Word: tippler
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...their sun's imminent supernova death. They would be obvious--maybe landing their probe, for instance, on the White House lawn--and they would be everywhere. They would appear not just on Earth, but in every solar system in every galaxy. * At least that's what Frank Tippler says...
...Tippler, a professor of mathematical physics at Tulane University, says this scenario is highly probable if intelligent alien life forms exist. The only catch, he says, is that they...
SETI's second assumption--that intelligent beings would definitely opt for radio transmission as medium--is where Frank Tippler disagrees...
...agonizing moment late in the play, he shakes his head in bewilderment and says, "I don't know what I believe any more." The scene is made all the more poignant since we have been seeing what he does put his faith in. He is a potent tippler of sparkling burgundy and relishes his Mercedes. With Gaelic guile he manipulates parish politics from his pulpit. He does not so much preach to his flock as poll it. What his parishioners want to hear, he tells them. He salves the consciences he was pledged to arouse. In the sad coldness...
...exerted on her husband, she is sinking into a state of garrulous alcoholic despondency. She swigs continuously from a bottle, and her only other visible activity is carrying a plunger to a stopped-up toilet. That facility is overemployed, since Mert's senile mother-in-law, also a tippler, is incontinent. The old lady has been fitted out with roller skates so that she can make her all-too-necessary trips at top speed...