David Bridges
Key Insights
- Book Overview: Do Aliens Speak Physics? explores the concept of communicating physics with extraterrestrial beings.
- Drake Equation: The extended Drake equation organizes thoughts on the existence of intelligent life in the galaxy.
- Science vs. Technology: The book discusses whether aliens would engage in science as we understand it.
- Humanity’s Reflection: The search for aliens reflects our own humanity and philosophical questions.
At Gizmodo, we love a good story about aliens – especially if it gives us a headache. Personally, I reward extra points for bonus dad jokes.
Daniel Whiteson and Andy Warner’s upcoming book, Do Aliens Speak Physics? And Other Questions about Science and the Nature of Reality presents the best combination of all these things. The book imagines what it would be like to discuss physics with aliens, drawing from a diverse array of experts in the history and philosophy of science – accompanied by Warner’s delightful illustrations plus physics puns and hypothetical donuts.
Co-author Daniel Whiteson is a particle physicist at CERN and the University of California, Irvine, as well as a science communicator and host of the podcast Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe. Gizmodo spoke to Whiteson about the philosophical nature of the search for aliens and what it reveals about our own humanity. The following conversation has been lightly edited for grammar and clarity.
Gayoung Lee, Gizmodo: Okay, so, do aliens speak physics? What is this question even asking?
Daniel Whiteson: I don’t know if aliens speak physics! That’s why I wrote this book, to argue both sides of this question. I feel like a lot of physicists assume that the physics we are doing is universal… that the way we’re doing things and our way of life is the only way.
I wanted to push back on that a little bit and explore and make the opposite argument and suggest that there might be a lot of humanity in the physics that we’re doing – the way we think about it, the questions we’re asking, the answers we accept, and our path into physics.
Gizmodo: At the very start of your book, you introduce an extended version of something called the Drake equation. What is it, and how have you reimagined it?
Whiteson: The Drake equation is a fun way to organize your thoughts about whether there are other intelligent civilizations in the galaxy. There have to be stars or planets for them, life that evolved to develop sentience and technology, and they have to do it all roughly within a time window that we can communicate with them.
It breaks these features apart because they are separate issues. It emphasizes something really crucial: you’ve got to have all the pieces to work. If any of those numbers go to zero, you’re out of luck.
But in the book, we’re not just interested in intelligent aliens. We want to find intelligent aliens that do science the way that we do so we can learn from them. Otherwise, it’s just too big a space to explore, and all those things must come together for this intergalactic science conference that is my personal fantasy.
Gizmodo: Okay, so let’s unpack some of these additions. The first one is about whether aliens do science at all.
Whiteson: Sure. This was tricky to tackle. I think a lot of people assume that if aliens arrive, they’re technological—because they’ve gotten here. They have some way to cross the vast distances between the stars, so they must have a scientific understanding of how they did that.
But historians of science and philosophers of science understand that technology doesn’t require science. We’ve been using stone tools for millions of years. We had technology in terms of writing, fermentation, metallurgy, and agriculture. These are technological improvements that have improved our lives without us understanding how they worked.
Having a scientific mindset is going to accelerate your technology, but it’s not essential. So that’s what we dig into in that question. Is science actually essential? What is science anyway?
Gizmodo: So assuming aliens are scientific, another element is whether they ask the same questions.
Whiteson: One motivating piece of philosophy for me was this question of emergence—why is the universe understandable at all? We can use fairly simple mathematical tools to understand the world around us. Instead of the universe just being filled with chaos, somehow this simplicity emerges.
We don’t know what the fundamental layer of reality is—if it even has one. So, all of our science studies emergent phenomena. It might be that it’s sort of a way we filter the universe. The universe is crazy and filled with all sorts of buzzing noise, but we see certain stories that are of interest to us.
On the other hand, if emergence is something that’s part of the universe—like there’s just some way things average out—then we’ll have that in common with aliens. They’ll study planets the way that we do. They’ll study particles the way that we do. They’ll see the same simple stories. But it’s not something we know the answer to until they show up.
Gizmodo: Do you think there’s any point in trying to communicate with animals on Earth to prepare for aliens? It can be argued that interspecies communication among animals on Earth has practically zero bearing on how an extraterrestrial, intelligent being might message us.
Whiteson: I think I would disagree. I mean, I agree that it’s unlikely that learning dolphin is going to help us communicate with the aliens. But the fact that we’ve failed to communicate with those species tells us that we have a lot to learn about talking to other species and that more practice and more success could set us up for more success in the future.
There are definitely some assumptions we’re making and some barriers we haven’t pushed through. So, we can’t understand why or how whales are singing to each other and how bats are clicking to each other, but there’s definitely something going on there.
Gizmodo: The extended Drake equation isn’t a yes-or-no question on whether aliens exist. It’s an ideal scenario in which we could have a meaningful, intellectual exchange with them.
Whiteson: Yeah.
Gizmodo: I’m sensing that makes it even harder for us to encounter the “ideal” alien civilization. In your view, what is the worst-case scenario that doesn’t end with everyone on Earth dying?
Whiteson: (Laughs) Yeah, well, one amazing outcome is that we have everything aligned with them. They just tell us the answers, and we’re catapulted into the future of science—incredible!
More frustrating, what you might call a worst-case scenario, is that there is nobody else out there doing science the way that we are. They’re not interested in our questions. They’re looking for different answers. They see a different slice of the universe – we’re alone at the table at the Intergalactic Science Conference. That would be unfortunate.
From a philosophical point of view, it might be more fun if the aliens don’t satisfy any of our requirements, because that’s when we learn about our own peculiarities. Like, “Oh, wow, that is interesting that we do this science this one way, and everybody else is doing it that way. What does that mean about being human?”
So I think the philosophers would be more excited if we were the only ones in the galaxy doing science this particular way. But the physicists would be frustrated for sure.
Gizmodo: On that note, is the search for intelligent alien life really humanity’s own ego search?
Whiteson: Oh, for sure. Definitely. On one hand, we want to find aliens similar to us, because it validates us. On the other hand, that discovery, finding lots of human-like aliens, would make us less special.
My favorite thing about searching for aliens is that any answer is mind-blowing and wonderful in its own way. So, I’m definitely pro-aliens, no matter what. Even if the aliens show up and do send us to the hydrogen mines, I still think that would be interesting. I’m that much pro-alien visitation – I’ll take the risk!
Gizmodo: The book presents an impressive union of philosophy and science, but you’re a physicist at heart. So, having written this book, doing the research for it… How has the process changed the way that you approach your own work as a scientist?
Whiteson: Good question. You know, I’ve always been interested in philosophy at an amateur level. But I realized that particle physics is filled with people who have strong philosophical opinions but think philosophy is a waste of time. They have this [Richard] Feynman attitude that physicists need philosophers the way birds need ornithologists.
If you ask them, is the top quark real? Was it there before we discovered it? They’ll say, “Of course, what are you, an idiot? Of course it is. It’s physical; it’s there. We found it; we didn’t create it.”
… I found those two things in conflict. Yeah, we didn’t create these particles, but we never see them, we don’t hold them in our hands, and we don’t interact with them. We’re telling stories about the way the universe works. But in the end, those are stories, and they’re stories that satisfy us. We don’t know if the same stories would satisfy other people, so it definitely shines a light on my own work and makes me wonder what it means.
But even if physics isn’t universal, it doesn’t make me less interested in doing physics. I still think it’s a super fun puzzle to try to unravel the universe. We’re in this intimate relationship with the universe, and it matters what matters to us. It’s part of being human.
Do Aliens Speak Physics? is being published by W. W. Norton & Company and will be available online or in hardcover on November 4, 2025.
