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Fermi’s Paradox
Enrico Fermi (1901–1954) was a 20th century Italian physicist.
As well as being a member of the Manhattan project, he created the world’s 1st artificial nuclear reaction, the Chicago Pile-1.
He also had a paradox named after him.
What does the paradox say?
Merely this:
If there is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, why don’t we know about it?
Here are some pertinent statements about the cosmos:
The universe is about 13.8 billion years old, in Earth time.
Intelligent life should have been able to develop in that amount of time.
Many scientists believe life should be common. Our galaxy, the Milky Way, contains about 100B (billion) stars. There are probably at least 2T (that’s trillion) such galaxies extant.
The mind boggles.
Despite extensive human search, including SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), no definitive sign of advanced civilizations has been found.
Various theories, including the Great Filter (which says there may be a significant barrier…
