(Part 2) Reddit mentions: The best astronomy books

This thread has been around for a few hours so I'm afraid this comment might get buried, but since nobody who has commented so far on this thread is actually Catholic, I'll bite.

There are a few fundamentals that need to be cleared up before I can progress to considering the four questions you posed.

Firstly, I am not sure as to whether or not Catholics are actually required to believe in the existence of a literal Adam and Eve. Though in Humani Generis Pius XII wrote that the faithful were to affirm the historicity of "a sin truly committed by one Adam," John Paul II made no mention of a historical Adam and Eve in his "Message to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences on Evolution" (typically when a pontiff disagree with previous pontiffs, they do not call them out directly, but rather omit that with which they disagree from their own teaching).

The story of Adam and Eve is meant to implicate all humanity: before the fall they do not even have proper names but are rather referred to in the Biblical text simply as "man" and "woman" (seriously, go take a look). It is, then, entirely correct to affirm that these two literary characters, this primordial couple who disobeyed the will of God represents all humanity. Whether or not we can therefore claim that the story is completely allegorical and that Adam and Eve as such did not exist is beyond my competence, but for my part I do not think that the belief that they exist is technically required.

Secondly, original sin is a descriptive term for the fact that human beings are born with something deficient in their wills. This fact is obvious: human nature includes a desire to seize, possess, to advance the interests of the self over the interests of others, to elevate the ego (as Augustine observes in his Confessions). This, I think, is indisputable, and this deficiency, this willingness to prioritize the self over other people and over the good, is precisely what the term "original sin" means. The word "sin" in the term "original sin" does not mean that people are born with personal sin, that people enter the world already guilty of wrongdoing; rather, the word "sin" refers to a condition in which not everything is as it should be, in which something is lacking.

1. Evolution might have happened randomly, but at some point beings existed that had rational capacity and thus also the capacity for moral action (morality being a function of reason). Rational capacity, though perhaps a product of biological processes, presupposes the ability to act against instinctual urges for the sake of what one knows cognitively to be right. Thus evolution cannot be thought of as abjuring choice: if we have evolved to be rational creatures in a non-deterministic universe (as the Church believes we are), then the rational capacities we evolved necessarily entail our freedom in making our own choices.
   
   Perhaps the greatest revelation that Christianity brought into the world, the greatest "religious innovation," so to speak, is this notion that God is love. God wishes us to be united with him in love and does not wish to punish. Yet love to be real must be freely chosen; a love that is forced is by its very nature not love. If God allows us to participate in his being by loving, he is required to give us the choice of not loving.
   
   Thus I think the "sin" component of "Original Sin" is entirely coherent. The difficulty lies instead with the "original" aspect—how exactly is it that previous sin entails that the rest of us also enter this world in a state in which something is lacking in our wills? I am not entirely sure (and the Catechism itself says that "the transmission of original sin is a mystery"), but my personal theory is that any sin, by its very nature as a turning-away from God, effects a separation between the physical and the divine realms such that when sin entered into the physical world, the physical world became imperfect. If this realm of existence has become tainted, we who come after the tainting enter a world of imperfection, of lackingness and thus are conceived in lackingness. Something—some element of salvific grace proper to the divine realm—is missing.
   
   
2. Even if early humans "had less thinking capacity," their status as rational animals made them moral agents. According to Thomas Aquinas, conscience itself is an act of the intellect by which a human being can judge the morality of an action, and thus morality depends upon intellect, upon knowing.
   
   Perhaps the point at which human beings became capable of obeying or disobeying God was the point at which one of our ancestors was capable of giving him- or herself fully away, of surrendering himself not for his own good (and not for the survival of his genes either; as Dawkins brilliantly observed before he dabbled into fields beyond his competence, it is the gene that is truly selfish and thus we can observe seemingly "altruistic" behavior in animals like bees, who sacrifice themselves to protect their kin and thus perpetuate their genes even though they die) but rather for the good. The point at which a human being was able to surrender him- or herself for a good cause simply and exclusively because it was the right thing to do seems to be the point at which true love becomes possible, and thus relationship with God as well.
   
   Says Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI:
   
   > The clay became man at the moment in which a being for the first time was capable of forming, however dimly, the thought of "God". The first Thou that—however stammeringly—was said by human lips to God marks the moment in which the spirit arose in the world. Here the Rubicon of anthropogenesis was crossed. For it is not the use of weapons or fire, not new methods of cruelty or of useful activity, that constitute man, but rather his ability to be immediately in relation to God. This holds fast to the doctrine of the special creation of man ... herein ... lies the reason why the moment of anthropogenesis cannot possibly be determined by paleontology: anthropogenesis is the rise of the spirit, which cannot be excavated with a shovel. The theory of evolution does not invalidate the faith, nor does it corroborate it. But it does challenge the faith to understand itself more profoundly and thus to help man to understand himself and to become increasingly what he is: the being who is supposed to say Thou to God in eternity.
   
   -Ratzinger, In the Beginning...
   
   
3. For this question I have no concrete answers, but I can offer some thoughts.
   
   Firstly, God is timeless. Therefore the span of time between the creation of the universe and the appearance of the first rational/moral agent is of no consequence.
   
   Secondly, it appears that this universe is unusually conducive to life. Now, I'm a theologian, not a physicist, and so I may be talking out of my ass here, but as Martin Rees writes in Just Six Numbers there are six fundamental constants that "constitute the 'recipe' for a universe," such that if any one of them were even slightly different, this universe would be utterly incapable of producing the advanced forms of life capable of rational inquiry and moral reflection that are relevant to our discussion. For example, the value of the fundamental constant ε is 0.007, and "if ε were 0.006 or 0.008, we could not exist." Thus I don't think we can say that this is the case of a "laissez-faire" creator; rather, it would seem that this creator ensured that rational beings would eventually come to exist in the universe that he created and that we were thus intended.
   
   Thirdly, God does not disappear from the scene at the point at which beings are capable of acknowledging him. He makes his presence known and is active in history (and with the incarnation he even enters history).

It's a bunch of gobbledygook about the generations and the kingdom and all of that. It's all nonsense. In my humble opinion, you need to de-indoctrinate yourself to fully remove these types of fears. Not sure if I've shared this post with you before, but here's what I did personally:

Take some time to learn about the history of the bible. For example, you can take the Open Yale Courses on Religious Studies for free.

Read Who Wrote the Bible by Richard Elliott Friedman

Also read A History of God by Karen Armstrong

Next, learn some actual science. For example - spoiler alert: evolution is true. Visit Berkeley's excellent Understanding Evolution Website.. Or, if you're pressed for time, watch this cartoon.

Read Why Evolution is True by Jerry Coyne

Read The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins

Learn about the origin of the universe. For example, you could read works by Stephen Hawking

Read A Briefer History of Time by Stephen Hawking

Learn about critical thinking from people like Michael Shermer, and how to spot logical fallacies.


For good measure, use actual data and facts to learn the we are NOT living in some biblical "last days". Things have gotten remarkably better as man has progressed in knowledge. For example, watch this cartoon explaining how war is on the decline..

Read The Better Angels of Our Nature by Steven Pinker

Another great source is the youtube series debunking 1914 being the start of the last days.

Another way to clear out the cobwebs is to read and listen to exiting stories. Here are some resources:

https://leavingjw.org

Here is a post with links to a bunch of podcasts interviewing JWs who've left

Here's another bunch of podcasts about JWs

Here is a great book from Psychotherapist and former JW Bonnie Zieman - Exiting the JW Cult: A Helping Handbook

I wish you the best. There is a whole world of legitimate information out there based on actual evidence that you can use to become a more knowledgeable person.

You may still wonder how you can be a good human without "the truth." Here is a good discussion on how one can be good without god. --Replace where he talks about hell with armageddon, and heaven with paradise--

To go further down the rabbit hole, watch this series.

Here's a nice series debunking most creationist "logic".

Start to help yourself begin to live a life where, as Matt Dillahunty puts it, you'll "believe as many true things, and as few false things as possible."

Here's another side of the coin. Not necessarily to drag you out of the cult, but just some very awesome, beautiful truths. If you've seen me post this before, i apologize. I don't like to assume everyone reads every thread.

Take some time to learn about the history of the bible. For example, you can take the Open Yale Courses on Religious Studies for free.

Read Who Wrote the Bible by Richard Elliott Friedman

Also read A History of God by Karen Armstrong

Next, learn some actual science. For example - spoiler alert: evolution is true. Visit Berkeley's excellent Understanding Evolution Website.. Or, if you're pressed for time, watch this cartoon.

Read Why Evolution is True by Jerry Coyne

Read The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins

Learn about the origin of the universe. For example, you could read works by Stephen Hawking

Read A Briefer History of Time by Stephen Hawking

Learn about critical thinking from people like Michael Shermer, and how to spot logical fallacies.


For good measure, use actual data and facts to learn the we are NOT living in some biblical "last days". Things have gotten remarkably better as man has progressed in knowledge. For example, watch this cartoon explaining how war is on the decline..

Read The Better Angels of Our Nature by Steven Pinker

Another great source is the youtube series debunking 1914 being the start of the last days.

I wish you the best. There is a whole world of legitimate information out there based on actual evidence that you can use to become a more knowledgeable person.

You may still wonder how you can be a good human without "the truth." Here is a good discussion on how one can be good without god. --Replace where he talks about hell with armageddon, and heaven with paradise--

Start to help yourself begin to live a life where, as Matt Dillahunty puts it, you'll "believe as many true things, and as few false things as possible."

