Fermi Paradox

Let’s take a look at another fascinating paradox, the Fermi Paradox.
The paradox is named after the Italian – American Physicist Enrico Fermi. Fermi was Awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on Artificial Radioactivity.
Back to our paradox, the most simple statement that is given for this easy to decipher paradox is,
If intelligent extraterrestrial life is common in the universe, where is everybody ??
Well, when you think about it at first it might not make sense, but that’s the paradox here. Let’s break it down simply :-

1) The Universe is 13.8 Billion Years Old, the number of galaxies is kept at least ~2 trillion galaxies.
2) Out of the 2 trillion galaxies, let’s consider some of the oldest ones. The oldest galaxy discovered was formed just approximately 280 million years after the Big – Bang.
3) So, even if we extend the period to (at least) 1 billion years past the Big Bang, many millions of Galaxies were formed.
4) At least a million galaxies mean billions of planets. Billions of planets to host life.
5) And if life developed on those planets, they would surely be more advanced civilizations than us homo sapiens (modern humans), who have been on the face of Earth for almost 3 lakh years.

1) Rare Earth Hypothesis :-
Imagine one day you wake up to find all people on Earth have vanished, except for you to be the only person living on Earth. Imagine being so lucky. Similarly, this hypothesis talks that life
on the Earth was by fluke. This was our luck that made Earth Habitable to live on. We might perhaps be the only ones which have ever been lucky. Even when we think about all that could have gone wrong to help life on Earth……but no, everything went the right way. Whether it be the magnetic field of Earth which protects us from Sun’s UV Rays to plants which provide us with food.

2) Intelligence Matters :-
What did life start as ?? Life on Earth started as microbials. So, just like that life may be present on some distant planet(s) but they might not have evolved to use advanced tools like us. It seems absurd, but no doubt it is true. The fact that we evolved from not so intelligent apes to creating AI today speaks volumes about our intelligence advancements, and probably life on such planets is not as developed as us.

3) Zoo Hypothesis :-
The zoo would probably be the worst fear of an animal, apart from being poached. Kept in a closed confinement when hundreds to thousands of people everyday come to see you. Now, how does it relate to our topic ?
For the sake of our topic, assume the animals in this case are none other than Earthlings (all living things of Earth). Chilling right ?
This solution to the paradox talks about far fetched, but not at all to be ruled out possibility. Civilizations might be thriving as we read this and many of them are keeping watch over us due to high advancements in technology. And similar to animals we are in a zoo where civilizations are not making contact with us, but are keeping a watch over us.

4) Self – Destruction
Many Civilizations which were more advanced than us were either too clever and created something that backfired and destroyed them, or probably had the worst Natural Disaster for which they were not prepared. This possible solution tells that technologically advanced civilizations might have wiped them off the surface of their planets due to some yet to be found reason. In such a case our galaxy, which is relatively quite young, never had the chance to see such civilizations rise, thrive and get destroyed. Also, Natural Disasters can never be forgotten as they can cause tremendous losses and at their height can possibly extinct even the most intelligent extraterrestrial life.

5) Are We First Ones ??
Surprisingly contradictory to the above possible solution, we could possibly be the first ones out in the whole wide Universe. We could be the ‘Comb Jelly’ of the Universe. Yes, despite being 13.8 Billions Years late we could be the first ones to breathe to think and the first ones to think and explore the World Around Us.

6) Dimensional Limits :-
The best thing probably we humans can imagine are of 3D objects but when thinking about Space we must broaden our minds and take a bigger leap towards 4D Objects. In 4D we think about Time as a Dimension alongside other components of 3D. The broadening of our minds to
an additional new dimension in our search to find other possible races in our Universe would surely help us humans find them faster than ever.