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Extraterrestrials
- MIT Press Essential Knowledge Series
- Narrated by: Rick Adamson
- Length: 4 hrs and 46 mins
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Publisher's summary
Everything we know about how planets form and how life arises suggests that human civilization on Earth should not be unique. We ought to see abundant evidence of extraterrestrial activity - but we don't. Where is everybody? In this volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, science and technology writer Wade Roush examines one of the great unsolved problems in science: Is there life, intelligent or otherwise, on other planets?
This paradox (they're bound to be out there; but where are they?), first formulated by the famed physicist Enrico Fermi, has fueled decades of debate, speculation, and, lately, some actual science. Roush lays out the problem in its historical and modern-day context and summarizes the latest thinking among astronomers and astrobiologists. He describes the long history of speculation about aliens; the emergence of SETI (the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) as a scientific discipline in the 1960s, and scientists' use of radio and optical techniques to scan for signals; and developments in astrobiology and exoplanet research. Finally, he discusses possible solutions to the Fermi Paradox and suggests way to refocus SETI work that might increase the chances of resolving the paradox - and finding extraterrestrials.
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- hammi
- 07-21-23
A much needed nonfiction discourse on ET
THANK YOU AUDIBLE FoR KEEPING THIS FREE. ALWAYS LOVE to learn and LISTEN TO ERUDITE INDIVIDUALS..
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- Mat
- 09-21-23
A fun exploration with excellent narration
This is an interesting and enjoyable exploration of the main themes and theories out there on why we’ve not connected with extraterrestrial intelligence, narrated masterfully.
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Story
When someone is labeled a nihilist, it's not usually meant as a compliment. Most of us associate nihilism with destructiveness and violence. Nihilism means, literally, "an ideology of nothing". Is nihilism, then, believing in nothing? If we can learn to recognize the many varieties of nihilism, Nolen Gertz writes, then we can learnto distinguish what is meaningful from what is meaningless. In this addition to the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, Gertz traces the history of nihilism in Western philosophy from Socrates through Hannah Arendt and Jean-Paul Sartre.
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thought provoking
- By Justin Hunter on 03-13-22
By: Nolen Gertz
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Macroeconomics
- MIT Press Essential Knowledge Series
- By: Felipe B. Larrain
- Narrated by: Gary Tiedemann
- Length: 6 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Macroeconomics takes a broad perspective on the economy of a country or region; it studies economic changes in the aggregate, collecting data on production, unemployment, inflation, consumption, investment, trade, and other aspects of national and international economic life. Policymakers depend on macroeconomists' knowledge when making decisions about such issues as taxes and the public budget, monetary and exchange rate policies, and trade policies-all of which, in turn, affect decisions made by individuals and businesses.
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if you are curious about macroeconomics
- By Santa Claus on 12-11-22
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Machine Translation
- MIT Press Essential Knowledge Series
- By: Thierry Poibeau
- Narrated by: James Anderson Foster
- Length: 5 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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The dream of a universal translation device goes back many decades, long before Douglas Adams's fictional Babel fish provided this service in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Since the advent of computers, research has focused on the design of digital machine translation tools - computer programs capable of automatically translating a text from a source language to a target language. This has become one of the most fundamental tasks of artificial intelligence.
By: Thierry Poibeau
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Smart Cities
- MIT Press Essential Knowledge Series
- By: Germaine Halegoua
- Narrated by: Wendy Tremont King
- Length: 5 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Over the past 10 years, urban planners, technology companies, and governments have promoted smart cities with a somewhat utopian vision of urban life made knowable and manageable through data collection and analysis. Emerging smart cities have become both crucibles and showrooms for the practical application of the Internet of Things, cloud computing, and the integration of big data into everyday life. Are smart cities optimized, sustainable, digitally networked solutions to urban problems? Or are they neoliberal, corporate-controlled, undemocratic non-places?
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Rich Information
- By Serial Amazon Shopper on 05-26-23
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Understanding Beliefs
- By: Nils J. Nilsson
- Narrated by: Don Hagen
- Length: 2 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Our beliefs constitute a large part of our knowledge of the world. We have beliefs about objects, about culture, about the past, and about the future. We have beliefs about other people, and we believe that they have beliefs as well. We use beliefs to predict, to explain, to create, to console, to entertain. Some of our beliefs we call theories, and we are extraordinarily creative at constructing them. Theories of quantum mechanics, evolution, and relativity are examples.