Other books that I found really useful, informative, motivating and accessible in high school include Feynman's QED -- a really cool introduction to Quantum Electrodynamics that I read my senior year -- and Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe. I think somebody mentioned it already.

Mathematics, the Loss of Certainty is a really good discussion on the history of math. Also quite accessible. I read it my freshman year of college.

More tangential books that I've enjoyed include The Drunkard's Walk and Chances Are. They cover similar ground, though, and I like the latter better.

There's also some pretty good fiction that gives you the flavor of some of the mindbending concepts that can arise from physics. Robert Heinlein's Time for the Stars is a good "juvenile" book that takes a step into the Twin's Paradox. Time dilation pops up in Larry Niven's A World Out of Time as well. For solar system level astrophysics, Niven's The Integral Trees postulates a really cool alternative to planets.

I read most the fiction around the time I was in high school, with the exception of Time for the Stars. Ironically, it's the only one that I can guarantee doesn't have "adult themes." I don't know what sort of restraints your parents put on your reading, though. They're all good books.

The other thing, other than books I mean, you can do is find a mentor or club in your area that could help put you on your way. An astronomy club would be a good idea, but there may also be physics or chemistry styled mentors in your area. They're likely to act out of a local university or research center (I live in Huntsville, Alabama, where Marshall Spaceflight Center is located. I know they have outreach/mentoring programs).

Oh, and I know I'm going on, one last thing that I found really useful and fun was my involvement in summer programs. In my case, the big one was Mississippi Governor's School, a three week summer program. It was an awakening from a social standpoint. (Ten years later, a large proportion of my friends either attended it or I know via some connection to it, still.) And it had an astrophysics class, which was awesome. I know other states have programs like it (assuming you're in the US), and MGS at least is easier to get into than commonly believed. People think a counselor's recommendation is required, but it's not and you get two opportunities to attend, between sophmore and junior and junior and senior years. It's unlikely you're in MS, of course, but other places have similar programs.

Good luck with things and keep us posted. :)

For cheap/free accessories, here are my recommendations:

Find a local astronomy club and go to a few meetings. Astronomy clubs love new members, and they'll answer every question you have. If they have an open observing event, bring your telescope and you might even get to try a few of the accessories others have mentioned. You may get to see what Saturn looks like in your telescope with a 10mm EP and barlow before you buy.

Also, there are club members with old EPs for sale. Somebody's always upgrading their collection and looking for a new home for their old Plossls.

If you have basic woodworking skills, you can make a Denver Observing Chair for <$30. I think I made mine from these plans, but there are plans and how-to's all over the web. It beats hunching over the eyepiece for hours. Your back will thank you.

An accessory case is nice to have. Keep all your stuff in one place, and you won't accidentally forget something when you go out to observe. I use this 4-pistol case for $20 from Amazon.

If you're learning the night sky, get a planisphere and go out with it for 10 minutes once a week for some naked eye observing. Learn a new constellation each time. I think WV is in the 30-40 degree north range? Or for free you can download and print the map each month from SkyMaps.com

For getting started finding interesting stuff in the telescope, a book like Turn Left at Orion was a great help for me. Step-by-step instructions for star-hopping to the best and brightest stuff in the sky.

I'm also an xt6 owner.

For software, you can't go wrong with Stellarium. It's free, and it lets you choose your location as well as time and date. Very handy.

For reading material, these two books have served me well:

Nightwatch: contains loads of stargazing tips and general astronomy information. Also contains star charts, and detailed charts of select constellations.


Binocular Highlights: I find myself using this one all the time. Its focus is on binocular astronomy, but you can use it with a telescope as it's a sort of "best-of" of the night sky. Each object has a detailed, zoomed-in map and a brief description. Contains star charts for every season, with every object in the book marked on the charts.


For photography, you'll only really be able to take decent pictures of the Moon and the brighter planets. As others have pointed out, you'll need some fancier equipment to take good pictures of deep-sky objects.


Just for fun, here are some of my favorite objects:




The Orion Nebula (M42): under the heavily light-polluted skies of my backyard, still fuzzy and nebula-like. Glorious under dark skies, when the dusty arms and finer details become apparent.

Andromeda Galaxy (M31): Looks like a big hazy smudge through the eyepiece. Its companion (M32, I think) is also visible in the same field of view.

Ring Nebula (M57): Even under light-polluted skies, I can pick this one out pretty easily by star-hopping. Looks like a small, blue donut.

Double Cluster: absolutely brilliant collection of stars in a single field of view.

You can get some good views of the gas giants. Assuming you are in the continental U.S., Saturn should be viewable shortly after sunset and Jupiter should be viewable shortly before sunrise. Saturn would probably look better than Jupiter with your binoculars.

You should also be able to see Andromeda's galaxy around this time of the year. I can't say for certain how much detail you can get out of it but with good light conditions, I'd be willing to bet you'd be able to see the disk.

Star clusters are where binoculars really shine (sometimes even providing better views than telescopes), you might want to take a look at the list of Messier objects to find some good star clusters to look at. Make sure that you take a look at the Seven Sisters this fall, it is definitely my favorite star cluster.

If you are new, you should really invest in a good planisphere such as this one. Just make sure to get one for your correct latitude. You should also get some sort of red light, whether a red LED flashlight, a regular light with a filter, or just a flash light you have lying around with some red cellophane or brake light repair tape on it. There are even books specifically for binocular astronomy that might be a good investment.

Most importantly, have fun and clear skies!

These look pretty good. I have a pair of Celestron 15x70's which are almost identical except for the slight difference in magnification. The BAK4 prisms are the way to go and offer pretty awesome views.

Binos are definitely the way to start off if you're new to astronomy. they help you to learn the night sky before you buy a telescope that has a really small field of view. of course you could buy a computerized GoTo style telescope but that takes all the fun out of learning the constellations.

You can't go wrong with a pair of big binos to start with. I would also recommend buying the book Binocular Highlights by Gary Seronik. It's a great guide to the best bino views for every season!

Happy observing!

I have the same unit but w/o the motor drive.

William Herschel said that using a telescope is like a musical instrument - you have to PRACTICE.

I found the directions for setting up the equatorial mount tripod not very user friendly (makes sense if you already understand it, though!).

There are other videos, but I found this one hit all the bases:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plx6XXDgf2E
...and he's a regular Redditor.

I also found, with this same unit, that the finder was completely useless. Even adjusting the knobs, the finder didn't zero onto the subject! I ended up removing it. These Telrad finders are considered tops for a reason. You may luck out with the factory supplied one, however, your time will be a total waste of time if your finder doesn't work.

Turn Left at Orion. Yes, it's that good.

Get Stellarium and find out what's going on!

Get a planetsphere. You may get that Star Atlas with Pegasus on the cover, but I have yet to use it.

PLAN your sessions. Using Stellarium look at what the night's going to look like and pick some objects. Do some research on them. Honestly, you're not going to find the 6th moon of Pluto, but you can see the rings of Saturn and the blue hue in Alberio. Learn to find the constellations, certainly the big ones. Read up on their lore. It's fascinating.

ALL good science requires a LOG. Get a nice notebook and write down what you do.

Before I go out, I take the planetsphere and make a copy of the sky that night (I have a scanner/printer) and put circles where the planet(s) and other targets will be. Write a date on the printout, the location, and label the targets with numbers.

Nothing like going through everything and then packing up and driving home THINKING you forgot something. Make a checklist of the telescope parts!

Also, take a pair of binoculars with you.

I hope your first nights go more smoothly than mine!

Pistachio butter Would make a great unique gift.

Cosmos and Neil DeGrasse Tyson related

One of Louis C. K.'s DVDs. All his DVDs are pretty cheap on Amazon.

Mets wallet

So much Licorice!

Fun book all about New York.

You're sweet to want to treat him to gifts. Happy early Birthday to your dad! I love shopping for others.

Edit to add coffee Community Coffee is made in New Orleans and living in South Louisiana it's the coffee king down here. Where I live there is a CC's coffee house on every corner like Starbucks in Seattle. I had to recommend this coffee to you for your dad. The Cafe El Special is the smoothest greatest coffee.

It's probably easier to swallow if you go beyond just the topic of evolution and its evidence. If he's truly a bright and open-minded guy and he learns a little about chemistry, physics, Biology, Genetics, and animal behavior, he will reach the conclusions you have himself.

There is a wornderful movie they show at the Smithsonian Planetarium that is a broad overview of the origins of all the heavenly bodies, spacetime, galaxies,etc., and if you are going to be in DC anytime soon you should catch it in all its glory.

There are a few Very insightful books I could recommend as well.

https://www.amazon.com/Einsteins-Universe-Nigel-Calder/dp/0517385708 is a great overview of 20th century not quite unified physics for laypeople.

https://www.amazon.com/Universe-Nutshell-Stephen-William-Hawking/dp/055380202X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1511133101&sr=1-1&keywords=universe+in+a+nutshell&dpID=41BPtZAJx8L&preST=_SX218_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch

The Universe in a Nutshell is Hawking's outstanding illustrated overview of physics of particles and waves for laypeople.

Feynman's Quantum Electrodynamics: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter is his attempt at waves and fundamental forces for laypeople as well, and all these have a different flavor.

