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That's how I have always viewed this. There is no reason why a civilization would blast out EM waves in a 360°*360° sphere at incredibly high energy levels indi
by skgoa 9y ago
That's how I have always viewed this. There is no reason why a civilization would blast out EM waves in a 360°*360° sphere at incredibly high energy levels indiscriminately forever and ever. Instead what we have seen right here on Earth over the last 100 years is that technological progress lets us do ever more with ever less energy.
Unless we are talking about detection from a relatively low range, a range where the square-cube law hasn't reduced the energy we would receive by too much, I would not expect us to ever receive random radio transmissions from other civilizations. Which, ultimately, turns the Fermi paradox on its head: it would be incredibly unlikely for another civilization like ours to develop at exactly the same time as us and so close to us.
- amelius 9y agoI suspect that some thermodynamics law says that if you burn an amount of energy, you inevitably emit IR radiation. More energy means more radiation.
- mannykannot 9y agoYes, but every star emits IR.
- marcosdumay 9y agoNot many things emit a huge amount of IR and nearly nothing more energetic than it. Anything like that would be easily detected with our current tech.
- mannykannot 9y agoGood point - even protostars have distinctive spectra, I think.
- dwaltrip 9y agoThe Fermi paradox isn't only talking about detecting alien civilizations via radio emissions and the like. More likely would be the detection of a civilization that is harvesting a respectable portion of their star's energy. Energy is power, and stars absolutely dwarf any other accessible source. Once basic space construction is mastered (which we are very close to), large scale solar collection seems a likely path that many civilizations would take. A Dyson swarm would probably be the first step, which would be detectable from very large distances.