Extraterrestrials
By Wade Roush
The Fermi paradox asks why we haven’t any evidence of extraterrestrial life when it seems likely that we’re not alone in the universe. Or, as the physicist Enrico Fermi is reported to have blurted out to a group of fellow scientists at Los Alamos: “Where is everybody?”
Assigning a number to just how likely it is that we have company is the work of the Drake equation, but both the Fermi paradox and Drake equation are just conversation starters. Given that we don’t have any evidence to work with, and that we can’t even be sure what sort of evidence we should be looking for, speculation is free to get highly creative and imaginative. Fertile ground for science and science fiction then.
Wade Roush keep the discussion on the level while at the same time communicating a sense of wonder when considering how Fermi’s question and Drake’s equation may be solved. My own sense of what’s going on is that the distances involved are so great that we might as well be alone, and any message we get is likely to only be a dead letter. But just imagine!