In the last twenty years we have discovered a lot of planets, so why haven't we found aliens?

A new book: "Meetings for the milk - a search for intelligent life in the universe" by Hagai Netzer and Ami Ben Best tries to put the findings in order, and to understand what else needs to happen in order for us to discover intelligent life outside of Earth

In the last twenty years we have discovered a lot of planets, we have accelerated artificial intelligence, so why haven't we discovered aliens? A new book: Encounters for the Milk - A Search for Intelligent Life in the Universe" by Hagai Netzer and Ami Ben Best tries to put the findings in order, and to understand what else needs to happen in order for us to discover intelligent life outside of Earth. The book was published by Attic Books.

In 1999, "Journey to Reason" was published, the previous book by Netzer - an astrophysicist and professor emeritus at Tel Aviv University and Ben Best - a journalist, popular science and fiction writer, blogger and innovation consultant. At the end of the nineties there were two important discoveries in the field of astrophysics that turned this science on its feet still in its infancy: the fact that the rate of expansion of the universe is increasing and not slowing down as it was believed until then, something that required a force opposite to the force of gravity - a feature known as "dark energy" (which even today is still not fully understood , and also its complement - the dark matter), and the second discovery - that planets are common objects in the universe, and come in all sizes and distances from their suns, including, among others, in what is known as the "life zone". They are joined by innovations in fields that apparently do not belong to the field of astronomy - big data and artificial intelligence, which also cause and will cause revolutions in the field of astronomy.

Sophisticated means of observation, including ground and especially space telescopes that were designed to study these two phenomena and which led to many discoveries, in particular of planets, which number in the thousands but their number will increase rapidly as the scientists track tens of thousands of "candidates". There is no doubt that these are only the limitations of our observation, and that almost every star has a planetary system surrounding it.

In an interview with the Hidan website, the two explain the apparent contradiction: "Since 1999, our knowledge in many fields has changed from one end to the other. Suddenly we are dealing in a field that speaks to the general public." Netzer explains.

And Ben Best adds: "In the last twenty years, more and more scientific facts and discoveries have been added that show almost beyond any doubt that there are countless, millions of planets just in our galaxy that revolve around suns, some of which are quite similar to our sun. Many of these planets are earth-like with the same conditions, the same distance from the sun, that the same temperatures and this when we know that the chemistry is the same throughout the universe (amino acids are constantly being discovered in space), and we also know that the same laws of nature, the same physics are here, and when you see all these things, how can it be that we know that there are similar planets, how can it be That as of this moment, not even one living molecule has been discovered outside the Earth's atmosphere?"

Shortly before going to press, the two had time to update the book about their winning the award Nobel Prize in Physics for 2019 of the discoveries of the first confirmed planet outside the solar system, Pegasi 51b, which effectively opened the new era of astronomy, which is reflected in the book.

Conversations about life, the universe and everything else, in everyday language

"In the book we brought the scientific discoveries and the main scientific facts and raised the questions to a higher level." Ben Best says. The book includes a series of conversations between a scientist and a skeptic, in which we talk in everyday language about the exact same questions, how come we haven't discovered anything and also touch on a huge variety of questions not only about the beginning of the universe and the beginning of life," says Ben Best.

Netzer explains: There are nine conversations of this type that deal with all the main questions. Of course some of them deal with the issue of life? "How is it that no other intelligent species has been discovered with an emphasis on the possibility that someone should have visited us by now if life forms have evolved elsewhere even to a degree similar to ours."

"We also discuss in everyday language big questions about the universe and the big bang, the future of the earth including the climate crisis, and whether we will be a technological species in 200 years, and whether we will not be destroyed by an asteroid." Netzer says and adds: "We are discussing the possibility that the development of any technological species will be stopped at an early stage. And maybe the ones who will carry the culture will be systems based on artificial intelligence? It could be that we are in the last biological stage, maybe tens or a few hundreds of years until another species, technological robots Let them speak in a completely different language that we won't be able to understand them, so the question of what they do in space is irrelevant, the whole way of thinking is going to change."

Ben Best: "In some of the questions we rely on science fiction plots that become more realistic by the moment. The skeptic asks the scientist if there are aliens much smarter than us who live on planets orbiting much older suns, the skeptic also asks the scientist if intelligent species have evolved, how did they Let's see, what is their story? If there is a meeting, what will we ask them, what will they tell us?"

According to Ben Best, the authors do not avoid discussing the ultimate questions, for example Nick Bostrom's idea of ​​simulation according to which it is impossible to rule out the fact that we are actually players in the simulation of the universe, but give each argument the right perspective. "We allow ourselves to raise hypotheses and speculations. But always be careful not to read in the book about conspiracy theories such as the flat world or abduction by aliens arriving in UFOs." The book, by the way, has an entire chapter dealing with the UFO phenomenon. And also in unresolved questions such as what was before the big suck?"
"Here is a brave scientist and an uninhibited skeptic raising all these questions." Summarizes Ben Best.

The book has a combination of updating the scientific aspects in popular language, along with an in-depth discussion recommended for anyone who wants to understand the long-term significance of the discoveries, in particular for the future of humanity. This is worth reading in the book "Meetings for the Milk - Search for Intelligent Life in the Universe".

More of the topic in Hayadan:

• The search for reason
• Prof. Hagai Netzer from Tel Aviv University and scientists from China and France have developed a new method for measuring the acceleration of the expansion of the universe
• Did aliens build giant structures around a distant sun? Article by Ami Ben Best
• The singularity is almost here. Article by Ami Ben Best