The Giant Leap: Why Space Is the Next Frontier in the Evolution of Life

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A leading astrobiologist “demonstrates how becoming a true space-faring species is more than just humanity’s future” (Adam Frank, author of The Little Book of Aliens)—it is an evolutionary event at least as important as life’s first journey from sea to land 
 
The story of life has always been one of great transitions, of crossing new frontiers. The dawn of life itself is one; so, too, is the first time two cells stuck together rather than drifting apart. And perhaps most dramatic were the moves from the sea to land, land to air. Each transition has witnessed wild storms of innovation, opportunity, and hazard. It might seem that there are no more realms for life to venture. But there is one: space.  
 
In The Giant Leap, astrobiologist Caleb Scharf argues that our journey into space isn’t simply a giant leap for humankind—it’s life’s next great transition, an evolution of evolution itself. Humans and our technology are catalysts for an interplanetary transformation, marking a disruption in the story of life as fundamental as life’s movement from sea to land, and land to sky.   
 
Inspired by Darwin’s account of his journey on the Beagle, and packed with stories from the past, present, and future of space travel, The Giant Leap thrills at both life’s creativity and the marvels of technology that have propelled us into the cosmos. And it offers an awesome glimpse of the grander vistas that wait in the great beyond. 

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PRAISE

"The Giant Leap is a detailed and provocative exploration of what it means for life as we know it to escape the bounds of the only planet where it has ever been. We have taken the first tentative steps, and this book will inspire people to think more seriously about what the next ones can and should be."

- Sean Carroll, author of The Biggest Ideas in the Universe

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“If we can make it through the many crises of the next century, then the Solar System and the stars beyond await us. In The Giant Leap, Caleb Scharf demonstrates how becoming a true space-faring species is more than just humanity’s future. It’s something even greater, an essential transition for life itself. In the engaging, beautifully written, and closely argued The Giant Leap, Scharf shows us how the 3.5-billion-year evolution of life on Earth has led to this moment as the biosphere itself stands at the precipice. The Giant Leap is a must read for anyone interested in life in the universe, space travel, and the human future."

Adam Frank, author of The Little Book of Aliens

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“When Caleb Scharf was 15 months old, on July 20, 1969, a human being stepped on another world for the first time, as significant a moment in the history of life as the day 370 million years ago when the first fish emerged from the sea onto dry land. Scharf, now a renowned astrobiologist, is convinced that the landing of Apollo 11 on the moon was a mere stepping stone in life’s transition from a planetary to a cosmic phenomenon. In this wide-ranging, exhilarating and engagingly written book, he makes his case brilliantly.”

— Marcus Chown, author of A Crack in Everything

"This fascinating book presents a panorama of the Solar System, describing what’s already been discovered and speculating about the ‘greening’ of our cosmic habitat--planets, moons, and asteroids. It’s enlivened by Darwinian cameos, offering new insight even to those familiar with  the subject–but keeps a welcome focus on explorations feasible in the human era, steering clear of flakey science-fictional territory"

Martin Rees, author of The End of Astronauts

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"A wonderfully told, detailed account of where we have been, where we are, and where we are heading in the exploration of space. The Giant Leap keeps the reader engaged with explanations of the scientific breakthroughs and personal motivations that will continue to take us on humankind's greatest adventures in space."

Mike Massimino, former NASA astronaut

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“A deeply researched, expertly written account of the fascinating interplay between evolution and exploration.” 

Kirkus

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“Caleb Scharf eloquently explains how difficult spaceflight is but also why it is so important to the future of humanity. Expanding into the solar system will not be easy, but he shows how it will be essential, and perhaps inevitable.”

— Jeff Foust, author at SpaceNews

The Ascent of Information: How Data Rules the World

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“Full of fascinating insights drawn from an impressive range of disciplines, The Ascent of Information casts the familiar and the foreign in a dramatic new light.” — Brian Greene, author of The Elegant Universe

Your information has a life of its own, and it’s using you to get what it wants.
 
One of the most peculiar and possibly unique features of humans is the vast amount of information we carry outside our biological selves. But in our rush to build the infrastructure for the 20 quintillion bits we create every day, we’ve failed to ask exactly why we’re expending ever-increasing amounts of energy, resources, and human effort to maintain all this data.

