The Fermi Paradox, Part 2

In my first post on the Fermi Paradox, I went over the basics, which I expect most readers are familiar with anyway. It can be summed up simply (perhaps over-simply) as:

• Our galaxy is plenty old enough for at least one advanced civilization to have completely colonized it by now, even at speeds much slower than the speed of light.
• "Completely colonized" should include our solar system.
• No one can make a persuasive case that this has happened.

 So, the simple version is: they should be be here, but they aren't. This presents us with a paradox.

I'd bet that some readers already have a few objections to the above, and over the next few posts we will take this apart and see where reasonable doubt lies.  This is the real value of the paradox: it serves as a sharp mental lens that forces us to question our assumptions. It should make us more humble about our understanding of how the universe works, and spur us into deeper research. The great unknown is great indeed, so let's go explore. The forward path for the human adventure could not be clearer, and one of the best signposts is the Fermi Paradox.

Sadly, this is not the only effect it has. Too many seize on the Fermi Paradox to jump to Grand Conclusions not in evidence. I promise not to do that. Instead, we will look for better questions than "where is everybody?" I haven't found one yet, but I see hope.

Where I am on the Drake Equation at the end of 2013

I'm sure you are all familiar with the Drake Equation. It's straightforward: SETI scientist Frank Drake devised it as a way to estimate the number of alien civilizations in our galaxy that we might be able to detect. It's only intended to be a rough guide, and has survived the last 50 odd years because it serves as a good way to divvy up the questions we will need to resolve to answer the bigger question, "Are we alone"?

There are many fine explanations of the terms of the Drake Equation easily available to you, so I won't repeat them. Here are few:

• Seth Shostak's book Confessions of an Alien Hunter, Chapter 3, explaining each term in detail.
• This page from the SETI Institute
• This video by Carl Sagan

This is how the equation is usually written:

N = R* • f_p • n_e • f_l • f_i • f_c • L

As we move from left to right across the equation, the terms become less and less well known and harder to estimate, even when we know more. The only thing we're sure of with some of the terms is that none of them are zero, since we are here.

In the last few years, there has been progress. We have gone from knowing just the first term with any kind of accuracy ( a factor of 2 or so), to having solid estimates of the first three terms, and we can now begin to conceive of a research program that would give us an estimate of the fourth term.

Remember, we are only interested in rough numbers here: we just want to know, is N a lot or a little?

So, for 2013, I think we are here:

Why Search?

In an earlier post, I argued that the current SETI program is not a silly waste of time if we want to search for ET and answer the question of whether we are alone, and I stand by that.  At the time I wrote that post, I didn't think that anyone would be interested in the why question. Of course we want to search, the only question is how, isn't it?  Maybe not for everyone.

All you have to do is to look at people like Frank Drake, Jill Tarter and Seth Shostak, who have

SETI Pioneer Frank Drake

devoted most of the careers to this topic, and you will realize that is is emotionally involving at a personal level, and not just "scientifically interesting".  It isn't purely a matter of scientific curiosity, and certainly not of ambitious scientific careering. 

Well, of course, the small number of people who study a topic are interested in it, and probably find it fascinating in some way.  What about everyone else?

So here is a question to ask yourself: if it was announced tomorrow that science knew for certain that there was another intelligent civilization in this galaxy, what would change for you?  Most adults are highly accomplished at keeping their own little worlds unperturbed.  Would the announcement of a distant ET civilization affect any major decisions you might make about your own life - your job, relationships, where you live, how many children you have, or any religious beliefs you might have?  Probably not you, but the younger generation, yes, because adolescents have left behind the comforts of childhood, and have yet to build their little worlds.  They don't mind being perturbed, and will often volunteer do some perturbing.  With announcement that we know about ET, their worlds just got much, much bigger.

Now it's not just Earthlings alone in the vast, cold universe anymore.  There are the others, possibly many others.  The universe no longer belongs solely to the astronomers, but is now alive, and belongs to everyone.

The Jaws of Darkness

"Or, if there were a sympathy in choice,
War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it,
Making it momentary as a sound,
Swift as a shadow, short as any dream,
Brief as the lightning in the collied night,
That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth;
And ere a man hath power to say "Behold!"
The jaws of darkness do devour it up:
So quick bright things come to confusion."
--Lysander from Act 1, scene 1, 141–149, "A Midsummer Night's Dream" 

This is that talk we need to have on the last term in the Drake Equation, mostly commonly denoted as "L". I'd like it to be more of a conversation than a soliloquy, so please share your thoughts here, or come on over to the G+ Community and let me have an earful. Better yet, let's talk in real time, and record our conversation for the Wow! Signal Podcast.

I would also like to point out that Seth Shostak has written thoughtfully about "L" in this document (go to page 399), and covers many of the key points well. Perhaps you should read that first. I'll wait.

A couple of key interviews

Just a short note please check out a couple of key interviews relevant to this blog: Geoffrey Landis and David Grinspoon. 

Also, if you are interested in SETI (of course you are), please read this.

The Fermi Paradox - Part 1

This post is intended for those unfamiliar with the Fermi paradox. If you've already read a thing or two about it, I invite you to skip this one and wait until Part 2.

This is a companion post to Episode 2 of the Wow! Signal Podcast.  You can go over there and get the audio version with cool music.

For the purpose of this post, we are going to take as a given the null hypothesis about alien visitors to Earth - that this has never happened.  This is what the controversial astrophysicist Michael Hart called Fact A.

It turns out that accepting Fact A presents an interesting dilemma; first recognized by the distinguished physicist Enrico Fermi in 1950.  The unsolved problem is, that we would expect alien visitors on our planet, given a set of very reasonable assumptions. It’s really not such an extraordinary claim, after all. Assuming Fact A, this presents us with a puzzle. Either one or more assumptions have to go, or something really weird is going on.

Douglas Adams once famously wrote:

"Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space."

But space is also hugely old The entire history of Homo Sapiens is only about one twenty-thousandth the age of the Earth, and the age of the Earth is less than a third the age of the universe. What would seem to be likely is that at least local to our galaxy, time eventually overwhelms space with respect to galactic colonization.