The Fermi Paradox. Getting stronger year by year?

Question

The paradox runs like this: 'if life is common in our universe, then there must be a lot of intelligent life forms. Why then, haven't we heard from them?'

It was a good question when first asked and it is getting better with every passing year.. We have been transmitting radio waves for about 80 years. Any races with the know-how to listen within an 80 light year radius (160 light year diameter) will have picked up our signals. If we (intelligent life-forms) are common then we really should have heard something from somewhere. But we haven't. So maybe we are not common. It could even be that we are quite unique, and therefore quite alone. In societies which have had a diet of Star Trek, Star Wars, E.T. etc, how would we cope with such a realisation?

Answer 1

in fairness the fermi paradox is very vague and over simplified it doesn't take in for account that other possible intelligent life could evolved at different rates ie. imagine the human race (if we survive) in a million years getting primitive radio waves from outer space, would it rouse their curiosity? i know we have made giant leaps in technologies in the last hundred years but on the human time scale we are only learning to crawl. Even SETI are begining to think that they should be investigating other wavebands, instead of radio or microwave perhaps lightwaves as a mode of transmitting signals.
considering our own history of advance civilisations invading less advance civilisations such as the Romans invading Britain or worst, the europeans invading the Americas the natives didn't fair out to well. so if other intelligent beings have similars histories they might not be as brave or foolish as us by transmitting there location.

The Milky Way is over 100,000 light-years wide our earliest broadcasts was a 100 years ago so the ratio of coverage is 1/1000. the signal would also be so weak that it would be lost in the cosmic background noise, an alien race would have to be pointing there immense dish build for radio waves at us. the chances of that are very slim.

maybe when most races evolved to the nuclear age they simply wipe themselves out, we came close a few times and we are not out of the woods yet.

i think the Drake equation puts the fermi paradox to rest with the findings of gaseous planets outside our solar system the hunt is now on for the smaller planets like earth. the Drake equation now estimates 1000 similar earthlike planets with advance civilisations in our own galaxy.

but as for the last part of your question: if we where unique? well we be thinking that for the last million years or so. leaving us with no other option but to take on the role of the universe's consicence. perhaps the universe needs life for it to exist.

Answer 2

I'm perfectly content with the idea that we are utterly unique in the entire cosmos. HOWEVER, one point people seem to overlook: just because there is intelligent life doesn't mean they'll ever use radio waves for communication as we do. Modern humans remained technologically primitive for 100,000 years before Marconi came along and made a radio.

It may have been an incredibly unique set of circumstances that led western European civilization to develop certain technologies and theories, leading up to radio. We don't know. Imagine a world without a European civilization of the last millennium.

I think it's entirely possible that the natives of Africa, the Americas, and Asia would never have developed radio communications, not in a million years, not before some meteor catastrophe destroys human life. Far as I know, there is zero evidence to suggest they ever would have.

Answer 3

Well, no not really. Our radio transmissions will have reached them by now, yes, but they'd probably need some time to decipher them, formulate a reply and then send a signal. In reality, we wouldn't really expect to have heard from them yet. It's also important to realise that they may have sent a signal that we haven't picked up yet. SETI are always listening, but there's an awful lot of sky to listen to.

And anyway, that's always supposing that there's life on a planet orbitting a sun relatively near us. I completely believe they are out there somewhere, but given the unimaginable size of the cosmos, they are probably a lot further away than 80 light years.

Answer 4

A 40 light year radius isn't that much distance at all. There are only a few thousand stars within 40 ly of earth. (it's 40 because we're talking round trip time)

The Fermi Paradox basically assumes that intelligent life would develop their technology very rapidly and populate their entire galaxy within a few hundred million years. If that is true, then the chances of there being another civilization in the Milky Way are very slim. (which I tend to agree with)

Anyway, here's an article where someone claims to debunk the Fermi Paradox.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,1993006,00.html

I don't believe their numbers, but if it's true there's hope for us finding other intelligent life yet.

So how would we cope? I guess we should just assume our rightful place as 'owners' of the galaxy if there's no one else around to claim it.

Answer 5

if you think how old our planet is, which is at least 4.5 billions years, intelligent life on our planet has been transmitting radio waves for the past 80 years give or take a few. 80 light years in the grand scheme of things is not a massive distance so i think we need to be around a bit longer before we detect other forms of life.

Answer 6

Well it could be that aliens have surrounded the solar system with a protective shield so that we cannot detect communications from outside. And at the moment perhaps there is intense interest from inter galactic scientists in the development of this new civilisation on planet "earth". And just as we as humans don't like interfering with nature when examining it, the inter galactic scientists won't like to interfere with the evolution of the human race by exposing it to evidence of anything different to what they saw when they were evolving.

Answer 7

We have no idea what forms other life might take, or whether the other life forms just aren't interested in us. Not a clue about this stuff. Maybe we're the 1st intelligent life forms in the universe, but more are coming. It's all probability. Maybe we're the only planet with w/ life. Then that's just a fact, no matter how you "cope" w/it.

Answer 8

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Answer 9

Wow what a good question.

I think alot of people answering have touched upon alot of the important points.

However I would like to submit my answer with a quote from "Contact:" the movie:

"If we are alone in the universe, it seems a awful waste of space"

Answer 10

We can be sure there are millions like us out there,they are spaced widely.
The longevity of technological societies like ours may be very short lived,maybe on the order of less than500 years.
This could explain the lack of contact.