Also here is the Kurzgesagt animated educations youtube video on evolution which is the best one I've ever seen in just 10 minutes.
I recommend you watch the whole series, and then move on to TED talks for some basic enlightenment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGiQaabX3_o

I've heard nothing but awesome things about A Day In The Frontal Lobe from people who love reading and love neuroscience. It's one of my next planned reads.

Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time was a good read and the illustrated version was awesome.

If you want something a little lighter with an easy writing style and low base knowledge entry 13 Things That Don't Make Sense is good and fun to read.

The Feynman Lectures are a perfect introduction to physics from high school level all the way up to degree level.

A good understanding of maths is essential to more advanced physics and there is an excellent textbook written by two extremely qualified headmaster's called The Language Of Physics: A Foundation for University Study which is what's recommended to first year University students and poses questions at the end of each chapter.

If you're looking for something a little less intimidating, then the A Very Short Introduction series have a perfect range of short (and cheap!) books on Physics: [Quantum Theory]
(https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0192802526/ref=pd_sim_14_4?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=9A3MSV2XSQRYF880MYP6), Relativity, Particle Physics, Cosmology, Nuclear Physics, Black Holes, Thermodynamics, Astrophysics, Light and Magnetism. These are great little books that don't blow your head off!

Physics is an extremely interesting subject to read around and I wish you the best with it :)

If you want to go the self teaching route there are some great books you can get. A nice introduction is: http://www.amazon.com/Astronomy-Self-Teaching-Guide-Wiley-Guides/dp/0470230835/ref=pd_sim_b_1

Beyond that there's this book: http://www.amazon.com/Astrophysics-Easy-Introduction-Astronomer-Practical/dp/1852338903/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1367595032&sr=1-1&keywords=astrophysics+is+easy It gets way more in depth. This book will leave you with a really great understanding of the universe.

It looks like about.com has a free intro to astronomy course: http://space.about.com/cs/astronomy101/a/astro101a.htm

I haven't gone through this course but poking through it it looks like it covers a lot of information.

Something I do to stay on top of current astronomy issues is read Sky and Telescope magazine and check out space.com and universetoday.com, sometimes I'll run into concepts that I'm not very familiar with and that's where wikipedia helps out.

Let's say you read an article talking about how old a star in a globular cluster is and you're like "what the hell is a globular cluster?" and you haven't read about it in one of your intro to astronomy books, well, bam: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globular_cluster

The books that are regularly considered the best introductions to skywatching are:

Nightwatch by Terrence Dickinson

Backyard Astronomer's Guide by T. Dickinson
and

Turn Left at Orion by Guy Consolmagno and Dan M. Davis (you must get this book if you buy a telescope)

Below are some other great books that get much more in depth on the astrophysics side of things.

http://www.amazon.com/Briefer-History-Time-Stephen-Hawking/dp/0553385461/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1367595413&sr=1-1&keywords=a+briefer+history+of+time

http://www.amazon.com/Cosmology-Short-Introduction-Peter-Coles/dp/019285416X/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1367595478&sr=1-2&keywords=cosmology

Even though you want the full tensor treatment, I would first go through Ryden and make sure you understand the basics well. This is a great undergraduate standard written at the level for those who know "calculus, linear algebra and classical mechanics" and teaches the undergraduate level basics as well as anything.


After this, the standard modern graduate texts are Modern Cosmology by Dodelson and Physical Foundations of Cosmology by Mukhanov. Both use tensors and the full GR treatment with the former, in my opinion, being an easier text (which I think have some great initial chapters describing GR) but Mukonov going through some very advanced concepts like renormalization in quantum field theory, etc...

In addition to textbooks, Baumann's lecture notes on inflation are very good.

Good luck.

This was the one that we used for Cosmology. It starts pretty gentle but moves into the metric tensor fairly quickly. If you don't have the maths I don't know that it'll help you to understand them but it'll definitely have all the terms and equations. As with Dirac's Principles of Quantum Mechanics, the funny haired man himself actually had a pretty approachable work from what I remember when I tried reading it.

​

This one has been sitting on my shelf waiting to be read. Given the authors reputation for popularizing astrophysics and the title I think it might be a good place to start before you hit the other ones.

This AMA is now over.

The mod team would like to thank Dr. Zubrin for his insights and inspiring words. And thank the Mars Society team for making this exchange possible along with everyone who participated asking well thought out stimulating questions.

To those showing up too late to ask questions, hopefully you'll find some of the many questions Dr. Zubrin has answered (for over 3 hours!) to be relevant. If not, there is a good chance he has already answered your question in The Case for Mars or The Case for Space. So if you haven't read them yet, check them out.

If you're interested in the Mars Society, be sure to check them out on Youtube, here on reddit or their site. Special shoutout to /u/EdwardHeisler and /u/Marsonaut for acting as our Reddit - Mars Society liaisons (even if it cost them event tickets!).

Welcome to the Zubrin AMA! As you may already know, Dr. Robert Zubrin's book "The Case for Mars" was a significant early influence on SpaceX's Mars colonization plans, and his new book, “The Case for Space,” discusses how the entrepreneurial launch revolution spearheaded by SpaceX can open up a future of unlimited possibilities. His recent IAC2019 Mars Direct 2.0 presentation presentation also generated some good discussion here on r/spacex.

That's all, folks! Dr. Zubrin has signed off for today after answering questions for 3 solid hours, and he even plans to pop back in over the next few days to answer more! Thanks again to Dr. Z and everyone else involved from the Mars Society!

Also, thank you very much to the community for doing such an excellent job with the questions! There's been some great technical discussion in here.

http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Modern-Astrophysics-Bradley-Carroll/dp/0201547309

I'm using this book for a project at the moment. It's heavy on physical elements in space rather than just facts about stars, planets, etc. but it's been informative so far. You'd probably do best with an entry level physics course before reading this book (and I'd recommend trying to find it in a school/library rather than buying it straight out because you might just not like it).

Good luck with this though, space is really cool and filled with fun stuff to see and puzzles to unravel.

> The Bible was still legit

Take some time to learn about the history of the bible. For example, you can take the Open Yale Courses on Religious Studies for free.

Read Who Wrote the Bible by Richard Elliott Friedman

Also read A History of God by Karen Armstrong

Next, learn some actual science. For example - spoiler alert: evolution is true. Visit Berkeley's excellent Understanding Evolution Website.. Or, if you're pressed for time, watch this cartoon.

Read Why Evolution is True by Jerry Coyne

Read The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins

Learn about the origin of the universe. For example, you could read works by Stephen Hawking

Read A Briefer History of Time by Stephen Hawking

Learn about critical thinking from people like Michael Shermer, and how to spot logical fallacies.

As /u/UltraVioletCatastro mentioned, the Big Orange Book (BOB) is the de facto undergraduate text for introductory astronomy (at least from a physics perspective). As others have pointed out, it is ridiculously expensive. There is a first edition on Amazon as well. For a purely introductory first-read, it will suffice. If you are interested in specific numbers about the Milky Way (e.g., its stellar mass, how many arms it has, etc.) or our current measurements on cosmology, you will need a more modern book. The BOB contains a nice historical perspective on astronomy and its chapters on stellar evolution are very much what is taught today.

I definitely recommend checking out your local used book stores (I like Half Price Books and Powell's) for excellent treasures!

Clear skies.

There’s a lot to see out there. In the daytime its wildlife and scenery, but the night skies are clear and dark away from towns and you’ll see more stars and planets than you can at home... so bring along a good pair of binoculars.

These, from Celestron look promising, but you should probably do some research and shop around. A star finder is also a good idea.

Provided your dad didn't grow up in a big city he is old enough to have more or less taken for granted seeing the milky way on good nights when he was a kid. If you get far enough from city lights he's likely to see it again.

You may also want to read The History of God and Why We Believe What We Believe.

I have found some of my best reading by checking the bibliography of books with ideas that I really enjoyed and then reading the books that were referenced there.

The hardest thing for many people is replacing a feeling of certainty with a feeling of uncertainty. You may want to read Steven Hawking's Brief History of Time.

Some basic introductions to philosophy would not go amiss either. People have been tackling the "big questions" in much the same way, throughout all of history. There are not as many new ideas as there are old ideas, rehashed. Learn something about the history of human thought, it is pretty fascinating and will help you figure out what you think.

I love it! When I worked at a library, I used to take this little book off the shelf and secretly read it in the stacks.

It may be too advanced for a second grader, but maybe you'd enjoy it and be able to relate to your daughter things you learned from it, and when she's a bit older, read it herself. I thought the description of general relativity in here was really well done, and fascinating (plus it's only like $6).

Edit: Oh and if you haven't already, watch Through The Wormhole and other physics/astronomy documentaries.

The best book I've read on this subject is Stephen Webb's If the Universe Is Teeming with Aliens... Where Is Everybody? Fifty Solutions to Fermi's Paradox and the Problem of Extraterrestrial Life.

The book discusses your proposition as well as many others. It gave me a much greater appreciation of the large number of conditions that may actually be necessary for intelligent life to evolve.

At the end of the day, I think the answer to the question as to why we don't see any ETs is that it takes a great many coincidental conditions for life to evolve far enough while constantly struggling against a great many factors that can bring about its demise.

