Extraterrestrials by Wade Roush

Author:Wade Roush [Roush, Wade]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: SETI; Fermi; Paradox; UFO; Alien; Flying Saucer; Alien artifacts; the strong anthropic principle; the planetarium hypothesis; the simulation hypothesis; the delta-t argument; black holes; Carl Sagan; Oumuamua
Publisher: The MIT Press
Published: 2020-03-13T00:00:00+00:00

4

Answering Fermi

So, where is everybody? What Michael Hart called “Fact A,” the apparent absence of extraterrestrials on our world or any nearby world, has not budged. Thanks to astrobiologists, exoplanet hunters, and SETI researchers, we have much more data to think with than Drake and the other members of the Order of the Dolphin had back in 1961—and a heck of a lot more than Fermi had in 1950. But that wealth of data hasn’t made the original problem disappear. In many ways, the Fermi Paradox has only grown more acute.

To see why, let’s return briefly to the original Drake Equation, which gives us a quick-and-dirty way to sort the known knowns from the known unknowns and see where the biggest gaps remain. (That’s all the equation was ever meant to do. Some scholars have been heaping criticism on it lately, saying it’s shallow and unscientific,1 but given its usefulness as a roadmap and an explanatory tool over nearly six decades, that criticism feels a little unfair.) Here it is again:

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.