THE FERMI PARADOX

THE FERMI PARADOX

One of the most useful thoughts in a discussion of ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence (ETI) is an enigma or paradox first stated in an offhand remark by the nuclear physicist Enrico Fermi in 1950:

The paradox is that due to the extremely large age of the universe, and the relatively small amount of time for humans to have achieved the ability to communicate over interstellar distances, any ETIs would have colonised the galaxy by now and be on our doorstep. This should have occurred despite very large interstellar distances even with speeds only a small fraction of the speed of light. Ron Bracewell believed that even without organic migration, scientific probes should be abundant throughout the galaxy.

Many volumes have been written to explain this paradox, but the simplest explanation (using the Principle of Parsimony / Occam’s Razor) is that in fact there are no intelligent extraterrestrials. Many people, however, disagree with this conclusion. The desire to believe that we are not alone in the Universe is very strong.

REFERENCES

A few of the very many books on this subject:

Steven Webb, "Where is Everybody", Praxis Publishing 2002

Steven J Dick, "Life on Other Worlds", Cambridge 1998

Reinhard Breuer, "Contact with the Stars", WH Freeman 1982 (English edition)

Ronald Bracewell, "The Galactic Club: Intelligent Life in Outer Space", WH Freeman 1975

Ben Bova, Byron Preiss, William Alschuler and Howard Zimmerman (eds), "Are we Alone in the Cosmos?", ibooks 1999