You can think of it like this if it helps. if you take a balloon and put some dots on it and then blow it up slowly, you will see that everything is getting farther way from everything else. This is a nice visualization but has some small inconstancies. First, we are in what is called the 'local Group' of galaxies. that is, Milkyway, Large & Small magellanic clouds, and andromeda. Usually these groups' constituents are getting closer. Second, a 'better example' if you can think about soap bubbles filling a space (many bubbles all squished together). Now try to picture the surface of all the bubbles. If you think that these bubbles were inflated like the balloon then where multiple bubbles (balloons) meet you will have a higher density of galaxies. Pictures of these LINK at this site right but where it talks about lensing. These are the current 'filaments' that we observe. As far as "what we are expanding in to", is a much harder and deeper question. Probably will hack it up if I attempt to explain. Better off not thinking of it. Be happy that there are things you can explain. Otherwise, perhaps life would be lame. You can also just snag book.

Well, in his 2010 book, James Kasting (the leading researcher on the habitability of extrasolar planets) explicitly says that he's far more optimistic than the authors of the Rare Earth Hypothesis. Recent discoveries from Kepler have shown that the rare earth hypothesis probably doesn't hold (these are discoveries that the authors of the hypothesis did not know at the time they wrote the book). Even if you must have a star with the sun's lifetime, and a planet of the Earth's mass in the habitable zone (a notion that Kasting disputes - he argues that planets around red dwarfs are not as inhospitable as they seem - the flares are worst on the lowest-mass red dwarfs, but there are still plenty of higher-mass red dwarfs), the Kepler mission has now known that we now know that MANY of these stars will have planets, and that many of these planets have potential to be earthlike.

That being said, intelligent life may still be very rare. There's still a huge step from non-life to life, and from life to intelligent life. Honestly, it's impossible to make a firm conclusion as to whether or not ELEs will help or hinder the evolution of life (evolution works in really unpredictable ways). One thing is this: ELEs tend to be more common early in the solar system's life than later on in the solar system's life (because the asteroid+stray meteorite density was far higher at earlier times).

PS: I've personally talked to both Kasting and one of the authors of the Rare Earth Hypothesis. The authors of the Rare Earth Hypothesis do believe that microbial life in the galaxy is common, but that intelligent life is probably very rare.

What are you trying to learn? Backyard astronomy/amateur observing? Or do you want to know the science describing the stars and other objects?

If you want to learn about telescopes, techniques, what's where in the sky and how to find it, and a little description about the fuzzy object you're looking at, then Stellarium/Skyview as mentioned are great resources, as well as forums and books.

If you want to learn more of the science itself... the methods that real astronomers use, the large scale behavior of the universe, the different types of galaxies and nebulae out there, models of stellar structure and evolution, etc. Then definitely check out the free lectures posted by twilight moons. Maybe also consider getting a survey-course astronomy text like Zeilik and Gregory.

> of course, the typical breaking point between islam and atheism…

…or any religious belief and atheism, for that matter…

> …where the sacred is considered imaginary…

Let me mirror that for you: where the imaginary is considered sacred

> …and an absurd creation-from-nothing…

…which is exactly how it might be…

…or like this…

We could get into an argument over (if nothing can come from nothing) how your “creator” then came into being. Oh, she exists forever? Then why not the Universe? However you look at it, saying “the creator created it” doesn’t answer the problem of “creation”, it just shifts it to something else. You don't allow the universe to be uncreated (or created from nothing), but you say your creator is.

> …rational…

And you think believing in an unexplained, unproven, unrevealed sky fairy is rational?

> …and everything that ensues from it including pornography morally justified.

I never said everything is justified. I said: Let’s use our own brains, our own intellect, to decide what is moral or immoral. We’re certainly better equipped to do this than some stone age tribe, let alone a probably non-existent, entirely unproven entity who is supposed to have created us.

> have your way, we have ours.

Indeed.

This is an excellent book that covers most major scientific subjects. More than that, it's a great read.

If you're looking for more physics related stuff, this is a pretty easy read and even has a NOVA series that accompanies it.

>Science, which ought to never claim absolute truth or have unchallengeable dogma, is doing precisely this and metaphysical naturalism has become its own religion.

I've never claimed that science is 100% true or is unchallengeable. It is perfectly possible for some one to flip everything on its head, or change it slightly.

>Do we at least have the ability to go to the earliest possible time and see what was there?

We don't have the ability to go and see if George Washington existed either. Are you going to claim he didn't exist? We analyze his possible existence by looking at evidence we have to day.

We do the same in cosmology.

>Testable, repeatable evidence?

Yes.

It is possible you don't have an understanding of the current state of cosmology.

If you have a background this is a very good introduction to cosmology:
>http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Cosmology-Scott-Dodelson/dp/0122191412

Some of my favorites:

Brian Greene -- The Fabric of the Cosmos, The Elegant Universe, and The Hidden Reality. Greene is, to my mind, very similar to Hawking in his ability to take complex subjects and make them understandable for the physics layman.

Hawking -- I see you've read A Brief History of Time, but Hawking has a couple of other books that are great. The Grand Design, The Universe in a Nutshell, and A Briefer History of Time.

Same thing applies to Brian Cox. Here's his Amazon page.

Leonard Susskind -- The Black Hole Wars. Here's the basic idea behind this book. One of the basic tenets of physics is that "information" is never lost. Stephen Hawking delivered a presentation that apparently showed that when matter falls into a black hole, information is lost. This set the physics world on edge. Susskind (and his partner Gerard T'Hooft) set out to prove Hawking wrong. Spoilers: they do so. And in doing so, they apparently proved that what we see as 3 dimensions is probably similar to those 2-D stickers that project a hologram. It's called the Holographic Principle.

Lee Smolin -- The Trouble with Physics. If you read the aforementioned books and/or keep up with physics through pop science sources, you'll probably recognize that string theory is pretty dang popular. Smolin's book is a criticism of string theory. He's also got a book that's on my to-read list called Three Roads to Quantum Gravity.

Joao Magueijo -- Faster Than the Speed of Light. This is another physics book that cuts against the prevailing academic grain. Physics says that the speed of light is a universal speed limit. Nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. Magueijo's book is about his theory that the speed of light is, itself, variable, and it's been different speeds at different times in the universe's history. You may not end up agreeing with Magueijo, but the guy is smart, he's cocky, and he writes well.

Here's a great great great book about the subject: http://www.amazon.com/Universe-Teeming-Aliens-WHERE-EVERYBODY/dp/0387955011/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1406844484&sr=8-1&keywords=50+solutions+to+the+fermi+paradox

You're most welcome. When I was looking for the links on Amazon, I came across this, which one reviewer says is a rebuttal of several of Rare Earth's points:

How to Find a Habitable Planet

I've added it to my reading list. It definitely is a pleasurable hobby; we live in exciting times with all of the exoplanet discoveries.

This question gets asked all the time on this sub. I did a search for the term books and compiled this list from the dozens of previous answers:

How to Read the Solar System: A Guide to the Stars and Planets by Christ North and Paul Abel.


A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson.


A Universe from Nothing: Why There is Something Rather than Nothing by Lawrence Krauss.


Cosmos by Carl Sagan.

Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space by Carl Sagan.


Foundations of Astrophysics by Barbara Ryden and Bradley Peterson.


Final Countdown: NASA and the End of the Space Shuttle Program by Pat Duggins.


An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth: What Going to Space Taught Me About Ingenuity, Determination, and Being Prepared for Anything by Chris Hadfield.


You Are Here: Around the World in 92 Minutes: Photographs from the International Space Station by Chris Hadfield.


Space Shuttle: The History of Developing the Space Transportation System by Dennis Jenkins.


Wings in Orbit: Scientific and Engineering Legacies of the Space Shuttle, 1971-2010 by Chapline, Hale, Lane, and Lula.


No Downlink: A Dramatic Narrative About the Challenger Accident and Our Time by Claus Jensen.


Voices from the Moon: Apollo Astronauts Describe Their Lunar Experiences by Andrew Chaikin.


A Man on the Moon: The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts by Andrew Chaikin.


Breaking the Chains of Gravity: The Story of Spaceflight before NASA by Amy Teitel.


Moon Lander: How We Developed the Apollo Lunar Module by Thomas Kelly.


The Scientific Exploration of Venus by Fredric Taylor.


The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe.


Into the Black: The Extraordinary Untold Story of the First Flight of the Space Shuttle Columbia and the Astronauts Who Flew Her by Rowland White and Richard Truly.


An Introduction to Modern Astrophysics by Bradley Carroll and Dale Ostlie.


Rockets, Missiles, and Men in Space by Willy Ley.


Ignition!: An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants by John Clark.


A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking.


Russia in Space by Anatoly Zak.


Rain Of Iron And Ice: The Very Real Threat Of Comet And Asteroid Bombardment by John Lewis.


Mining the Sky: Untold Riches From The Asteroids, Comets, And Planets by John Lewis.


Asteroid Mining: Wealth for the New Space Economy by John Lewis.


Coming of Age in the Milky Way by Timothy Ferris.


The Whole Shebang: A State of the Universe Report by Timothy Ferris.


Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandries by Neil deGrasse Tyson.


Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution by Neil deGrasse Tyson.


Rocket Men: The Epic Story of the First Men on the Moon by Craig Nelson.


The Martian by Andy Weir.


Packing for Mars:The Curious Science of Life in the Void by Mary Roach.


The Overview Effect: Space Exploration and Human Evolution by Frank White.


Gravitation by Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler.


The Science of Interstellar by Kip Thorne.


Entering Space: An Astronaut’s Oddyssey by Joseph Allen.


International Reference Guide to Space Launch Systems by Hopkins, Hopkins, and Isakowitz.


The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality by Brian Greene.