Drawing on deep ideas and frontier thinking in evolutionary biology, computer science, information theory, and astrobiology, Caleb Scharf argues that information is, in a very real sense, alive. All the data we create—all of our emails, tweets, selfies, A.I.-generated text and funny cat videos—amounts to an aggregate lifeform. It has goals and needs. It can control our behavior and influence our well-being. And it’s an organism that has evolved right alongside us.

This symbiotic relationship with information offers a startling new lens for looking at the world. Data isn’t just something we produce; it’s the reason we exist. This powerful idea has the potential to upend the way we think about our technology, our role as humans, and the fundamental nature of life.

The Ascent of Information offers a humbling vision of a universe built of and for information. Caleb explores how our relationship with data will affect our ongoing evolution as a species. Understanding this relationship will be crucial to preventing our data from becoming more of a burden than an asset, and to preserving the possibility of a human future. 

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PRAISE

“Caleb Scharf provides a wonderfully accessible and compelling account of how our relationship to information is becoming increasingly central to how we live. Full of fascinating insights drawn from an impressive range of disciplines, The Ascent of Information casts the familiar and the foreign in a dramatic new light.” 

— Brian Greene, author of The Elegant Universe

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“An astute, provocative contribution to information science and futurology.” 

— Kirkus

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“When Caleb Scharf was 15 months old, on July 20, 1969, a human being stepped on another world for the first time, as significant a moment in the history of life as the day 370 million years ago when the first fish emerged from the sea onto dry land. Scharf, now a renowned astrobiologist, is convinced that the landing of Apollo 11 on the moon was a mere stepping stone in life’s transition from a planetary to a cosmic phenomenon. In this wide-ranging, exhilarating and engagingly written book, he makes his case brilliantly.”

— Publishers Weekly

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“A transformative new way of looking at our increasingly data-driven existence.” 

— Lee Billings, Scientific American

“Masterfully weaving together anecdotes and thought experiments from neuroscience, evolutionary biology, theoretical physics, astrobiology, and information theory, Scharf investigates how our relationship with the dataome has fundamentally altered our lives and how it will continue to do so.” 

— Science

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“Information is a way for one part of the universe to know something about another. What could be more profound than that? In this engaging and wide-ranging book, Caleb Scharf shows how information brings the world to life, both figuratively and literally.”

 — Sean Carroll, author of Something Deeply Hidden: Quantum Worlds and the Emergence of Spacetime

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“Scharf provides a fascinating history of information theory.” 

— Booklist

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“I really enjoyed The Ascent of Information. The book is packed with provocative ideas, backed by wonderfully marshalled data, and entertaining on every page. Fascinating glimpses of what may turn out to be a new way to look at life.”

— Jonathan Weiner, author of The Beak of the Finch

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“A fascinating study of information and its types.” 

— Library Journal, STARRED review

The Zoomable Universe: An Epic Tour Through Cosmic Scale, from Almost Everything to Nearly Nothing

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Illustrations by Ron Miller

An epic, full-color visual journey through all scales of the universe

In The Zoomable Universe, the award-winning astrobiologist Caleb Scharf and the acclaimed artist Ron Miller take us on an epic tour through all known scales of reality, from the largest possible magnitude to the smallest. Drawing on cutting-edge science, they begin at the limits of the observable universe, a scale spanning 10^27 meters—about 93 billion light-years. And they end in the subatomic realm, at 10^-35 meters, where the fabric of space-time itself confounds all known rules of physics. In between are galaxies, stars and planets, oceans and continents, plants and animals, microorganisms, atoms, and much, much more. Stops along the way—all enlivened by Caleb’s sparkling prose and his original insights into the nature of our universe—include the brilliant core of the Milky Way, the surface of a rogue planet, the back of an elephant, and a sea of jostling quarks.

The Zoomable Universe is packed with more than 100 original illustrations and infographics that will captivate readers of every age. It is a whimsical celebration of discovery, a testament to our astounding ability to see beyond our own vantage point and chart a course from the farthest reaches of the cosmos to its subatomic depths—in short, a must-have for the shelves of all explorers.

