When talking about extraterrestrial intelligence, two ideas often come up. One is the Drake equation, which estimates the number of civilizations in our galaxy that we could detect signals from - perhaps thousands if our estimates are to be believed. Another is the so-called Fermi paradox, according to which we would have to see intelligent aliens if they existed anywhere, because they would inevitably colonize the galaxy - and since we do not see them, then the search for their signals does not make sense. Regardless of which explanation you have chosen for yourself from our numerous articles on the Fermi paradox, it is worth knowing that the Nobel Prize winner in physics never assumed that aliens did not exist.
The Drake Equation is indeed genuine: it was created by astronomer and SETI pioneer Frank Drake. But the Fermi paradox is a myth. It bears the name of the physicist Enrico Fermi - but Fermi never made such a claim.
The Fermi paradox is flawed as it is rooted in a quote from Senator William Proxmire. In 1981, he named the Fermi Paradox the reason for killing NASA's Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) program; the program was resumed at the insistence of Carl Sagan, but was ruined again in 1993 by Senator Richard Brian. Since then, no research in the United States on this topic has attracted public money, even if thousands of new planets have already been discovered around stars similar to our Sun.
Enrico Fermi, Nobel laureate and builder of the first nuclear reactor, has not published a single word on the topic of aliens. We know a thing or two about his views because physicist Eric Jones recorded the opinions of three people at the same table during a dinner at Los Alamos in 1950, which gave rise to Fermi's paradox: Emil Konopinsky, Edward Teller, and Herbert York. Fermi died in 1954.
According to these eyewitnesses, they were discussing a cartoon in which cheerful aliens climbed out of flying saucers carrying trash cans stolen from the streets of New York, when Fermi suddenly asked: "Where is everyone?" Everyone realized that he was referring to the fact that we had never seen any alien spaceships, and the conversation turned to the possibility of interstellar travel. York seems to remember well the events of those days:
"… he came to the conclusion that since no one has visited us, then interstellar travel may not be possible or, if possible, not worth the effort, or technological civilization has not existed long enough for this to happen."
York and Teller seemed to think that Fermi had questioned the possibility of interstellar travel - no one thought he was asking the question of the possible existence of extraterrestrial civilizations. Therefore, the so-called Fermi paradox - which calls into question the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations - does not reflect Fermi's views at all. Fermi's skepticism about interstellar travel is not surprising, since in 1950 a rocket had not yet entered orbit, let alone another planet or star.
But if Fermi did not express this pessimistic idea, where did her legs grow from?
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The phrase “… they are not there; hence, they do not exist”first appeared in print in 1975, when astronomer Michael Hart stated that if intelligent aliens existed, they would inevitably colonize the Milky Way. If they existed everywhere, they would be here too. And since they are not there, Hart concluded that humans probably represent the only intelligent life in our galaxy, so seeking intelligent life elsewhere is "probably a waste of time and money." His argument has been challenged many times - perhaps stellar travel is not feasible, or no one dared to colonize this galaxy, or we were visited a long time ago and the signs of this are buried with dinosaurs - but it has become entrenched in the thinking about alien civilizations.
In 1980, Frank Tipler questioned Hart's arguments with just one obvious question: Where would anyone get the resources to colonize billions of stars? He proposed "a self-replicating universal constructor with an intelligence comparable to that of a human." It is enough to send one of these to the nearest star and set the task to create copies using the materials at hand, and then send them to other stars until the galaxy is filled with such. Tipler suggested that the absence of such gizmos on Earth proves that our intelligence is the only one in the whole universe (and not only in the Milky Way).
Hart and Tipler certainly deserve credit for the idea behind the so-called Fermi paradox. But for many years their idea was confused with Fermi's original question. The confusion apparently began in 1977 when physicist David Stevenson used the phrase "Fermi's paradox" in a paper, citing Hart's idea as a possible answer to Fermi's question. It would be more accurate to dub the Fermi paradox "the Hart-Tipler argument against the existence of technologically advanced aliens", which sounds much less authoritative than the old name, but seems more fair.
As for the paradox, there is none, even in the arguments of Hart and Tipler. There is no logical contradiction between the statement "extraterrestrial life can exist everywhere" and the statement "there is no extraterrestrial life here", since no one knows if travel from star to star is possible in principle.
The Hart-Tipler argument, clothed with the authority of Fermi's name, has led some people to become pessimistic about our chances of discovering extraterrestrial life. But to assume that we shouldn't seek intelligent life just because we don't see it here is foolish. However, everything points to the fact that pessimism is gradually disappearing. Not so long ago, Yuri Milner promised to invest $ 100 million over ten years in the Breakthrough Listen project. But searching for a signal among millions of stars at unknown frequencies may require more resources.
