Extraterrestrial by Avi Loeb

After hearing a lecture by Professor Avi Loeb, I decided to read his latest book. Avi Loeb is the Chair of the Astrophysics department at Harvard. This book could be categorized under astrophysics, yet it contains no math. The book is really about how Loeb feels scientists should think and communicate. They should keep their childhood curiosity and humility. Our book club did however notice that Loeb spent a considerable amount of print describing accomplishments. 

In October 2017 an object was detected traversing our solar system. It was first seen through a telescope in Hawaii as a point of light moving away from the Earth and was given the name Oumuamua meaning “scout” in Hawaiian. It had characteristics that were difficult to categorize. Was it a comet, an asteroid, or another type of interstellar body? Scientists agreed on its physical description and behavior but Oumuamua did not obey the accepted physical laws. Extraterrestrial describes the challenges caused by trying to categorize Oumuamua. Because its path deviated, Loeb took a position that either some of our assumptions about the laws of astrophysics were incorrect or that Oumuamua was, in fact, made by intelligent life. His hypothesis supported the latter.   

Loeb makes the case that the most important question is “are we alone”?  He complains that astrophysics has lost its curiosity, has become too conservative, and is spending its time, talent and money on the wrong projects such as black holes. “If we don’t look, we won’t find.  We aren’t prepared and won’t be when and if visitors arrive/”

One of Loeb’s predecessors as Chair of Harvard’s Astrophysics department felt we should stop building bigger telescopes. The East coast followed his advice. The West Coast did not and has, as a result, made most of the recent discoveries. Loeb has supported developing larger telescopes that will facilitate discovering objects that are more distant.

He maintains that there are more planets in the universe capable of supporting life (as we know it) than there are grains of sand on Earth. He suggested a new specialty of Astroarchaeology- not looking for signs of current life, but looking for the debris from prior civilizations. 

Loeb’s explanation for Oumuamua as debris and therefore evidence of extraterrestrial intelligent life has not been well received by the Astrophysics community. Astronomers Alan Jackson and Steven Desch from Arizona State University recently declared that Oumuamua was merely a comet consisting of a chunk Nitrogen ice.   

The book club found his ideas challenging and they led to a spirited discussion. Not surprisingly, no one claimed the math skills necessary to either support or discredit his hypothesis!

— Fred G. Davis