The question of why aliens remain unknown to man despite the billions of galaxies out there is the center of the Fermi Paradox. With three trillion stars and trillions of livable planets, why have we not encountered aliens or showed signs of close interactions?
The Fermi Paradox is proposition pertaining to questions about the absurdity and elusiveness of information regarding aliens and their existence. The paradox points out that life from surrounding galaxies may have existed for billions of years, yet no clear incident had been reported about alien encounters. Created by Italian physicist Enrico Fermi in 1950, the Fermi Paradox continues to boggle the minds of scientists over time. He proposed that a barricade-like force, coined as the "Great Filter" is preventing the development of intelligent, technologically-advanced and self-vigilant civilizations that are capable of colonizing space territories.
The video from YouTube channel Kurz Gesagt outlines the possible reasons why alien contact remains nonexistent. Shown is the gist of the video presentation of the Fermi Paradox II.
The first and probably the most significant factor mentioned is the fact that the entire universe is so vast that it is quite impossible for us to travel through space and reach out to any of the aliens, if there really are. Spaceship and gears took years to build, but it won't compare to the light years it will take for us to travel galaxies. The universe dates back way, way back. On Earth alone, life was first established 3.6 billion years ago, human intelligence for 250,000 years ago and a century to build communication technologies.
Second factor made is the dated communication techniques that have been developed over the years.
"Imagine sitting in a house with a Morse code transmitter, you'd keep sending messages but nobody would answer, and you would feel pretty lonely," said the narrator. "Maybe we're still undetectable for intelligent species."
The third point presented was the Matrioshka Brain, which refers to the massive structure based on the Dyson sphere that has the ability to generate energy for computers using stars. One use of this theory is to upload human memory and thinking in a space platform.
"All these solutions to the Fermi Paradox have one problem," says the narrator. "We don't know where the borders of technology are. We could be close to the limit or nowhere near it."
Ultimately, all we can do as mere humans is to accept that we do not know anything. In the end, the narrator states that although we are embryos in the face of a space galactic period, all that is left to do is to continue the search, advance the human civilization and possibly colonize other worlds.
The first version of the Fermi Paradox is presented in this video:
Photo: John Fowler | Flickr
