Fermi Paradox: Where is everybody?
For those who don’t know him, he’s Enrico Fermi. A great physicist who was awarded the Nobel Prize and Max Planck Medal, just to name a few. He’s credited to the setting up of the first Nuclear Reactor Chicago Pile-1. Hence the name “Architect of Nuclear Age”
Fermi during one casual lunch meeting in 1950 passed a curious remark which has become a topic of wide discussions and deliberations and observations even now.
He asked, “WHERE IS EVERYBODY?” This deep question gave rise to the FERMI PARADOX: Given that our star and Earth are part of a young planetary system compared to the rest of the universe — and that interstellar travel might be fairly easy to achieve — the theory says that Earth should have been visited by aliens already. But we’ve never observed an extraterrestrial living thing or uncovered any evidence for extinct ones.
Our telescopes and radios gaze deep into the Universe and we have discovered so many exoplanets in Goldilock zones, but never have we ever found any sign of sentient life anywhere.
We have now come up with several hypotheses that might just explain why there hasn’t been any incident of the Contact. Let’s into some of those hypotheses now:
I) The Rare Earth Theory:
This is where religious fanatics will take pride. The theory points out that the actual conditions for life to develop are SO MUCH RARE. Not just that even if there are any living beings anywhere in the Universe, the chance of having the conditions suitable for them to generate Interstellar Intelligence is next to zero.
DRAKE’s Equation gives us the formula to estimate the number of intelligent civilizations.
Needless to say, there are so many moving parts where even a small unbalance in those factors might just nullify the entire process.
II) The Great Filter Theory:
Remember when the Asteroid wiped out the Dinosaurs? Or any one of the 5 mass extinction events?
This theory claims that other Intelligent Alien Species are filtered out some way, rather gets wiped out. The reason can be anything. Any natural disaster or any other orchestrated by their own hands. For all we know, the 6th Extinction Event is already ongoing on our planet and we humans are only accelerating it, given our rash use of the planet’s resources without any major efforts to restore nature's balance. The colossal bombs like the Tsar Bomba et al would just hasten the process.
So maybe other advanced civilizations capable of interstellar contact pushed their own self-destruction button that we on Earth are afraid of. And maybe, we humans are also reaching that Advanced Stage where we will be filtered out too. WHO KNOWS!!
III) Great Silence Theory
Would you ever talk to an insect? At least I wouldn’t. Well, establishing contact with such a dumb organism is just not worth my time.
Maybe, the Intelligent Aliens think of us in the same way. They might be so much up the ladder that even though they have observed us and know about us, we are not just worth their time. Yes we exist for them but Earth and its civilisation does not have any potential resource that they might need or be interested in.
IV) The Early Bird Theory:
Meaning that we are the most advanced species in this part of the universe. Yes the life exist somewhere else too, but they are not yet able to make complex engineering and technology advancement to locate us or contact us.
So the Enrico Fermi of their planet would be sprouting his own FERMI PARADOX and wondering, “Where the hell is everybody?”
V) Different Kind of Life:
Who’s to tell what kind of strange life does exist in this universe? We are Carbon based and so we search for signs of carbon and its related and associated elements as a proof of life. We can manipulate and monitor EM Spectrum to communicate and detect messages.
Maybe the aliens are based on a totally different organic structure. They might be manipulating some other form of energy or any other spectrum to communicate. Maybe they are sending messages to us through some other way that is obvious to them but we don’t even know how to detect them, let alone decode them.
If we didn’t have eyes, would we have been able to know what light or what colors exist? Maybe the senses of Aliens and Humans are just mutually exclusive and hence we are kinda out of tune??
VI) We are Isolated:
Maybe we are in the far away from the main planetary systems and the Galactic Clusters. This might explain why we haven’t been visited or contacted yet. Some parts of our galaxy may be the epicentres of Life, and the civilization in those planetary systems have established contact.
The above picture presents a valid point. Maybe the Universe is teeming with life, but it’s just that the Cosmos is so so so!!!!!!!!!! Huge that we just can’t contact or find any alien life with our current technology base.
So, What are your thoughts about the Fermi Paradox? Just think it out!
