Particle physicist Daniel Whiteson has released 'Do Aliens Speak Physics? And Other Questions About Science and the Nature of Reality,' exploring whether aliens could share our understanding of science. The book challenges assumptions about universal languages like math and physics, using hypothetical alien contact scenarios. Illustrated by Andy Warner, it draws on Whiteson's expertise from CERN's ATLAS collaboration.
Daniel Whiteson, a particle physicist at the University of California, Irvine, who contributed to CERN’s Large Hadron Collider ATLAS collaboration, co-authored the book with illustrations by cartoonist Andy Warner. Published on November 13, 2025, it is dedicated to “all the alien scientists we have yet to meet.” Whiteson, known for previous works like 'We Have No Idea' (2018) and 'Frequently Asked Questions About the Universe' (2021) with Jorge Cham, and their podcast 'Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe' (2018-2024), developed the idea after pitching it to his 14-year-old son, framing philosophical physics questions around alien encounters to make them engaging.
Each chapter begins with fictional hypotheticals, a suggestion from biologist Matt Giorgianni, to illustrate concepts like communication barriers. Whiteson told Ars Technica, “I’m not the kind of physicist who’s like, ‘whatever, let’s just measure stuff.' The thing that always excited me about physics was this implicit promise that we were doing something universal.” He questions if physics is truly universal, influenced by human biases, and references Hartry Field’s 'Science Without Numbers' to argue that relationships, not numbers, might suffice for science.
The book critiques human efforts like the Voyager Golden Record and Pioneer plaque, designed by Carl Sagan’s team in two weeks. Whiteson’s informal test showed even physics grad students couldn’t decipher the Pioneer plaque, highlighting arbitrary symbols. He posits aliens might advance via trial and error without formal theory, citing the 2016 film 'Arrival' for cultural decoding challenges. Undecoded human languages like Etruscan and whale communication underscore difficulties without context, unlike the Rosetta Stone, which took 20 years despite shared culture.
Whiteson explores alien perceptions, such as “tasting” electrons or sensing photons in superposition, drawing from Ed Yong’s 'An Immense World.' He concludes, “Our theories may reveal the patterns of our thoughts as much as the patterns of nature,” suggesting diverse alien science could expand human horizons, revealing biases and fostering profound learning.