Life in Our Universe

By: Laird Close, The Great Courses

Narrated by: The Great Courses

Are we alone in the universe? This is one of the most profound issues facing mankind - and one of the unresolved questions that science may finally be able to answer in this century.

These 24 mind-expanding lectures reveal the cutting-edge research leading scientists to believe that life is not exclusively the domain of Earth. Professor Close offers an unparalleled look at the subject of life and the mysteries that remain. You'll examine the remarkable coincidences that created our planet and sustained its habitability for 3.5 billion years. And you'll join the hunt for microbial life elsewhere in our solar system and Earth-like planets in alien solar systems.

With Professor Close's expert guidance, you'll delve into some of the biggest questions facing science today. What can the Earth and its current and past life tell us about life in our universe? Where else in our solar system can there be life? Are there habitable planets and life around other stars? Is there other intelligent life in our universe? Is there a new home for mankind? If so, how can we find it?

Suited for the scientifically inclined and curious alike, these lectures make even the most complex content highly accessible. And they’ll give you the essential context necessary to make sense of the news on emerging discoveries and their implications.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2013 The Great Courses (P)2013 The Teaching Company, LLC

Humanities future

All the people of this planet should read and become aware of the dangers our world would be in if climate change is not checked.

Great course

Pdf doesn't contain all video the teacher speaks about. Great content and intresting topic. Liked it

Be patient

The title is somewhat misleading
The science is good
There is a lot to learn in this series

Fascinating and very good communicator

I like the lecturer for this one. Very clear and easy to understand. Highly recommend.

Life: above and beyond

An interesting and informative tour of life on Earth and the chance of such in the wider Universe.
The course presenter is enthusiatic about his subject and provides clear analogies to aid the listener in visualising the swirl of speculation and sciene that this search involves. If I must highlight an issue, is that course dervives from a video presentation (hence referencing movie content etc) that detracts somewhat from the audio format. Apart from this, well worth the listen.

A bit disappointing

This is clearly the audio track to a video course, and the speaker makes frequent references to diagrams which are NOT included in the course book. But that is not my biggest beef

While the presenter is clearly very excited about the material, his pronunciation of some fairly common words is so awful it yanks me out of the flow completely. It’s as if he had never heard these words spoken, and tried to “sound them out.” While that is often reasonable, it fails for many words, like “iron,” “congeal,” and “gaseous.” It was like fingernails on the chalkboard of my soul to here him say those words, among others.

So if you are interested in a survey course of the possibilities of life off planet Earth, you might enjoy this. But if mispronunciations bother you as much as they bother me, prepare to grit your teeth a lot, and to shout in your head, “That’s not how you pronounce that word.”

How to make an interesting topic boring

Topic could be very interesting. The lecture however, spent probably close to a4 to 1/3 of the time repeating himself. Pregnant pauses, and stuttering over words also was detrimental to the topics. Add end it is said about 1/10 of the time he was more or less to the new stone horn, and you made a very interesting topic somewhat boring. I.

No images or videos!

There are numerous references to images and animations that are not in the PDF. I did find a YouTube by Dr. Close that might complement the lectures (which otherwise are excellent).

No images

Throughout the entire lecture, images are supposed to help you understand what is happening, but they are not in the included PDF. This makes it hard to understand what is being discussed.

Pretty good, but very old

This course was released in 2019, but seems to be actually recorded in 2012 or earlier. It's information is too old.