As the legend goes, in 1950 physicist Enrico Fermi and several other physicists at Los Alamos National Laboratory were on lunch break from researching how to smoosh atoms together to make an earth shattering kaboom. They were discussing evidence for faster-than-light travel, flying saucers, and little green men stealing garbage cans. Naturally. Conversation eventually took a turn for the more terrestrial.
Somewhat out of nowhere, Fermi blurted out, “where is everybody?” His lunch companions knew he was referring to those long absent little green men.
Today’s Moment of Science… The myth, the questions, and the fuckery of the Fermi Paradox.
Scientists, philosophers, and werewolf erotica enthusiasts alike have felt small looking up at a seemingly infinite night sky, and toyed around with the idea that we’re not alone in this universe. Pioneering Russian rocket scientist and mystical philosopher Konstantin Tsiolkovsky penned the first known writing on the subject. In his work “The planets are inhabited by living beings,” he reasoned that with a “million billion suns,” some must have planets like ours, some of which must have intelligent life. Given similar ingredients to what makes life possible in every environment here, a small fraction of planets must have baked a batch of sentient fucking gasbags.
Tsiolkovsky’s work has been described as an unpublished manuscript written in 1933, so it’s unclear when it became widely available. He probably wasn’t the first to ponder the subject. Seventeen years later over that lunch with colleagues, Fermi wouldn’t be the last.
The first time the phrase ‘Fermi’s paradox’ appeared was in response to astrophysicist Michael Hart’s 1975 paper “Explanation for Absence of Extraterrestrials on Earth.” Hart concluded that if they existed, they would be here. No aliens here? No fucking aliens, period. Alternative explanations were shot down with airtight logic of, only slight paraphrase, “but smartypants aliens would be here by now, duh.” Hart figured we were the only, or first, intelligent life in the universe.
This assumes that if there’s intelligent life out there, it’s absolutely inevitable for them to sort out interstellar travel, colonize other worlds, and eventually show up here for a bit part in a Will Smith movie. Why? That’s what we’d do.
Fermi didn’t see the two ideas- intelligent life in the universe and them leaving us the fuck alone- as contradictory.
The physicist’s question has gotten twisted with time. His lunch companions that day thought he was considering if interstellar travel was possible, not if aliens existed. Even if Fermi thought the universe was teeming with life, he figured advanced species weren’t prioritizing probing our bootyholes with their resources. Perhaps aliens never figured out the faster-than-light mischief. Or they did, but stayed home because their closest planet for a test run sucked for colonization. You know, like Mars for us (I don’t care what a billionaire on twitter told you, there’s no oxygen and Matt Damon’s shit potatoes won’t save you).
It wasn’t really Fermi’s to begin with, and it’s a stretch to call it a paradox. It was, at best, Hart’s Conundrum.
Without evidence, there have been occasional attempts to throw spaghetti against the backdrop of the universe and see what sticks.
In 1961, Frank Drake put together an equation to estimate how many civilizations might be out there to exchange interstellar ‘howdy’s’ with. Originally intended more as a discussion tool, it reveals our limitations in determining how many interstellar neighbors are spinning past us. Drake takes into account variables that we have reasonable estimates for. However, most of the equation involves an unreasonable degree of guesswork for astrophysics.
The fraction of planets which could potentially support life and go on to develop life is one factor. Another variable is the fraction of planets that support life and go on to develop intelligent life. Let’s look at the only example we have.
As soon as our planet ceased to be a molten ball of fuck, the primordial ooze seasoned up a batch of the first Earthlings. In every kind of environment, through five major extinction events, that first spark of life was enough for it to, ah, find a way.
(I hear you groaning and I accept it).
So if those first organisms were shat into existence on a grand cosmic whoopsie, and this universe is replete with the same stuff we’ve got here, some planet has to have grown their own Australia, right?
Eh.
Even though it happened here when continents hadn’t yet formed, we don’t know how rare it is when life spontaneously shows up from non-living matter. This is called abiogenesis, and it’s only happened here that one time that we know of. Twice if you look in the back of my fridge, but please goddamn don’t. Astrobiologists are looking for indicative gas signatures on other planets, but there’s no firm evidence it’s happened anywhere else yet.
That doesn’t mean it’s not out there. But the search has offered no clarity as to how common it is for life to spring up even when the conditions are right.
As for developing intelligent life, the Earth is approximately 4.55 billion years old. It took approximately 4.55 billion years for something we consider an advanced civilization to evolve, and that was after nearly three billion years of single celled organisms having the run of the place. It’s also not like humans run one advanced civilization and there’s another run by rather clever horses. We’re the only ones making rockets and Windex and vibrators.
A lot of ideas have been proposed as solutions to Fermi’s Paradox, and in a wide open sea of data from the universe waiting to be collected and understood, it’s a question worth wondering about. There are a plenty of fascinating ideas as to why we haven’t been visited- or why we might never be- and I hope you’ll discuss your favorite in the comments.