How the Universe Got Its Spots: Diary of a Finite Time in a Finite Space by Janna Levin.


This New Ocean: The Story of the First Space Age by William Burrows.


The Last Man on the Moon by Eugene Cernan.


Failure is Not an Option: Mission Control from Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond by Gene Kranz.


Apollo 13 by Jim Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger.


The end

PS - /u/DDE93 this list has all the links.

You should definitely start with books! Buy one online, maybe a second-hand one to get it cheaper.

I don't know what's your level of studies but you should start with an Introduction to Astronomy to get an overview, and then focus on what you like most (and yes read other books).

I liked very much:

https://www.amazon.com/Introductory-Astronomy-Astrophysics-Saunders-Sunburst/dp/0030062284

If FD want to adhere to the science, it seems likely that while microscopic life may be ubitquitous on planets wihin habitable zones, macroscopic life like Earth's may be very rare. Common M-class habitable worlds may be tidally locked storm-worlds, rarer O,B,A and F class stars may leave the main sequence before their Cambrian explosions, and the limited number of terrestrial, tectonically active worlds in non-eccentric, continuously habitable orbits around G and K class stars of the right age (4-5.5 B years for macroscopic life on Earth, til our own runaway greenhouse), and that haven't been sterilized by cometary impact or nearby supernova, may severely limit independent origins for macroscopic life. See Rare Earth, How to Find a Habitable Plant, Lucky Planet, and Where is Everybody for further constraints.

Hence most of the macroscopic life found on HZ worlds in human space may be seeded during terraforming operations. Inhabited Earth-like planets may mostly have Earth creatures, borrowed from the 101 wild animals of Zoo Tycoon, but also the domesticated animals humans bring everywhere they settle.

Truly alien macroscopic plant and wildlife may await till peace accords with Thargoids allow us to land on their own thargaformed worlds.

first thanks a lot, great comment. since it's obvious you are increadibly knowledgeable, i want to ask you a question: isn't the multiverse theory basicly a response to books like

https://www.amazon.com/Just-Six-Numbers-Forces-Universe/dp/0465036732

that basicly says that the fact that we live in an inhabitable world in no shorter than a miracle? doesn't this theory try to explain in scientific way the unprobability of our very existence?

>'You're saying there is some particular plane in space about which the entire universe is mirrored'.
Precisely!of all the replies we got, this.You identified the crux of Prof Okolo's argument -if not , why not ?If you are aware of any asymmetry which coud cause this, could you point it out to us ,(online resources and books or monoraph welcome too)

Not only that: why isn't the universe symmetrical with respect to every plane? Why is it not completely uniform and homogeneous throughout all space and indeed time, so that if you mirror across any plane (or for that matter uf you rotate about any axis, or choose a reference frame with any velocity, etc.) it still looks the same? Surely this would be the maximum possible symmetry.

The standard answer to both of our questions is that in the very early universe this was indeed true, but the symmetry was destroyed by the randomness of quantum mechanics. For instance a proton and antiproton might pop into existence in one place, but not in another place under identical conditions. Of course these random events would in general be independent; there need not be any correlation between events occurring on one side of some particular plane and events occurring on the other side.

The resulting deviations from perfect symmetry would be tiny at first but gradually became larger. If one area of space were very slightly denser than its surroundings, its gravity would pull in more matter, further increasing the density. The expansion of space itself would also magnify these tiny fluctuations to a much larger scale, forming galaxies and superclusters and all the other interesting structure we see in the universe.

The primary tool for studying this is what's known as the Cosmic Microwave Background. This is a pattern of radiation that was emitted in the very early universe, but is still "visible" today (in the same way that we still receive light from ancient stars that are now dead.) From this we see that the early universe does indeed appear to have been extremely homogeneous. But when examined very closely it exhibits the sort of very slight fluctuations and patterns you might expect from the earlier discussion, and these patterns are still studied closely for information about this era of the universe.

Here's a review article on the state of cosmology and CMB research up to 2001. Although the majority is quite technical, note the introduction, which outlines our current model of cosmology:

>that he universe is spatially flat, consists mainly of dark matter and dark energy, with the small amount of ordinary matter necessary to explain the light element abundances, and all the rich structure in it formed through gravitational instability from quantum mechanical fluctuations when the Universe was a fraction of a second old.

If one has some physics background at the undergraduate level, Ryden's Introduction to Cosmology is a good starting point.

Last, I should recognize that of course there is still some debate about whether quantum mechanics is truly random at all. If for instance you adhere to the "many-worlds" interpretation of QM, you would say that any apparent randomness is merely a result of our own limited perspective. In that case, it would probably follow that the "multiverse" in its entirety is completely symmetrical. But of course proponents of the quantum many-worlds interpretation already believe in multiple parallel Earths and so forth.

>Ouch!Ouch! That hurts,especially as Prof Okolo is a relation. However this is no reason to exclude him from harsh but valid criticism,: so, why do you think the paper is low-grade ,if so?(note,if you read the comment attached to our question, Prof Okolo mentions in a supplement he is aware of symmetry-breaking in certain physical interactions ,but this is no reason to suppose it wuld affect the paper)

Apologies for any personal insult. Of course to come to places like this looking for constructive criticism (or enlist friends and relations to do so) is probably not the behavior of a crackpot.

I also hate to come to a philosophical forum and lambast philosophers of physics for not being physicists; there's too much of that going around already! But that being said, if the thrust of Prof. Okolo's argument is to assert the existence (or lack) of any particular type of symmetry as a theoretical prediction, this seems very much a question for physicists, and it's unlikely one will be able to answer it without a strong familiarity with the current state and methods of cosmological research.

The other reply here identifies some of the usual suspects, but the one that really made me stop and think was Case Western physicist Lawrence Krauss's Atom: A Single Oxygen Atom's Journey from the Big Bang to Life on Earth (link).

It handholds a good bit less than most pop-science books on astrophysics, but, really, the main insights are completely intuitive. Or counter-intuitive, but explained well.

In any event, there was zero marketing behind this book (pace the Bill Bryson, Brian Green, et al. juggernaut), but I learned a great deal from it. Highly recommended.

Have you seen their Highlights for High School feature?

Also, there are sites like Academic Earth that might be useful.

Here are a few blogs with potential. You'll have to decide for yourself if they have inappropriate content.

Here are a few book recommendations covering various fields, in no particular order (though they should all read #1):

1. A Short History of Nearly Everything
   
2. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
   
3. Einstein: His Life and Universe
   
4. The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined
   
5. The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood
   
6. Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
   
7. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
   
8. The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer
   
9. This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession
   
10. Cosmos
    
11. The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language
    
12. The Theory That Would Not Die: How Bayes' Rule Cracked the Enigma Code, Hunted Down Russian Submarines, and Emerged Triumphant from Two Centuries of Controversy
    
13. Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind
    
14. The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist's Quest for What Makes Us Human
    
15. The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature
    
16. Thinking, Fast and Slow
    
17. Chaos: Making a New Science
    
18. Isaac Newton
    
19. Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain
    
20. The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat: And Other Clinical Tales
    
    And here's a video interview with Richard Feynman they might enjoy.

Fair enough. Didn't know that this was where you were coming from.

No, I haven't read Barrow. But pretty much any popularization of physics recently seems to make this very point. From Brian Greene to Lee Smolin seems to make this point.

I think we were both missing what the other was saying. I agree with your point on why, apologies for the bluntness. I didn't fully see your Devil's Advocate position until now. So I guess we agree to agree?

http://www.amazon.com/Universe-Nutshell-Stephen-William-Hawking/dp/055380202X/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1395199423&sr=8-5&keywords=stephen+hawking

It's much less in depth than you might imagine, but definitely goes deeper than a science documentary would. It's also nicely illustrated, which is frequently helpful.

Astrophysics is an extremely open ended field, so it's tough to point at one book that covers (even briefly) all topics. However, Melia's High Energy Astrophysics is pretty good for that, although it is really geared for juniors/seniors and beginning grads.

For cosmology, I really liked Dodelson's Modern Cosmology. Despite there being some hairy sections I think it is pretty accessible, and it has problems in it if that is your thing.

An 8" Dobsonian reflector telescope, such as the Orion XT8i with Intelliscope to help you find your way around the sky. $640.

The book NightWatch, $20.

The Backyard Astronomer's Guide, $30.

A planisphere. Get one appropriate for your latitude. $10.

A comfortable camping stool for sitting at the eyepiece, or your back will quickly complain. ~$30.

SkySafari for your iPhone/iPad, $3.

A pair of good binoculars, 8x50 or 10x50, $120.

A nice wide-field (62-degree) eyepiece, like the Explore Scientific 24mm. $140.

That's about $1000.

One more thing to add: a dark sky. Priceless.

Astronomy is actually a subject where if you have some math background, a few physics classes, and a real outward passion, a grad program can craft you into a pretty competent researcher. Look into graduate programs in astronomy; I've known multiple graduate students who started off in electrical engineering or psychology, and then changed their mind and came over to grad school. If you start taking night courses in some basic college math (multi-variate calculate, linear algebra, differential equations), you'll show the grad student acceptance committee that you care about this. Start learning on your own - I recommend picking up Carroll & Ostlie's "Modern Astrophysics," which you can find used for around 20 to 30 dollars on amazon, if not cheaper. Yes, you can be an astronomer, but it'll take hard work and a little bit of luck with the committees.

