Deep Time: How Humanity Communicates Across Millennia

Combining the logical rigor with the lyrical finesse of a novelist , award-winning author Gregory Benford explores these and other fascinating questions in this provocative analysis of humanity's attempts to make its culture immortal.  In Deep Time he confronts our growing influence on events hundreds of thousands of years into the future and explores the possible "messeges" we may transmit to our distant descendants in the language of the planet itself, from nuclear waste to global warming to the extinction of species.  As we begin our incredible journey down the path of eternity, Gregory Benford masterfully calls forth some of the intriguing, astounding, undreamed-of futures which may await us in deep time.

So, humans want and are able to communicate (wordlessly and otherwise) over thousands of years. But, asks Benford, can we accurately convey information over millions of years, or longer? We may need to do just that in order to responsibly protect future beings from our current, long-reaching messages--nuclear waste, climate change, extinction of species. Benford was part of a team of artists and scientists trying to come up with ways of saying "WARNING" to humans (or other beings) in the distant future. Deep Time is a fascinating look at the nature of communication and the future implications of things we do today. It's a terrifically intelligent, detailed, and comprehensive long view, with a message sorely needed by short-lived, but brainy, humans. --Therese Littleton