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky was born in 1857 and dreamed of space travel. He thought little green men would want to take to the cosmos as well, but figured they were leaving us alone until we’d advanced a bit more. When humanity was ready, he thought we’d bring a “wonderful new stream of life” to the universe, saying “the planet is the cradle of intelligence, but it is impossible to live forever in the cradle.”
This has been your Moment of Science, looking around my own backyard.
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So, aliens.
Today’s Moment of Science… Fermi’s Paradox, part 2
Last week we discussed the Fermi Paradox (link in comments). TL;DR- in a 13.8 billion year old universe that spans 93 billion light years with seemingly infinite planets that must have the same stuff we do to DIY up a batch of life, shouldn’t we have bumped tentacles-first into an alien or two by now?
Well-known attempts to explain this involve a smidge of science, a dab of educated guessing, and a heap of conjecture. They also often rely on one of two major assumptions: our planet is mundane, or our planet is fantastically unique.
On the ‘unique’ end is the book “Rare Earth: Why Complex Life Is Uncommon in the Universe.” The hypothesis posits that we’re a super fucking special celestial petri dish. Improbably remarkable circumstances enabled evolution here, so maybe it’s just categorically unlikely elsewhere. While it makes sense to us that life needs at least a reasonable facsimile of Earth’s stable orbit, temperature range, gravity, and special sauce of molecules, this hypothesis stakes out darker territory. Plate tectonics, the order of the planets in the solar system, our magnetosphere, the Moon, that goddamn asteroid that came for the dinosaurs? In this story, all essential parts in the evolution of intelligent life.
The Rare Earth hypothesis is a glutton for criticism, relying heavily on circular reasoning in assuming every fucking pebble was key to drumming up civilization. Besides, if I’m going to buy into an unproven hypothesis that my life is what it is because of the position of Jupiter, I’ll check my horoscope.
Then there’s the ‘Great Filter’ hypothesis, which suggests that even if life keeps popping up everywhere, surviving all the steps for civilization to get off the ground is exponentially trickier. It might be that developing unicellular life is common but multicellular life, not so much. Or complex life exists in every galaxy but critters with tools and languages? That’s the rarity.
As a species that’s busy shooting hunks of metal into the far reaches of space, it’s nice to consider that we’ve passed through every last filter. Maybe we’ll be the first ones to manage interstellar travel.
Then there’s the possibility that previous advanced civilizations experienced cataclysmic events at the hands of their own technology. Per Great Filter hypothesis, they’d be here by now if they ever existed, or they simply don’t exist anymore.
Maybe the reason we haven’t met the aliens yet is because that’s the last thing we’ll ever do.
The Dark Forest hypothesis suggests that there are two kinds of civilizations: quiet ones, and extinct ones. Though variations on the notion were tossed around in earlier works, Liu Cixin’s 2008 novel The Dark Forest gave name to the concept. It’s taken as a given that other advanced species are out there exploring the cosmos, but they operate under a bit of a ‘shoot first apologize never’ policy. First goal of any species is to survive, and it’s a safe bet that any species capable of developing interstellar travel is also capable of destroying whatever’s boldly getting in their way.
So everyone’s staying quiet out there, hoping not to run into anyone else, because they wouldn’t want to have to shoot first. But they will.
It’s hard to accept that this is all just empty space for us to broadcast reruns of The Bachelor until the heat death of the universe. Are we the first civilization, the last, or too far away from anyone else to ever know the difference? Is it more reassuring or terrifying to think that the ever growing ‘great silence’ is evidence enough that we’re simply alone?
This has been your Moment of Science, powering down engines and slipping out for a stroll in our dark forest.
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Let’s look at things from a basic field of physics side, electronics.
Oh, we’re ever so noisy of a civilization, slowly growing quieter as our electronics become more efficient, blather, blather, blather.
Realityland calling, will you accept the call?
Let’s say we go blazing with everything we’ve got, full power transmitting away, hell make it coherent energy with massive effort.
Now, let’s put Marvin the Martianette out at Alpha Centuri. We have trouble seeing anything planet sized even that close to us, the tiny red dwarf is a lot overwhelming for our sensors to see dim things like planets easily and we’re looking for tiny rubble, like oh, earth size.
Blazing away with all we’ve got, right up close to our sun. Basically, one’s then confronted with trying to hear a gnat’s buzzing in a large stadium full of fans during a popular ball game.
Basically, making pissing on a volcano to cool the lava off sound far more likely by orders of magnitude.
Or, I’ve got this cute AAA cell powered pocket flashlight, you’re trying to see that right next to Tsar Bomba’s fireball.
Totally easy! Yep, now excuse me while I go to the Challenger Deep to cool off…