While it's nothing to do with religion specifically, Atom: A Single Oxygen Atom's Journey from the Big Bang to Life on Earth...and Beyond by Laurence Krauss is not only an incredibly interesting read, but it gives a very accurate and easy to understand history of pretty much the entire universe from the big bang to now. It is a science book, but Krauss in incredibly anti-theist and takes a few time outs to point out how silly believing the earth is 6000 years old is.

Ahh I see. Well since you've got a science degree already, you're better prepared to start learning than most people out there.

If it's any help, I strongly recommend Barbara Ryden's Introduction to Cosmology as a nice upper-level undergraduate intro to cosmology. As long as you have a decent grasp of calculus, and remember some fundamental electricity and magnetism, it should be readable.

Amazon Listing here

It's nice because it assumes no knowledge of GR (she presents some equations/results from GR, but you just basically have to treat them like law, basically the same way they introduce F=ma in physics 101). The book really tries to work off logical arguments and physical reasoning than it does lots and lots of math.

How We'll Live on Mars is a book released by Ted Talks. A 100 page, short read about Colonization efforts through NASA and Space X

The Case of Mars came out in 1996, and was later revised when the Curiosity Rover landed on Mars. This is much longer and more in detail about the entire process of trying to go to Mars, the ideas with the International Space Station, potential lunar base and the space shuttle. Very detailed. A bit superfluous in detail, honestly.

There is also a short series by National Geographic called Mars. Half of it is interviews with said authors above and other officials, such as Elon Musk, and then the other half is a hypothetical narrative of what the first four years on Mars will be like.

The Mars One Mission is a bust. It's a really interesting dream but there is no way it will happen. Opening up space exploration to the private sector has jump started a new space-era for us. It is tangible, everyone is on fire for the next step.

NASA is sending a fly by mission to Mars in 2023, a husband and wife, to loop around the planet. This will be the farthest any human has been in space.

In 2028 tentatively, more likely 2033, we will send our first team to the ground on Mars. There it is likely they will set up a colony.

Elon Musks' ambitious dreams are that by the end of the century we will have a city of 1,000,000 people on Mars. It can happen, it's just a matter of physics problem and the support of the Earth population.

Getting to another planet drops our extinction rate to almost zero. Once we can planetary engineer (terraform) another planet, we will be sure to survive any cataclysmic event on Earth.

Here is Elon Musk on TED Talk discussing Rockets and the Future with Mars at about 30 minutes in.

How to Find a Habitable Planet

Rare Earth (somebody else already linked to it here)

Origins of Life - an outstanding 24-lecture Teaching Company course. I can't say enough about this... it was great. The audio version is fine and the course is on sale right now ($35 instead of the regular $130). Or Pirate B... er, the library... if $35 would break the bank.

>What do you think created our universe? The big bang? where did that stuff come from (open to any answer, just please no extremist anger driven posts please)

Origins: Neil deGrasse Tyson and Donald Goldsmith

Read this book if you want a clear, in-depth answer about the Big Bang and the expansion of our universe right after it. (It doesn't necessarily answer the question: "How did the Big Bang get started?" It does offer a lot more detail than a theist would, though.)

>(obviously not god since this is the atheist reddit but if someone who believes in a god of some sort is trolling here, where did your god come from? if he created everything, what created him?)

Infinite Regression

• You can print out free skymaps at Skymaps.com. They create a new one every month, have different versions for different viewing latitudes, and show where the planets are as well.
  
  
• You can also buy a $12 planisphere at Amazon.com which you can adjust to show the stars, nebulae, clusters, etc. at any given date and time. However, planets and the moon are not shown on these (since they vary so much over time). But they do show "the ecliptic" which is the line that the planets are always very close to. They're definitely worth the 12 bucks.
  
  
  
  

Well, I think one of my favorite books at that age was probably something science fiction related, but these days theres a variety of things from which to pick, I think one of my favorites would be James Burke's "Connections" , another book is of course Sagan's "Cosmos" or these days I might even suggest something like Dawkins' "Climbing Mount Improbable".

When I was in seventh grade my math teacher lent me some books to read:

• Fantasia Mathematica, by Clifton Fadiman (and there's a sequel, The Mathematical Magpie);
  
• A History of Pi, by Petr Beckmann;
  
• and some introductory book about topology, explaining the Möbius strip, the four-color theorem, the Klein bottle, the projective plane, and maybe some other stuff, whose title I have since forgotten.
  
  I credit these books for sparking my interest in math.
  
  Other books I'd recommend include Imaginary Numbers by William Frucht, Flatland/Sphereland by Edwin A. Abbott/Dionys Burger (and Flatterland by Ian Stewart), The Penguin Dictionary of Curious and Interesting Numbers by David Wells, A Passion for Mathematics by Clifford A. Pickover, The Mathematical Tourist by Ivars Peterson, and any book by Martin Gardner or Raymond Smullyan. Also most books by Ian Stewart would be good, but he also writes higher-level math textbooks, so watch out for that.

Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything is very good and a bit more up-to-date (it's a book not a TV series), and I speak as someone who has read the book of Cosmos several times.

Brian Green's The Elegant Universe is worth reading, even if you think String Theory is "Not Even Wrong" (Greene is not one of the die-hards).

If you want a relatively intense read, but not that difficult altogether, Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time is a great read for cosmological science and theoretical physics (general relativity, quantum mechanics, black holes, string theory, etc.)

Cosmos by Carl Sagan is a brilliant book, it's the book that really sparked my fascination with astronomy.

That's a very tortured reading of just one of the stories of a post-resurrection appearance.

I was thinking about what you said about us deserving more proof. Frankly, I think we've got far more than we have any right to when compared to previous generations.

In Jesus' day, only a few thousand people saw him work a miracle. Only a thousand at most saw him after the resurrection. In all of human history, seeing the supernatural has been confined to a relative handful of people.

Today, though, every single person in the developed world has access to

• scientific proof the universe began at a finite moment in time
  
  
• solid evidence of intentional design in the fabric of the universe, our planet, and biology
  
  
• documented evidence of miracles
  
  
• documented evidence of a non-material aspect of humans, some would even say of life after death
  
  
• solid evidence that the gospels are trustworthy
  
  
• and evidence that whether the gospels are historically reliable or merely "religious stories", Jesus really did rise from the dead.
  
  No, we don't get to see Jesus in the flesh -- walking on water or otherwise -- but we've got more than any generation since his has had. Far more. And we're going to be held responsible for what we did with that privilege.

This really depends on what you want to learn. I'll throw out some of my favorites.


Coming of Age In The Milky Way

Chasing Venus: The Race to Measure The Heavens

Of course there's Carl Sagan's Cosmos which is a bit outdated, but still a fantastic read. I'd personally recommend any of Sagans books. Demon Haunted World (about science and skepticism), Pale Blue Dot (spiritual sequel to Cosmos)

Death by Black Hole

Atom: A Single Oxygen Atom's Odyssey from the Big Bang to Life on Earth... and Beyond

This book will tell you everything you need to know.

You might also try Habitable Planets for Man. It's old and a bit outdated, but still worth reading and you can download it for free.

They eventually revised it in a hardcover with illustrations that match Nutshell https://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Brief-History-Updated-Expanded/dp/0553103741

I imagine his books are going to see a surge in sales this week. Would be a great book to give to a kid interested in this stuff.

There's actually a large amount of different models you can come up with using the Friedmann equation by playing with the density of matter, radiation, and the cosmological constant. If you're interested in learning about cosmology, check out the book by Barbara Ryden. It's a very gentle introductory text that's accessible to anyone who knows a bit of calculus.

I'll add in a couple that aren't (I believe) on the FAQ.

Lawrence Krauss's Atom if you're interested in the evolution of the physical universe since the "big bang".

Stephen Pinker's The Blank Slate if you're interested in evolutionary psychology. There are several good "discussions" on the biological basis of moral behavior if you're into the good/evil debate.

Edit: I've read both and I feel they're worth the time and effort needed to understand the author's arguments.

read http://www.amazon.com/Universe-Aliens-Everybody-Solutions-Extraterrestrial/dp/0387955011

One of the "solutions" is the one you mentioned. It seems unlike though.
You can find the book free online, just google it; it is a very good read.

My usual recommendation for a good all-round astronomy book is the DK Eyewitness Companion: Astronomy written by Ian Ridpath.

For university level astronomy and physics, Zeilik & Gregory's Introductory Astronomy and Astrophysics is a go to text.

For a more historical look at key astronomers, Stuart Clark's "The Sky's Dark Labyrinth" Trilogy is worth a read.

H.A. Rey's "The Stars: A New Way to See Them" is a good one if you find the constellations of interest.

Failing that, I'm in the process of writing a book. So people might be able to buy that at some point.

The textbooks recommended in the intro Astronomy class here are An Introduction to Modern Astrophysics by Carroll & Ostlie and Foundations of Astrophysics. I've never read through either, but apparently the first one is much more detailed.

The older edition of Modern Astrophysics is significantly cheaper and will fit your purposes just as well: 1st Edition Carroll

So, how about some entertaining math fiction?

Flatland, by A Square

http://flatlandthemovie.com/

Flatterland,starring Victoria Line, Granddaughter of A Square.

http://www.amazon.com/Flatterland-Like-Flatland-Only-More/dp/073820675X

As far as free school goes, nothing beats www.khanacademy.org, as long as you are just looking for knowledge, and not degrees. They've got everything.

