So Fermi, who died in ‘54, was not here to defend his name when someone misappropriated it in to make the Fermi Paradox in ‘75.
At least the guy who wrote this article is setting the records straight.
i would give me opinion on the mathematical odds that there is life on other planets and a percentage of those life forms can travel through the universe.
But I still dont know how to work the @#$@#$ing remote.
good luck.
Defund Planned Parenthood - fund SETI!
I will quote from Michael Crichton on the Drake equation, “The problem, of course, is that none of the terms can be known and most cannot even be estimated. The only to work the equation is to fill it in with guesses. And guesses - just so we’re clear - are merely expressions of prejudice.”
the question isn’t whether or not there is life elsewhere in the universe. since the universe is so vast, there MUST be life elsewhere.
stepping passed that, we get to the question of how -rare- life really is out there. well... since we’ve found evidence of microbial life on mars... MARS!! ... literally right next door... life goes from epicly rare to slightly above common.
that alone is stunning.
now the real question: how much life is out there that could make the trip to see us.
you see, for that to happen, not only would life have to evolve, it would have to be intelligent enough and lucky enough to make it to space travel. from there, it would have to have the motivation to look around. this significantly cuts down on the number of possibly lifeforms that could stop by...
now the big one: are any of these lifeforms close enough to stop by... and do they exist NOW.
you see, time in the universe is VAST. our existence on the universal timeline is a blip ... and our ability to travel to the stars or even comprehend beings from another planet... is the barest glow on the leading edge of that blip.
to have that sliver of time intersect with the sliver of time from another local, advanced race is VERY low on the probability scale.
BUT... that doesn’t mean we can’t be visited by something generated by their society, thousands or millions of years after that race died out.
and what would that be? would could exist beyond the race that created it?
artificial intelligence.
once a race creates an AI and that AI gets off planet, the odds of it dying drop radically ... since its existence isn’t nearly as fragile as our own.
and such an intelligence, wandering the universe for millions of years, could get lonely, if it has such a concept. it might enjoy passing itself off as human just to interact, as it could definitely assume any form it wishes.
and yes... to us, it would be almost god like
hey, Art Bell’s off the air again... someone has to don the cap-of-tin in the wee hours ;)
I wonder if this the last time a Democrat actually worked to cut a government program.
has anyone noticed that if the Fermi Paradox was not postulated by Fermi, this, in itself, is a paradox, and that this may in fact be the true “Fermi Paradox’, a second order derivative paradox, which is somewhat rare in science.
“Fermi’s skepticism about interstellar travel is not surprising, because in 1950 rockets had not yet reached orbit, much less another planet or star.”
I don’t think Enrico Fermi was that stupid, quite the contrary.
Our radio transmissions might appear to aliens as some indian smoke signals would appear to an F-16 pilot passing overhead.
I’m a writer of science fiction stories, but I don’t believe there’s any other life out there. The universe is just too big, too hostile; the speed limits too low.
And it’s flying apart as I write this.
The universe is an infinitely cold dark dead place with billions of swirling balls of hydrogen plasma sprinkled around for our nighttime amusement. Thank you God.
This is not a bad thing. If something is worth doing it is worth the use of non government resources.
Tim Taylor is still searching for the pair of ducks.
This may be the first SA article I’ve seen in years which didn’t somehow graft in mention of human caused global warming, err I mean climate change. I halted a decades long subscription to the magazine over that issue. As far as the feasibility of interstellar travel being Fermi’s point and not the existence of other civilizations, that does make sense. Fermi had a mind which could come close to grasping how physically vast space truly is, the limits the physics of this universe place on physical velocity, and the energy that would be required to bend space time to our will.
The Drake Equation is ridiculous and doesn’t contain use any real facts.
Maybe they are all on the Andromeda Galaxy and are on their way here.
IF SETI is sooooo IMPORTANT, put it out on Kickstarter and let the general public fund it voluntarily.
I’m sure all those rich Hollywood Scientologists, with their inquiring minds, would like to “call home” and will cough up loads of cash!
Whether there is life in another place in the 3-dimensional universe, only God knows.......C.S. Lewis in his space Trilogy surmised that there could be.
BUT, it is certain that there is life in another dimension - the spiritual one......the one in which God lives and who calls Himself “the God of the living....” Jesus told the woman at the well that “God is spirit.....”, not flesh and blood.
His Son, Jesus Christ, had been in that dimension for all eternity - BUT about 2000 years ago entered this dimension and took on flesh and blood, and forever now retains His physical body.
SciFi nuts love the thought of other dimensions, and indeed, there may be 5 or more.
But the 4th dimension - the spiritual one - was clearly spoken of and revealed by the Lord Jesus Christ, and written about much by the apostles John and Paul...........” . . . we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.” II Corin. 4:18. or 2 Corin. 4:18 - whichever one prefers. ;-)
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