“With wit and brio, Frank separates current nonsense about aliens from the serious and fascinating search for extraterrestrial life.” —Carlo Rovelli, New York Times bestselling author of Seven Brief Lessons on Physics 
From astrophysicist Adam Frank, a little book on the biggest questions in our search for extraterrestrial life, questions we stand ready to answer. 
Everyone is curious about life in the Universe, UFOs and whether ET is out there. Over the course of his thirty-year career as an astrophysicist, Adam Frank has consistently been asked about the possibility of intelligent life in the universe. Are aliens real? Where are they? Why haven’t we found them? What happens if we do? 
We’ve long been led to believe that astronomers spend every night searching the sky for extraterrestrials, but the truth is we have barely started looking. Not until now have we even known where to look or how. In The Little Book of Aliens, Frank, a leading researcher in the field, takes us on a journey to all that we know about the possibility of life outside planet Earth and shows us the cutting-edge science that has brought us to this unique moment in human history: the one where we go find out for ourselves. 
In this small book with big stakes, Frank gives us a rundown of everything we need to know, from the scientific origins of the search for intelligent life, the Fermi Paradox, the Kardashev Scale, the James Webb Telescope, as well as UFOs and their conspiracy theories. Drawing from his own work and that of other scientists studying the possibility of alien life, he brings together the latest scientific thinking, data, ideas, and discoveries to equip us with the critical facts as we stand at what may be the last moment in human history where we still believe we are all alone. This book is about everything we do—and do not—know about life, intelligent or otherwise beyond Earth. In language that is engaging, entertaining and fun, The Little Book of Aliens provides a comprehensive first look at how close we are to finding out if others actually exist—and if they do, what they might be like. 
Humankind is on the precipice of finding its neighbors. What comes next? No person is better suited to answer that question—and lead the search—than Adam Frank.

The Little Book of Aliens

Science & Math

Frank, Adam

Astronomy & Space Science

Harper

The Blind Spot: Why Science Cannot Ignore Human Experience

Politics & Social Sciences

Gleiser, Marcelo

Thompson, Evan

Philosophy

The MIT Press

Blind Spot

Cambridge, Massachusetts : The MIT Press

A compelling argument for including the human perspective within science, and for how human experience makes science possible. "This is by far the best book I've read this year." --Michael Pollan, Professor of the Practice of Non-fiction, Harvard University; #1 New York Times bestselling author It's tempting to think that science gives us a God's-eye view of reality. But we neglect the place of human experience at our peril. In The Blind Spot, astrophysicist Adam Frank, theoretical physicist Marcelo Gleiser, and philosopher Evan Thompson call for a revolutionary scientific worldview, where science includes--rather than ignores or tries not to see--humanity's lived experience as an inescapable part of our search for objective truth. The authors present science not as discovering an absolute reality but rather as a highly refined, constantly evolving form of human experience. They urge practitioners to reframe how science works for the sake of our future in the face of the planetary climate crisis and increasing science denialism. Since the dawn of the Enlightenment, humanity has looked to science to tell us who we are, where we come from, and where we're going, but we've gotten stuck thinking we can know the universe from outside our position in it. When we try to understand reality only through external physical things imagined from this outside position, we lose sight of the necessity of experience. This is the Blind Spot, which the authors show lies behind our scientific conundrums about time and the origin of the universe, quantum physics, life, AI and the mind, consciousness, and Earth as a planetary system. The authors propose an alternative vision: scientific knowledge is a self-correcting narrative made from the world and our experience of it evolving together. To finally "see" the Blind Spot is to awaken from a delusion of absolute knowledge and to see how reality and experience intertwine. The Blind Spot goes where no science book goes, urging us to create a new scientific culture that views ourselves both as an expression of nature and as a source of nature's self-understanding, so that humanity can flourish in the new millennium.