Brian Greene, The Elegant Universe

Eric Schlosser, Fast Food Nation

Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

Simon Winchester, The Map that Changed The World

As I said, religious people are blind to reason. It seems you have used a different method to totally avoid answering the question.

I live in Scotland, UK and here religion is not as prevalent as some countries (thankfully). However as a younger child I went to a catholic school where I was taught a lot of catholic beliefs, I was however too young to comprehend it. My education there after from age 6 upwards was in a normal state school which is still based on Christian beliefs, church services, hymns at assembly etc.

I was never a believer in any God and took pretty much all of it as fun story's for learning and teaching good and evil. much the same as I feel they can, and do, use Harry Potter books these days.

I have made up my mind in no belief in God. How ever as a rational human being I feel if evidence was provided to me that was undeniable I would change my opinion immediately. to paraphrase Tim Minchin;

>"Then I will change my mind
I'll spin on a fucking dime
I'll be embarrassed as hell,
But I will run through the streets yelling
It's a miracle"

However the evidence that is available to you and I is the same and somehow you refuse to take note of it.

>Why do you make that the threshold? Isn't that kind of like asking me to prove the existence of "red" using only evidence of things that are green?

I don't really thinking evidence of a physical, or I will extend to any rational and observable evidence is really a threshold. I trust in numbers which are not a physical thing.

Lawrence M. Krauss has a great book : A Universe from Nothing

No, not an imposition at all.

I read this book a long time ago, but I think it is where most of the information I know about cosmology came from, and speaks to the idea of time as analogous to spatial dimensions:

The Universe In A Nutshell by Stephen Hawking

I haven't read A Brief History of Time but I hear it's great, too.

and there is always this wikipedia article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shape_of_the_universe

You also might enjoy reading Flatterland: Like Flatland, Only More So

I agree. I started with a telescope but now use 10x50 binos. I find the binos much easier to use for "star-hopping". I find this book to be invaluable: https://www.amazon.ca/Binocular-Highlights-Gary-Seronik/dp/1931559430/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1496767125&sr=1-3&keywords=night+sky+binoculars
The majority of the objects the author highlights in his book are viewable from urban areas.

If the Universe Is Teeming with Aliens ... WHERE IS EVERYBODY? is a nice book on the subject that I bought on another redditors recommendation, and it was really worth it!

Many theories deal with inflation. They all fall under the umbrella of "inflationary cosmology." I am not a theorist but as far as I understand "big bang inflationary cosmologies" currently receive the most attention. String theory type theories and loop quantum type theories can both incorporate inflationary effects so its certainly not limited to the "classical big bang" model I detailed.

Beyond pages such as this I would say you could get a hold of this book, Modern Cosmology By Scott Dodelson. It is a good overview of modern cosmological models at the high undergraduate level. The math it presents is targeted at physic students in their senior year of undergraduate (my words, not the author) but that doesn't mean a non-physicist can't get anything out of it.

Not OP, just helping out with some formatting (and links!) because I like these suggestions.

> 1) The Magic Of Reality - Richard Dawkins
>
> 2) The Selfish Gene - Richard Dawkins
>
> 3)A Brief History Of Time - Stephen Hawking
>
> 4)The Grand Design - Stephen Hawking
>
> 4)Sapiens - Yuval Noah Harari (Any Book By Daniel Dennet)
>
> 5)Enlightenment Now - Steven Pinker
>
> 6)From Eternity Till Here - Sean Caroll (Highly Recommended)
>
> 7)The Fabric Of Cosmos - Brian Greene (If you have good mathematical understanding try Road To Reality By Roger Penrose)
>
> 8)Just Six Numbers - Martin Reese (Highly Recommended)

https://www.amazon.com/Atom-Single-Oxygen-Journey-Beyond/dp/0316183091/ref=mp_s_a_1_12?ie=UTF8&qid=1539323284&sr=8-12&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=atom+book

Give this a try, it is by far the best book I have read on the subject.

• Breaking The Spell by Daniel Dennett
  
• Misquoting Jesus by Bart Ehrman
  
• The End of Faith by Sam Harris
  
• The Elegant Universe by Briane Greene (about string theory)
  
• Just Six Numbers by Martin Rees
  
• Before The Beginning by Martin Rees
  
• Godel, Escher, Bach by Douglas R. Hofstadter
  
• The Demon-Haunted World by Sagan
  

Oh also, by Stephen Hawking The Illustrated A Brief History of Time

It's really dense stuff, so you need the illustrated version for sure. But's it's soooo interesting

Since you're done with Short History, you should check out A Brief History of Time. I think he explains it (and everything else) in greater detail there. I'd recommend the illustrated version: http://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Brief-History-Updated-Expanded/dp/0553103741


Here's a little something to whet your appetite before then: http://freeonlinedocumentary.com/a-brief-history-of-time/

You can't go wrong with A Brief History of Time or The Universe in a Nutshell.

A book that is only partially about space but covers a lot of material that I'd highly* recommend is How to Build a Habitable Planet.

For Astrophysics I'm currently reading though "An introduction to Modern Astrophysics".

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Introduction-Modern-Astrophysics-Bradley-Carroll/dp/0321442849/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1250531129&sr=8-1

And "Introductory Astronomy & Astrophysics"

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Introductory-Astronomy-Astrophysics-Saunders-Sunburst/dp/0030062284/ref=pd_sim_b_2

Both are really good, though fairly hard core on the maths (By hardcore I mean high school calculus which I haven't had to use in 15 years). I had to buy a calculus book to refresh my memory.

I'm also prob going to sign up for a masters in astrophysics later this year, part-time remote learning, just for the hell of it. No real interest in switching fields, just interested in it.

For reading, I read "New Scientist". Yes, it sometimes doesn't go into the greatest depth, but there's always something in each issue that I never knew before.

edit: btw the degree I was planning on signing up for is http://www.jcu.edu.au/school/mathphys/astronomy/mmasters.shtml

Oh, the Fermi Paradox.

This was a good treatment of the topic:

Where Is Everybody? 50 Solutions To Fermi's Paradox

Personally I think life is probably very common, intelligent life much less so, the distances are vast enough that the engineering and logistics problems are decidedly non-trivial and there's always the possibility that most civilizations don't survive their nuclear age.

Some of my favorites

Coming of Age In the Milky Way

Chasing Venus

The Hole In The Universe

Atom A Single Oxygen Atom's Odyssey from the Big Bang to Life on Earth... and Beyond

There's an excellent foundational book for the physics involved if you're interested.

An Introduction to Modern Astrophysics by B.W.Carroll and D.A.Ostlie, otherwise known as the BOB (Big Orange Book), covers just about everything you might want to know, from our first looks skyward, through kepler and newton, on to relativity and on into the details of various astronomical phenomena and the techniques used to detect and measure them. It's not completely up to date (the latest revision was in 1995) but it'll get you up to the point where you can surf through arXiv with all the background you'll need to understand what's been said over the last 17 years.

http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Modern-Astrophysics-Bradley-Carroll/dp/0201547309

Hawking's A Briefer History of Time is very good http://www.amazon.com/Briefer-History-Time-Stephen-Hawking/dp/0553804367

This is a good layman's guide - as long as you don't mind Lawrence Krauss.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Books-Universe-From-Nothing-Lawrence-Krauss/dp/1471112683

There's a number of fundamental constants to our universe. If any of them were even 5% or more different, the universe wouldn't be capable of supporting life.

This book is a very accessible explanation of (some of) them.

Well, you can't go wrong with this.

The sensitivity of this ε value (and the values of other dimensionless constants) is explained by Martin Rees in this book.

With out a doubt the best intro cosmology book is Barbara Ryden's intro to cosmology
http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Cosmology-Barbara-Ryden/dp/0805389121/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1372720990&sr=8-1&keywords=barbara+ryden+cosmology

Your clearly not a physicists, Lawrence Krauss is exactly working on this matter.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUe0_4rdj0U
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1471112683

I had, thank you. Same to you.

>Is humanity at peak prosperity? Yes, probably so. Why? Because it’s already the direction we were headed in.

I think is important to establish why we were headed in. Is because we discover ways to make our real, natural life better. Not because we discover ways to improve our spiritual life. Even though we tried with thousand of Gods and religions.

​

>It’s not like we’ve been walking in circles for the last ten thousand years.

We actually kind of were going in circles:

"Copernicus (1473-1543)1,2, Kepler (1571-1630), Galileo (1564-1642)3,4,5, Newton (1643-1727)6 and Laplace (1749-1827)7 all fought battles against the Church when they published scientific papers that enraged the Church by writing that the Earth might orbit the sun, rather than the idea that it sat at a central position in the Universe. These and other scientists suffered torture, imprisonment, forced recantations and death at the hands of Christians5,8. The source of the Church's confidence was the Bible.

.....

"2,500 years ago, there was a glorious awakening in Ionia: on Samos and the other nearby Greek colonies that grew up among the islands and inlets of the busy eastern Aegean Sea. Suddenly there were people who believed that everything was made of atoms; that human beings and other animals had sprung from simpler forms; that diseases were not caused by demons or the gods; that the Earth was only a planet going around the Sun. And that the stars were very far away. [...]

In the 6th century B.C., in Ionia, a new concept developed, one of the great ideas of the human species. The universe is knowable, the ancient Ionians argued, because it exhibits an internal order: there are regularities in Nature that permit its secrets to be uncovered. [...] This ordered and admirable character of the universe was called Cosmos. [...]

