This spring, Front Vision reprinted a chapter of my book, Strange But True, in Chinese. The story appeared in an issue all about the search for alien life.
Strange but True: 10 of the world’s greatest mysteries explained
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Here are two new articles I wrote for the same issue.
Talking to E.T.
This article explores whether humans and intelligent aliens would be able to communicate and how they might do so. I’ve always loved linguistics, so this was the perfect topic for me. Here are the two arguments I find most interesting:
- We won’t be able to communicate with aliens because we will be so unimaginably different culturally and physically that we won’t have any common ground to start from.
- We will be able to communicate with aliens, because if we do manage to develop the technology to reach each other in the first place, we must each have a basic understanding of math and we’re probably also both using radio, which means we have some technology in common as well.
What do you think?
At Home in the Universe
You may have heard of the habitable zone — it’s the area around a star with the right conditions for an Earth-like planet (that means rocky with liquid water). But some astrophysicists also think about much vaster habitable areas, like habitable times during the lifespan of the universe, habitable galaxies, and more. That’s what this article is all about.
My favorite quote was from Avi Loeb of Harvard: “I think we’re not alone. We are not special enough to be alone.”