A textbook that is not written like a textbook.Astronomy: At Play in the Cosmos brings popular science writing to a textbook. In every chapter, author Adam Frank―a co-writer of the NPR blog “13.7 Cosmos and Culture”―integrates two interviews with leading scientists, a fascinating second voice that drives the narrative while making astronomy feel immediate, relevant, and real for students, and still capturing science’s human nature.

Astronomy: At Play in the Cosmos

W.W.Norton&Company

Winner of the 2019 Phi Beta Kappa Award for Science "A valuable perspective on the most important problem of our time." ―Adam Becker, NPR
Light of the Stars tells the story of humanity’s coming of age as we realize we might not be alone in this universe. Astrophysicist Adam Frank traces the question of alien life from the ancient Greeks to modern thinkers, and he demonstrates that recognizing the possibility of its existence might be the key to save us from climate change. With clarity and conviction, Light of the Stars asks the consequential question: What can the likely presence of life on other planets tell us about our own fate? 20 illustrations

Light of the Stars: Alien Worlds and the Fate of the Earth

The Second Edition of Adam Frank's groundbreaking book supports the mission of helping students become scientifically educated citizens. He shows students that the process of science is a human endeavor by introducing them, via interviews, to scientists from across the field. New Anatomy of a Discovery features help students visualize the excitement of discovery while Interactive Simulations ask students to engage in the scientific method by making observations, manipulating variables, and answering questions. The accompanying award-winning videogame then asks students to apply what they've learned in a fun yet meaningful way.

Astronomy: At Play in the Cosmos (Second Edition)

Teach the process of science through the excitement of discovery The Second Edition of Adam Frank’s groundbreaking book supports the mission of helping students become scientifically educated citizens. He shows students that the process of science is a human endeavor by introducing them, via interviews, to scientists from across the field. New Anatomy of a Discovery features help students visualize the excitement of discovery while Interactive Simulations ask students to engage in the scientific method by making observations, manipulating variables, and answering questions.

Astrophysicist and NPR commentator on what the latest research on the existence and trajectories of alien civilizations may teach us about our own.
Light of the Stars tells the story of humanity’s coming of age as we awaken to the possibilities of life on other worlds and their sudden relevance to our fate on Earth. Astrophysicist Adam Frank traces the question of alien life and intelligence from the ancient Greeks to the leading thinkers of our own time, and shows how we as a civilization can only hope to survive climate change if we recognize what science has recently discovered: that we are just one of ten billion trillion planets in the Universe, and it’s highly likely that many of those planets hosted technologically advanced alien civilizations. What’s more, each of those civilizations must have faced the same challenge of civilization-driven climate change.
Written with great clarity and conviction, Light of the Stars builds on the inspiring work of pioneering scientists such as Frank Drake and Carl Sagan, whose work at the dawn of the space age began building the new science of astrobiology; Jack James, the Texas-born engineer who drove NASA’s first planetary missions to success; Vladimir Vernadsky, the Russian geochemist who first envisioned the Earth’s biosphere; and James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis, who invented Gaia theory. Frank recounts the perilous journey NASA undertook across millions of miles of deep space to get its probes to Venus and Mars, yielding our first view of the cosmic laws of planets and climate that changed our understanding of our place in the universe.
Thrilling science at the grandest of scales, Light of the Stars explores what may be the largest question of all: What can the likely presence of life on other worlds tell us about our own fate? 20 illustrations

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Frank, Adam. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Frank, Adam

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Frank, Adam. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Little Book of Aliens

The Blind Spot: Why Science Cannot Ignore Human Experience

Blind Spot

The Blind Spot: Why Science Cannot Ignore Human Experience

Astronomy: At Play in the Cosmos

Light of the Stars: Alien Worlds and the Fate of the Earth

Astronomy: At Play in the Cosmos

Astronomy: At Play in the Cosmos (Second Edition)

Astronomy: At Play in the Cosmos (Second Edition)

Light of the Stars: Alien Worlds and the Fate of the Earth