ximmy
14th July 2015, 02:43 PM
Is It Time to Accept That We're Alone in the Universe? (http://io9.com/is-it-time-to-accept-that-were-alone-in-the-universe-1654960619)
We have yet to discover any signs of aliens, a troubling observation that has led to much speculation. One possible solution to the Great Silence is that nobody's out there. It's a conclusion that sounds impossible to believe, but there may be something to it. Here's why we may be alone in the universe.
Photo: "Lost Souls (http://io9.com/gaze-in-wonder-at-the-best-astronomy-photographs-of-the-1636299867)" by Julie Fletcher (http://www.juliefletcherphotography.com.au/). Ever since physicist Enrico Fermi posed the question — where is everybody? — people have been wondering why we haven't seen any signs of extraterrestrial civilizations. As Fermi pointed out, the math just doesn't add up. Our galaxy, at 13 billion years old, has been around long enough for aliens to explore and colonize it many times over by now (recent work (http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014ApJ...792...26W) shows it should take less than a billion years, perhaps even as little as a few tens of millions of years). Clearly, we should have seen somebody by now.
http://io9.com/is-it-time-to-accept-that-were-alone-in-the-universe-1654960619
Humans May be One of the First Advanced Species in the Universe
Arthur C Clarke (http://www.clarkefoundation.org/) once wrote that a trillion years from now an advanced civilization will look back at us with envy and say "They knew the Universe when it was young."
We may soon discover that intelligent life, indeed, may be in it's "very young" stage in the observable Universe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observable_universe). Its 200 billion galaxies show a clear potential to continue on as we see them today for hundreds of billions of years, if not much longer. Because planets and life are so young in our Universe, says Harvard's Dimitar Sasselov (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimitar_Sasselov), perhaps "the human species are not late comers to the party. We may be among the early ones."
That may explain why we see no evidence of "them" and may go a long way to explaining the famous Fermi Paradox, which asks if there's advanced intelligent life in the Universe (http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2012/08/could-there-be-life-in-the-universe-far-older-ours-planetary-building-blocks-after-big-bang-suggest-.html), where are they? Why haven't we discovered any evidence of their existence http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2012/10/humans-may-be-one-of-the-first-intelligent-species-in-the-universe-weekend-feature.html
Intelligent life in the universe?
Scientific arguments suggest that alien civilizations should be common in our galaxy. If so, where is everybody? That question is known as the Fermi paradox.
By Robert Scherrer (http://theconversation.com/profiles/robert-scherrer-163665), Vanderbilt University (http://theconversation.com/institutions/vanderbilt-university)
We’ve been conditioned by television and movies to accept the likelihood of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. “Of course there’s intelligent life out there; I saw it last week on Star Trek.” We’ve seen it all, from the cute and cuddly ET to the fanged monstrosity of Alien......
One possibility is that intelligent life really is rare. My own personal opinion (and it’s just an opinion) is that life is common, but intelligent life is rare (something many of us suspect based on our own experience). While life developed in the relative blink of an eye after the birth of the solar system, it took billions of years before we smarties showed up on the scene. And remember that “survival of the fittest” doesn’t always mean “survival of the smartest.” While intelligence is certainly a useful survival trait, it seems far from inevitable. If not for an errant asteroid (http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.208.4448.1095), the dinosaurs might still rule the world.
http://earthsky.org/space/intelligent-life-universe-aliens-contact
We have yet to discover any signs of aliens, a troubling observation that has led to much speculation. One possible solution to the Great Silence is that nobody's out there. It's a conclusion that sounds impossible to believe, but there may be something to it. Here's why we may be alone in the universe.
Photo: "Lost Souls (http://io9.com/gaze-in-wonder-at-the-best-astronomy-photographs-of-the-1636299867)" by Julie Fletcher (http://www.juliefletcherphotography.com.au/). Ever since physicist Enrico Fermi posed the question — where is everybody? — people have been wondering why we haven't seen any signs of extraterrestrial civilizations. As Fermi pointed out, the math just doesn't add up. Our galaxy, at 13 billion years old, has been around long enough for aliens to explore and colonize it many times over by now (recent work (http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014ApJ...792...26W) shows it should take less than a billion years, perhaps even as little as a few tens of millions of years). Clearly, we should have seen somebody by now.
http://io9.com/is-it-time-to-accept-that-were-alone-in-the-universe-1654960619
Humans May be One of the First Advanced Species in the Universe
Arthur C Clarke (http://www.clarkefoundation.org/) once wrote that a trillion years from now an advanced civilization will look back at us with envy and say "They knew the Universe when it was young."
We may soon discover that intelligent life, indeed, may be in it's "very young" stage in the observable Universe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observable_universe). Its 200 billion galaxies show a clear potential to continue on as we see them today for hundreds of billions of years, if not much longer. Because planets and life are so young in our Universe, says Harvard's Dimitar Sasselov (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimitar_Sasselov), perhaps "the human species are not late comers to the party. We may be among the early ones."
That may explain why we see no evidence of "them" and may go a long way to explaining the famous Fermi Paradox, which asks if there's advanced intelligent life in the Universe (http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2012/08/could-there-be-life-in-the-universe-far-older-ours-planetary-building-blocks-after-big-bang-suggest-.html), where are they? Why haven't we discovered any evidence of their existence http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2012/10/humans-may-be-one-of-the-first-intelligent-species-in-the-universe-weekend-feature.html
Intelligent life in the universe?
Scientific arguments suggest that alien civilizations should be common in our galaxy. If so, where is everybody? That question is known as the Fermi paradox.
By Robert Scherrer (http://theconversation.com/profiles/robert-scherrer-163665), Vanderbilt University (http://theconversation.com/institutions/vanderbilt-university)
We’ve been conditioned by television and movies to accept the likelihood of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. “Of course there’s intelligent life out there; I saw it last week on Star Trek.” We’ve seen it all, from the cute and cuddly ET to the fanged monstrosity of Alien......
One possibility is that intelligent life really is rare. My own personal opinion (and it’s just an opinion) is that life is common, but intelligent life is rare (something many of us suspect based on our own experience). While life developed in the relative blink of an eye after the birth of the solar system, it took billions of years before we smarties showed up on the scene. And remember that “survival of the fittest” doesn’t always mean “survival of the smartest.” While intelligence is certainly a useful survival trait, it seems far from inevitable. If not for an errant asteroid (http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.208.4448.1095), the dinosaurs might still rule the world.
http://earthsky.org/space/intelligent-life-universe-aliens-contact