The Fermi Paradox
is a perplexing one, even as exotic-sounding all-caps paradoxes go.
Since the probability that alien life exists out there in some far
corner of the universe is overwhelmingly high, it's a little weird that
we simply haven't bumped into any of it yet.
It's confounding on a conceptual level, for sure, and the subject of
countless stoned dorm room bull sessions. But it's also a legitimate
mathematical conundrum. Assuming other advanced civilizations have built
space-faring satellites and sent them out to explore the universe, some
models suggest that one or more should have crept past and spotted us
by now.
So would that mean that we humans—we glorious, perpetually warring,
resource-extracting, sitcom-producing humans—are the only intelligent
life on in the universe?
Nay, say some astro-braniacs at the University of Edinburgh.
There's a mathematical explanation for all of this. In fact, alien
probes could have already swung through the Milky Way. They might even still be here.
But they'd have to be self-replicating vessels made from space dust
and gas that exploit the gravitational fields of small stars to
slingshot themselves across galaxies. Got that? It's what Voyagers 1 and
2 did to pick up speed, but they notably lacked the ability to make
copies of themselves out of stardust.
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