Between 600 and 400 B.C., this great revolution in human thought began. [...] The leading figures in this revolution were men with Greek names, largely unfamiliar to us today, the truest pioneers in the development of our civilization and our humanity.”

"Cosmos" by Carl Sagan (1995)37

***

When did the Catholic Church officially accepted the fact of a moving Earth? Can you believe it was 1992

The idea is Christianity proposes and imposes a system in which reality works because of supernatural forces. Which has been proven wrong so so many times when it tried to defend it.

So I can say that Christianity is false because it's claims has been proven false in all its history. The sun doesn't burn because of supernatural forces, volcanos, thunders, earthquakes, floods, desises, disasters are not the wrath of Gods. From here I have big doubts about claims about soul, haven, angels, demons, etc.

If you haven't read it, this book covers a huge number of conceivable reasons for the Fermi Paradox:

https://www.amazon.com/Universe-Teeming-Aliens-WHERE-EVERYBODY/dp/0387955011

Astronomy, not astrology! :P

Anyway, our "Bible" is Carroll & Ostlie, it's solid and covers everything. You'll need to have probably finished 1st year physics first though.

L'unico papabile, in inglese, e che non costa una fucilata l'ho trovato su amazon UK:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cosmos-Cosmic-Evolution-Science-Civilisation/dp/0349107033/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8
Nei commenti lo incensano, ma quelli da 1 stella dicono che quello venduto è una ristampa fatta male senza le molte immagini che contraddistinguono il libro. Io nel dubbio l'ho preso lo stesso perché se scopro che un libro è raro devo averlo, ma dopo aver letto queste recensioni volevo quasi restituirlo. Dovrebbe arrivare la settimana prossima così vedrò...

I got mine from half priced books. Also amazon https://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Brief-History-Updated-Expanded/dp/0553103741/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Nope, some guy named Ian Stewart, according to Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/Flatterland-Like-Flatland-Only-More/dp/073820675X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1247600995&sr=8-1

It was kind of a mindfuck since I was 13 when I read it, but it helped me understand geometry, abstract math, and space-time later on.

If you want some deeper knowledge about this topic I recommend this book:


https://www.amazon.co.uk/Universe-Teeming-Aliens-Everybody-Extraterrestrial/dp/0387955011

> Flatland

To which I would add Flatterland, which brings the mathematics of Flatland up to date.

The Universe in a Nutshell

The Universe in a Nutshell

I took an entry-level astronomy class in which we read this book which outlines this idea.

Here it is on the Kindle.

The Universe in a Nutshell by Stephen Hawking because it is so accessible to mere mortal minds.

This


and


This

Here:

http://www.amazon.com/Universe-Nutshell-Stephen-William-Hawking/dp/055380202X

Reason #1 in this book makes a case that aliens are here and they are Hungarian. Tongue in cheek response but he makes a case for it

This book answers that question quite well.

If you're going for subtle, something by Neil deGrasse Tyson perhaps?

https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Cosmology-Barbara-Ryden/dp/0805389121

The Illustrated Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking.

Just Six Numbers, Martin Rees

Book

http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/0345499972/ref=ox_sc_act_title_6?ie=UTF8&m=A3DWYIK6Y9EEQB

http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/0385661630/ref=ox_sc_act_title_5?ie=UTF8&m=A3DWYIK6Y9EEQB

http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/0553103741/ref=ox_sc_act_title_3?ie=UTF8&m=A3DWYIK6Y9EEQB

http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/1426203144/ref=ox_sc_act_title_8?ie=UTF8&m=A3DWYIK6Y9EEQB

Except if you read the literature evidence for the conventional notion of dark matter heavily outweighs evidence for "Modified Newtonian Gravity."

That being said, no is claiming we understand the true nature of gravity yet, as we haven't invented a Grand Unified Theory. Mind you, the conventional notion of dark matter entirely takes into account the effects of general relativity.

For an introduction to the subject, read this.

Your question is way above my pay grade. I can only refer you to Neil Degrasse Tyson for that one.

This book is my standard door stop. Been meaning to read it for a while but for now it serves a purpose.

Relevant book: If the Universe Is Teeming with Aliens... Where Is Everybody? Fifty Solutions to Fermi's Paradox and the Problem of Extraterrestrial Life

Short boring blog spam.
If you are interested in the Fermi Paradox go pick up Where is Everybody? ( http://www.amazon.com/Universe-Aliens-Everybody-Solutions-Extraterrestrial/dp/0387955011 )

I was homeschooled as a child/young adult using strictly Christian coursework. My first year of college, some liberal studies course I was required to take forced us to read Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution. That small book changed my life. I started reading more and more, talking with the professor, and questioning everything I was taught.

Needless to say, I am now an atheist.

Jeff Atwood has a nice take on rewriting (and Joel's post): https://blog.codinghorror.com/when-understanding-means-rewriting/

>Joel thinks rewriting code is always a bad idea. I'm not so sure it's that cut and dried. According to The Universe in a Nutshell, here's what was written on Richard Feynman's blackboard at the time of his death:
>
>\> What I cannot create, I do not understand.
>
>It's not that developers want to rewrite everything; it's that very few developers are smart enough to understand code without rewriting it.

Thanks, one downvote is nothing to get too upset about, some days I have people run through and downvote my last 20 or 30 comments just to spite me for something I wrote that they strongly disliked. I'm used to it. In this case, I was making an obscure reference to these types of references:


Top Physicists Ponder on the Idea of Universe in an Atom

http://www.amazon.com/Universe-Nutshell-Stephen-William-Hawking/dp/055380202X

http://www.amazon.com/Universe-Single-Atom-Convergence-Spirituality/dp/076792066X

The Universe in a Single Atom by his Holiness the Dalai Lama

physicsforums.com discussion : could it be a possiblity that our entire universe as we know it, is contained inside of what appears as one single atom in another universe?

Sadly, you and perhaps only a handful of others will ever even see this comment...

Thanks for taking the time to write this.

1. talking about the universe is off topic. Later on he switches to the galaxy and discusses the Fermi paradox. It doesn't matter how many stars are in the universe; the galaxies are so far apart that there is no way (that we know of) to communicate except by setting off supernova in some sequence (which totally sterilizes that part of the galaxy) or perhaps messing with neutron stars. So, we can ignore the 10^24 stars in the universe and just consider the 10^11 stars in the Milky Way.
   
2. The number of earth like planets is really small. The book "Rare Earth" details this. But we can just ignore this for now.
   
3. Fermi paradox. Yes! The book Where is Everybody? examines 50 solutions to the Fermi Paradox. The new edition has 75 solutions!
   
4. The principle of mediocrity is an assumption that is completely unproven. It is also specific to various fields and can't just be broadly applied to everything. It is used in cosmology with some controversy, but applying it to extraterrestrial civilizations is a huge unsubstantiated leap. The example for gravity is completely incorrect. Gravity is considered universal because all experimental tests everywhere have indicated that Newton's universal law of gravity is correct. Everywhere, every time. Two exceptions: (a) modification for GR is needed (e.g. for Mercury's orbit) (b) galaxies are rotating too fast, so either Newton's law is wrong on large scales or else there is dark matter. So far, we're going with unseen dark matter.
   
5. "Whitmire found that if he assumed that humans are typical rather than exceptional, then the bell curve produced by statistical analysis places us in the middle of 95 percent of all civilizations" What civilisations? What bell curve? There is only one civilization: human beings on planet earth. A single point does not make a bell curve.
   
6. "In other words, if the human race is typical ..." There is no way to know this since there is a sample size of one. Whitmore should know this.
   
7. "Since this is a statistical result, standard deviation is involved. ..." I dispute that this is a statistical result in anyway, except for a salient example of misuse of statistics.
   
8. Oho! They do mention the sample size of one near the end! Somehow the predicted lifespan is always 5 times our total radio+ age (100 years so far). This is worse than Zeno's paradox. It's obvious that we'll never go extinct according to these calculations, because each year that goes by means that we'll exist for 5 year more. So one could conclude that we we will not go extinct until we do -- yes, a meaningless tautological truism, that's about all one can conclude from this article.
   
9. Conclusion: This article is indeed meaningless clickbait. It's more worth while to read the two books that I mentioned above.
   
10. Note that this is written by a (science?) reporter who is discussing Whitmore's work and making it palatable for the reader, and not written by Whitmore himself.
    
    So ... let's have a look at Whitmore's article ... okay. I don't have time to read it as well. Just a few notes from the abstract and glancing at it.
    
    

• later on he refers to the principle of Mediocrity by its correct name: the Copernican principle. Good.
  
• he says it's a cornerstone of modern cosmology, but does not mention physics. Excellent. That's the science reporter who added in that error.
  
• "If we assume that this principle applies to the reference class of all extant technological species," -- this class has only one element in it: us!
  
• "then it follows that other technological species will, like us, typically find that they are both the first such species to evolve on their planet and also that they are early in their potential technological evolution." I disagree on the second part. Sure, there is an excellent chance that any civilization is the first one on its planet. However, no one knows the limits of technological evolution so it's meaningless to speculate how far along a non-existent hypothetical alien race is when we can't even tell how far along we ourselves are. It's really quite ridiculous, however, just because something is riduculous doesn't mean that it won't get published if it's a slow news week and if it concerns something titilating to the public.
  
  P.S. The journal is called "Journal of Astrobiology" ! That in itself should set off alarm bells as there is no astrobiology. That's the whole point of the Fermi Paradox. Astrobiology is studying something that doesn't exist - like pink invisible unicorns.