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Not worth a second read, I took it 3 things
- By HonestBuyer on 08-29-23
By: Nils J. Nilsson
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Computing: A Concise History
- The MIT Press Essential Knowledge Series
- By: Paul E. Ceruzzi
- Narrated by: Tim Andres Pabon
- Length: 3 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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The history of computing could be told as the story of hardware and software or the story of the Internet or the story of "smart" handheld devices, with subplots involving IBM, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, and Twitter. In this concise and accessible account of the invention and development of digital technology, computer historian Paul Ceruzzi offers a broader and more useful perspective. He identifies four major threads that run throughout all of computing's technological development.
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Fantastic ride down memory lane
- By GeekZoneHosting Com LLC on 08-25-16
By: Paul E. Ceruzzi
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Robots
- The MIT Press Essential Knowledge series
- By: John M. Jordan
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 5 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Robots are entering the mainstream. Technologies have advanced to the point of mass commercialization - Roomba, for example - and adoption by governments - most notably, their use of drones. Meanwhile, these devices are being received by a public whose main sources of information about robots are the fantasies of popular culture. We know a lot about C-3PO and Robocop, but not much about Atlas, Motoman, Kiva, or Beam - real-life robots that are reinventing warfare, the industrial workplace, and collaboration.
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A broad description of the state of the art
- By Gonzalo Alberto Gomez A on 01-05-18
By: John M. Jordan
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Fertility Technology
- MIT Press Essential Knowledge Series
- By: Donna J. Drucker
- Narrated by: Christa Lewis
- Length: 5 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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In the late 1850s, a physician in New York City used a syringe and glass tube to inject half a drop of sperm into a woman's uterus, marking the first recorded instance of artificial insemination. From that day forward, doctors and scientists have turned to technology in ever more innovative ways to facilitate conception. Fertility Technology surveys this history in all its medical, practical, and ethical complexity, and offers a look at state-of-the-art fertility technology in various social and political contexts around the world.
By: Donna J. Drucker
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Collaborative Society
- MIT Press Essential Knowledge Series
- By: Dariusz Jemielniak, Aleksandra Przegalinska
- Narrated by: Bruce Mann
- Length: 5 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Humans are hard-wired for collaboration, and new technologies of communication act as a super-amplifier of our natural collaborative mindset. This volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series examines the emergence of a new kind of social collaboration enabled by networked technologies. This new collaborative society might be characterized as a series of services and startups that enable peer-to-peer exchanges and interactions though technology.
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Light info, tough listen
- By Caleb Mayo on 08-29-23
By: Dariusz Jemielniak, and others
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The Book
- MIT Press Essential Knowledge Series
- By: Amaranth Borsuk
- Narrated by: Sarah Mollo-Christensen
- Length: 5 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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In this volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, Amaranth Borsuk considers the history of the book, the future of the book, and the idea of the book. Tracing the interrelationship of form and content in the book's development, she bridges book history, book arts, and electronic literature to expand our definition of an object we thought we knew intimately. Contrary to the many reports of its death (which has been blamed at various times on newspapers, television, and e-readers), the book is alive.
By: Amaranth Borsuk
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Deep Learning
- MIT Press Essential Knowledge Series
- By: John D. Kelleher
- Narrated by: Joel Richards
- Length: 5 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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In this volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, computer scientist John Kelleher offers an accessible and concise but comprehensive introduction to the fundamental technology at the heart of the artificial intelligence revolution. Kelleher explains some of the basic concepts in deep learning, presents a history of advances in the field, and discusses the current state of the art.
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Yikes
- By Elliot Blanford on 10-27-19
By: John D. Kelleher
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The Internet of Things
- The MIT Press Essential Knowledge Series
- By: Samuel Greengard
- Narrated by: Derek Shetterly
- Length: 4 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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The Internet of Things is a networked world of connected devices, objects, and people. In this book Samuel Greengard offers a guided tour through this emerging world and how it will change the way we live and work. Greengard explains that the Internet of Things (IoT) is still in its early stages. Smartphones, cloud computing, RFID (radio-frequency identification), technology, sensors, and miniaturization are converging to make possible a new generation of embedded and immersive technology.
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Was expecting more
- By Chelsea on 10-14-16
By: Samuel Greengard
Related to this topic
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Exoplanets
- Diamond Worlds, Super Earths, Pulsar Planets, and the New Search for Life Beyond Our Solar System
- By: Michael Summers
- Narrated by: Jon Bennett
- Length: 5 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Since its 2009 launch, the Kepler satellite has discovered more than 2,000 exoplanets, or planets outside our solar system. More exoplanets are being discovered all the time, remarkable in their variety. Astronomer Michael Summers and physicist James Trefil explore these remarkable recent discoveries: planets revolving around pulsars, planets made of diamond, planets that are mostly water, and numerous rogue planets wandering through the emptiness of space.