AST 248: Search for Life in the Universe
Some thoughts on the subject
Spring 2008
- "It is unnatural in a large field to have only one shaft of wheat and in
the infinite universe only one living world."
Metrodorus of Chios (c. 400 BCE)
- "Nothing in the universe is unique and alone, and therefore in other
regions there must be other earths inhabited by different tribes of
men and breeds of beasts"
Lucretius (c. 50 BCE)
- "What a wonderful and amazing scheme we have here of the magnificent
vastness of the universe! So many Suns, so many Earths ... !"
Christian Huygens, New Conjectures Concerning the Planetary
Worlds, their Inhabitants, and Productions (c. 1670)
- "... barren planets, deprived of living creatures which speak most highly
of their Divine Architect are unreasonable, wasteful, and
uncharacteristic of God, who has a purpose for everything."
Christian Huygens, Cosmo Thereos (c. 1690)
- "I know perfectly well that at this moment the whole universe is listening
to us - and that every word we say echoes to the remotest star."
Jean Giraudoux, The Madwoman of Chaillot
- "Where are they?"
Enrico Fermi (1943)
- From Bill Watterson's "Calvin and Hobbes":
- From Walt Kelly's "Pogo":
