possible alien life; unfortunately, the “conservative scientific community” has always fought against such research. It’s hard to argue with the author’s claim that it’s the “height of arrogance to contend that we are unique,” and he even speculates that life on Earth may be of Martian or interstellar origin.
A tantalizing, probing inquiry into the possibilities of alien life.Pub Date: Jan. 26, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-358-27814-6
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
A mixed-bag cultural assessment of the internet landscape.
The editor of the New York Times Book Review offers dismayed lamentations on all that is being lost to the internet.
In her latest, Paul analyzes the implications of the internet age, deploying “my grumpy-old-man thoughts and wary skepticism, lashed through with a contrary streak of optimism, accumulated over years of observing the culture and covering its manifestations and effects.” She acknowledges the putative treasures and tools of the internet, but she reminds readers that for every gain, there is a loss—e.g., privacy, civility, or myriad products, services, and practices we may have thought to be timeless. To many, writes the author, we can say good riddance or a fond farewell, though she aches for the loss of others. From handwritten letters to quiet, unoccupied moments, cursive writing to vacations without work (or email), school librarians to newspapers, LPs to mixtapes to the notion of “closure”—so much we thought eternal is quaintly antiquarian or gone forever. As Paul engagingly shows, their replacements aren’t always an advance. Yet one thing Paul neglects to address, save by implication, is the power of “no.” We are not forced in every case to accede to fashion, to all of modern technology’s demands, or to the dictates of contemporary sensibilities. Paul is incisive when she gets serious, as in her regrets on the decline of reading (especially of books), diminishing opportunities for solitude, and our eroding capacity for empathy. But some of her death knells are premature, a stretch, too sweeping, or off-base, while others come off as overly tongue-in-cheek. It’s understandable that Paul writes as if Gen X reality (and that of their children) is a dominant force. Still, there are plenty of people pushing back against the tide in meaningful ways. The author should know there are also 100 ways to resist digital dominance as well.
A mixed-bag cultural assessment of the internet landscape.Pub Date: Oct. 26, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-13677-5
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 24, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2021
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.
A warts-and-all portrait of the famed techno-entrepreneur—and the warts are nearly beyond counting.
To call Elon Musk (b. 1971) “mercurial” is to undervalue the term; to call him a genius is incorrect. Instead, Musk has a gift for leveraging the genius of others in order to make things work. When they don’t, writes eminent biographer Isaacson, it’s because the notoriously headstrong Musk is so sure of himself that he charges ahead against the advice of others: “He does not like to share power.” In this sharp-edged biography, the author likens Musk to an earlier biographical subject, Steve Jobs. Given Musk’s recent political turn, born of the me-first libertarianism of the very rich, however, Henry Ford also comes to mind. What emerges clearly is that Musk, who may or may not have Asperger’s syndrome (“Empathy did not come naturally”), has nurtured several obsessions for years, apart from a passion for the letter X as both a brand and personal name. He firmly believes that “all requirements should be treated as recommendations”; that it is his destiny to make humankind a multi-planetary civilization through innovations in space travel; that government is generally an impediment and that “the thought police are gaining power”; and that “a maniacal sense of urgency” should guide his businesses. That need for speed has led to undeniable successes in beating schedules and competitors, but it has also wrought disaster: One of the most telling anecdotes in the book concerns Musk’s “demon mode” order to relocate thousands of Twitter servers from Sacramento to Portland at breakneck speed, which trashed big parts of the system for months. To judge by Isaacson’s account, that may have been by design, for Musk’s idea of creative destruction seems to mean mostly chaos.
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2023
ISBN: 9781982181284
Page Count: 688
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
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