Fermi paradox

[ThePest179]

Many would like to believe humans are not alone in the universe, that other intelligent life exists. The Fermi paradox adresses one concern: if intelligent life exists (other then humans), then how come humans have not come into contact with them? Several theries exist, but I accept that most alien civillizations have gone extinct due to natural means, other alien species have killed each other, or, simillar to us, they had killed themselves in nuclear war or biological warfare.

 

Opinons are much appreciated.

 

Link to the Fermi paradox: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox

Edited April 25, 2013 by Guest (see edit history)

[St. Goliath]

if intelligent life exists (other then humans), then how come humans have not come into contact with them?

Maybe because of the vast nothingness around us? How can we come in contact, or even notice, intelligent live around us, if it is billions of light years away?

 

I remember our physics teacher once showing us a video of an austrian cabaretist, trying to put the dimensions you have to deal with in astronomy into perspective, by, for instance trying to express distances as stacks of 1000 Schilling bills and so on. When he tried to express the odds of intelligent life in outer space to reach exactely us, he compared it with the scanario of standing in the Sahara dessert, waiting for someone called Franz, who has a sister who ones a store, to come by at 7 pm, purely by chance, to bring you some water. (The odds of this scenario happening are very low, but not zero)

 

Also, I recalled the video below (you may skip to 4:13 for the part relevant to your question):

 

hYf6av21x5c

[ThePest179]

if intelligent life exists (other then humans), then how come humans have not come into contact with them?

Maybe because of the vast nothingness around us? How can we come in contact, or even notice, intelligent live around us, if it is billions of light years away?

 

I remember our physics teacher once showing us a video of an austrian cabaretist, trying to put the dimensions you have to deal with in astronomy into perspective, by, for instance trying to express distances as stacks of 1000 Schilling bills and so on. When he tried to express the odds of intelligent life in outer space to reach exactely us, he compared it with the scanario of standing in the Sahara dessert, waiting for someone called Franz, who has a sister who ones a store, to come by at 7 pm, purely by chance, to bring you some water. (The odds of this scenario happening are very low, but not zero)

 

Also, I recalled the video below (you may skip to 4:13 for the part relevant to your question):

 

hYf6av21x5c

 

This is not "my" question. it is a theory that I happen to agree with. And you should read about the theory more closely. It adresses the problem.

[Aldibar]

"intelligent humans" is the paradox. I guess compared to goats or rats ... or pigs?

 

and to reply to GUNS IN SPACE ... The end of the universe ... the meaning and purpose of life ... and the piggs boson!

 

 

 

tYjbkRktqIE

 

[Humin]

They're all observing us because they don't think we're worth talking to.

[BTGBullseye]

I personally like the idea that everyone else just isn't technically advanced enough to have FTL drives, and is more than 150 lightyears away... That would be enough of a reason for no other civilization to be able to find us.

[Vapymid]

I also prefer to think that our failure to detect other civilisations is not a proof of the Fermi theory.

 

The space is *big*. Local radio broadcasts would not be powerful enough to reach us without being directed straight at us, and there is very little chance that someone decided to shine a maser at us right when we listened.

 

Also, it is possible that any civilisation (ours included) only broadcasts for a short period of time before switching to directed beams and optical communications. In addition, it would likely switch over to digital, which will likely be encrypted (for commercial reasons if not for anything else) and a properly encrypted signal should look very much like random noise.

 

Then, there is the question of whether anyone sane enough would like to advertise his presence to the whole universe in the first place. A safer bet is to look but not be seen at least until you know reasonably well who or what might be out there...

 

Finally, scientists discover strange things in cosmos practically on a daily basis, much of those remain unexplained and any of them may be some kind of a cosmic engineering artifact - which we are not able to recognise just yet.

 

Regards

[St. Goliath]

According to the wiki article, the Fermi pardox states, that if there are so damn many stars out there, there must be a hell lot of civilications and if they are there long enough, (some must be) there must some intelligent enough to have the technology to get here; So where are they? The reason I think they aren't here, are probably because the university is huuuuuuge * 10^(a hell lot).

 

So, lots of intelligent life inhabited planets out there? Plausible, but: (I heard people like lists)

• To our knowledge, no where near; probably millions of light years away
  
• Light travels just as fast for them as for us, so we are unable to "see" them and vice versa, where "see" means, be found by chance via whatever device recieves light or radio transmissions.
  
• Even if they have technology to travel those distances, a sphere with a radius of "just" 1 million light years has a surface area of ~12.57*10^12 light years squared. The chances of accidentaly finding us by traveling here (i.e. select a tiny, tiny, TINY random dot on the sphere) are thus very low.
  
• The energy of a radio broadcast would be devided over the area of said sphere, thus shrinking exponentially over distance

 

Also a few of the following scenarios might be interessting too:

• Way more intelligent life forms might have good reasons to avoid us (at the time being)
  
• How many planets like ours could be out there, where political leaders gave up on space travel, beacuse they prefere to spend money on wars instead?
  
• Maybe life on our planet was brought here by terraforming in the first place (maybe earth was intended to be a wildlife preserve, or the planet was abandoned for whatever reason, for instance, what if the dinosaurs where wiped out by some sort of reactor explosion^^)

 

This is not "my" question. it is a theory that I happen to agree with.

Sorry, I see my wording is a bit ambiguous here. What I meant wasn't that it's your question in the sense that you made it up, but it belongs to you, in a similar way as to when you refere to, e.g. "your friend", it doesn't mean that you own that person.

[BTGBullseye]

Another reason we might be low on a list of places for aliens to visit is that we sit pretty much smack dab in the middle of the space between galactic arms. There ain't much out here besides us, and inside a galactic arm is probly a lot more appealing areas to go...

[Humin]

Aliens have much better stealth technology than us.

[ThePest179]

Your opinions have been duly noted. I tend to think that most have gone extinct for whatever reason, and that the few that have created their own "empire" in the universe have not been able to find earth because of distance issues or because of lack of FTL technology, like you have suggested. Another reason might be that other alien civilizations have attacked each other in brutal wars that leave one of them extinct or fighting for survival.

[Aldibar]

Aliens have much better stealth technology than us.

 

They must, i've never seen one!

[BTGBullseye]

They must, i've never seen one!

I have... He looked hispanic, and was doing yard work in Arizona...

[Aldibar]

I wonder what kind of stealth technology he used?

[BTGBullseye]

Just basic camouflage... You know, hedge trimmers, overalls/bluejeans with work shirt, fake ID... The usual.

[ThePest179]

The ironic part would be if everyone was listing, but not communicating. I think most extraterrestrials are dead by now though.

[BTGBullseye]

I'm betting that we've been heard, but our warlike broadcasts (Rambo movies, Die Hard, V) have made any extra-terrestrials think twice about communicating with us.

[Doom Shepherd]

Our signals are so weak, and jumbled (hundreds of broadcasters, overlapping information in dozens of languages on a limited range of frequencies in no particular direction), and they've been going on for such a short span of time (barely 100 years) that we're probably not even heard. We're static.

[BTGBullseye]

Could be... The possibilities are many, and our ability to determine which is accurate is almost nonexistent due to politics and greed.

[Alyxx Thorne]

Considering how vast space is, the chance of there being intelligent life out there is pretty high all things considered. But whether those aliens already have mastered space travel we cannot really know for sure.

 

Not to mention that even if aliens were to send signals to us, maybe we just aren't advanced enough to or simply incapable of understanding them.