Read an excerpt (PDF) →

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Publishers Weekly →
Kirkus →

The Copernicus Complex: Our Cosmic Significance in a Universe of Planets and Probabilities

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A Publishers Weekly Top 10 Science Book of Fall 2014

In the 16th century, Nicolaus Copernicus dared to go against the establishment by proposing that Earth rotates around the sun. Having demoted Earth from its unique position in the cosmos to one of mediocrity, Copernicus set in motion a revolution in scientific thought. This perspective has influenced our thinking for centuries. However, recent evidence challenges the Copernican Principle, hinting that we do in fact live in a special place, at a special time, as the product of a chain of unlikely events. But can we be significant if the sun is still just one of a billion trillion stars in the observable universe? And what if our universe is just one of a multitude of others—a single slice of an infinity of parallel realities?

In The Copernicus Complex, Caleb Scharf takes us on a scientific adventure, from tiny microbes within the Earth to distant exoplanets, probability theory, and beyond, arguing that there is a solution to this contradiction, a third way of viewing our place in the cosmos, if we weigh the evidence properly. As Caleb explains, we do occupy an unusual time in a 14-billion-year-old universe, in a somewhat unusual type of solar system surrounded by an ocean of unimaginable planetary diversity: hot Jupiters with orbits of less than a day, planet-size rocks spinning around dead stars, and a wealth of alien super-Earths. Yet life here is built from the most common chemistry in the universe, and we are a snapshot taken from billions of years of biological evolution. Bringing us to the cutting edge of scientific discovery, Caleb shows how the answers to fundamental questions of existence will come from embracing the peculiarity of our circumstance without denying the Copernican vision.

With characteristic verve, Caleb uses the latest scientific findings to reconsider where we stand in the balance between cosmic significance and mediocrity, order and chaos. Presenting a compelling and bold view of our true status, The Copernicus Complex proposes a way forward in the ultimate quest: determining life’s abundance, not just across this universe but across all realities.

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Foreign Editions

British

Gravity's Engines: How Bubble-Blowing Black Holes Rule Galaxies, Stars, and Life in the Cosmos

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One of The Barnes and Noble Review Editors’ Picks: Best Nonfiction of 2012

Selected by The Christian Science Monitor as one of “21 smart nonfiction titles we think you'll enjoy this summer”

Selected by New Scientist as one of 10 books to look out for in 2012

We’ve long understood black holes to be the points at which the universe as we know it comes to an end. Often billions of times more massive than the sun, they lurk in the inner sanctum of almost every galaxy of stars in the universe. They’re mysterious chasms so destructive and unforgiving that not even light can escape their deadly wrath.

Recent research, however, has led to a cascade of new discoveries that have revealed an entirely different side to black holes. As Caleb Scharf reveals in Gravity’s Engines, these chasms in space-time don’t just vacuum up everything that comes near them; they also spit out huge beams and clouds of matter. Black holes blow bubbles.

With clarity and keen intellect, Caleb masterfully explains how these bubbles profoundly rearrange the cosmos around them. Engaging with our deepest questions about the universe, he takes us on an intimate journey through the endlessly colorful place we call our galaxy and reminds us that the Milky Way sits in a special place in the cosmic zoo—a “sweet spot” of properties. Is it coincidental that we find ourselves here at this place and time? Could there be a deeper connection between the nature of black holes and their role in the universe and the phenomenon of life? We are, after all, made of the stuff of stars.

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Foreign Editions

British

Italian

Japanese  

Extrasolar Planets and Astrobiology

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Winner of the American Astronomical Society’s Chambliss Astronomical Writing Award—for astronomy writing for an academic audience

Years ago, Caleb started teaching an upper-level course in the astronomy department at Columbia University on exoplanets and astrobiology. Because it was meant to be a more quantitative course (calculus, physics, problem solving) he found there was no text he could turn to. He then decided to convert his own notes into a usable textbook.

This book offers an advanced introduction to the increasingly robust fields of extrasolar planets and astrobiology. No other text currently available applies this level of mathematics and physics, while also providing an extensive grounding in key issues of chemistry, biology, and geophysics. With extensive references to the literature and chapter-ending exercises, this book can be used as the core text for teaching undergraduate or introductory graduate level courses. The text will also provide astrobiologists with an indispensable "User's Manual" when quick reference to key mathematical and physical techniques is needed. An online component, fully cross referenced with the text, is also available. Foreword by Geoff Marcy.