26 ms·
Honestly, I've come to disagree with the "paradox". The ability to send physical evidence of other intelligent life is based on a certain speed limit of the un
by unepipe 13y ago
Honestly, I've come to disagree with the "paradox". The ability to send physical evidence of other intelligent life is based on a certain speed limit of the universe. So that doesn't serve as much of a lack of evidence. Habitable planets are too far apart for much interstellar travel to occur readily given that the speed limit is c.
Beyond that, the power of a radio signal is inversely proportional to the square of the distance, and we have things like magnetic eddies at the edge of our heliosphere, so it might just be incredibly improbable for any civilization to have generated the types of signal creation that we would pick up.
In the hypothetical/fantastical, other advanced civilizations might have long distance, superluminal communication technology, but that's not something our civilization could actively intercept.
tldr; I don't buy Fermi's paradox.
- Pxtl 13y agoThe Fermi Paradox doesn't necessarily say that intelligent life doesn't exist. The impossibility of interstellar travel is compatible with the Fermi paradox. The point is that if interstellar colonization is possible, the age of the universe practically requires galaxy-wide colonization as an inevitability. Yes, it would take millions of years to colonize an entire galaxy. Tens of millions, even. Guess what? 10 million years is only 0.1% of the age of the universe. So if one civilization develops interstellar colonization, they experience geometric growth and claim the entire galaxy. So either there is no civilization that has a 0.1% lead on us (which is statistically absurd if Earth-like planets are common) or interstellar colonization is impossible.
- maaku 13y agoIt goes beyond that. Even if interstellar travel is not plausible, you'd still expect to find solar systems completely transformed by intelligent life (think Dyson spheres, although maybe not so extreme). If interstellar travel were merely supremely difficult, then you'd expect regional clusters of stars exhibiting these properties. These would be bizarre astronomical oddities that we'd have likely noticed by now.
- unepipe 13y agoI'd still maintain we simply can't detect it.
- unepipe 13y agoDamn, thank you for the informative response! This makes more sense, I misunderstood the Fermi paradox.