Face It - We Are Alone

We are stuck with our universe, and powerless to alter its fundamental constants. So long as this is the case, the anthropic principal will be immune to experimental falsification  - a sure sign that it is not a scientific principle. 
Heinz R. Pagels, A Cozy Cosmology, The Sciences, Vol. 25 No. 2 March/April 1985 p. 35-38

As one gets a certain age, one must take stock. One must admit that some long held beliefs were a bust. As a youngster growing up in the 1960's I was all but convinced in my heart and soul that by the year 2015, we would have made contact with certain higher life forms that surely populated the universe.

Pioneer Plaque - Relax, no one will ever see it...

And in hand with that there would most certainly be proof that could be visited in a museum. The Lunar Rosetta stone for instance. After all there was Carl Sagan and the Drake Equation, how could one go wrong with authority such as that? Here we are in the early 21st century and not one artifact, not one message, and not even anymore sightings of possible alien spacecraft.

Relax! The aliens threw their record players parsecs ago...

For many years the Oracle of Ottawa was convinced of the mainstream urban myth that our governments had secretly cut a deal with the aliens and all findings were forever stored and suppressed. But the only people that could believe that are the ones that have never worked for government! Governments can't keep secrets. And the only thing that a government can cover up, given enough time and money, is it's self! And as time goes on it is getting harder and harder for them to even attempt to do so.

My favorite counter argument today for the space cadets is this; if the worlds largest governments really had the ear of a Type III civilization, do you think that they would have allowed 9/11 to happen? That argument just kills, feel free to use it. The smarter ones then start on about all the exo-planets discovered by the Kepler Observatory of late. How there are thousands of possible earth like planets in the sweet spot around a star with water. The reply here is, how many of those sweet spot planets have a counter rotating molten core like Earth that will generate the defenses from the full electromagnetic interstellar space spectrum like the Earth does? The answer is about zero.

Then there is the question is why did the Americans stop going to the Moon? Answer: the TV ratings went to hell and there was way more money and profit margin per item, for the defense contractors to make Agent Orange and Napalm then heavy detail cost plus contracts for small amounts of very closely supervised space vehicles! Yes Sir! The Humans of Earth are one serious bottom line life form...

Cosmology - The Best First Text

Societies create universes, not only do these universes reflect their societies, but each universe controls the history and destiny of its society.
Edward R. Harrison, Cosmology - The Science Of the Universe, 1981, p.18

Books on cosmology are pretty thin on the ground. The best one you can order from Amazon and not go wrong on is by Edward R. Harrison who spent most of his professional life in the United States and was greatly admired and respected by his students and his peers.

Edward R. Harrison

The Oracle of Ottawa has been holding onto his copy of Cosmology - The Science Of the Universe for decades. The first edition came out in 1981, published by Cambridge University Press, which I have found is always a great start if you are into reading the best science books money can buy. You can't go wrong with anything from good old Cuppers.

It was only recently that I finally had the time to finally read the book. And as I turned each successive page I was pretty glad that I kept hold of it all these years. The major strength of this text is the perfect balance of what I consider to be the three pillars of cosmology. And those three pillars are philosophy, physics, and mathematics. It certainly is not surprising that has a 4.8 out of 5 rating by Amazon customers.

Another great strength of the work is that all the major theories of the Universe are treated respectfully without any detectable agenda for or against any of the major plausible theories. And all the background information that you must be aware of such as time and curvature and expansion are handled brilliantly in their development to the reader, whether a student or a lay person of above average curiosity.

There are no glossy pictorial barrages of Hubble Telescope images like many undergraduate astronomy textbooks, and you soon come to realize that in cosmology this is a good thing. There are elegant line illustrations were they are really required. Best of all the text is fully cited which means you can use it for future reference and further exploration. All in Dear Reader, this is the one to start on, and one that will really stick with you.

Even though the first edition came out in 1981 and the second came along in 2000, the whole work is by no means dated, even at the time of this writing. But what is really interesting is how far our view and confirmed facts of cosmology have progressed and how a very favorite theory of the Universe is under great pressure. Edward R. Harrison, no doubt, would have loved that...