cover image Seti Pioneers: Scientists Talk about Their Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence

Seti Pioneers: Scientists Talk about Their Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence

David W. Swift. University of Arizona Press, $49.95 (434pp) ISBN 978-0-8165-1119-8

This instructive book by a University of Hawaii sociologist compiles Q & A interviews with 17 researchers, mostly American, who are involved in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). While the field, which did not attract attention from scientists until 1959, remains a fledgling discipline, it now draws physicists, astronomers, electrical engineers, chemists, an aerospace physician into its orbit. Scientists featured here discuss current methods used to investigate ETI, and others they hope to develop, but general readers will most likely value the impact of their personalities--modest, open, thoughtful, occasionally waggish--above talk of technicalities. Photos not seen by PW. (Apr.)