From: Spudboy100@aol.com
Date: Fri Apr 25 2003 - 07:35:11 MDT
http://www.newscientist.com/opinion/opbooks.jsp?id=ns23926
WHY have we seen no sign of extraterrestrial civilisations? If they have
arisen elsewhere in the Milky Way, they are likely to be millions or even
billions of years ahead of us, which should have given them plenty of time to
spread to every corner of the Galaxy - including our corner.
In his highly entertaining and thought-provoking book, Where is Everybody,
Stephen Webb sets out a host of possible solutions to the so-called Fermi
paradox, famously posed by the nuclear physicist Enrico Fermi. He could have
given us 500 but he settled for just 50.
His answers? The ET signal has already arrived but is hopelessly lost in the
data. ETs are here and they call themselves Hungarians (probably a long-shot,
that one). We are in a virtual-reality "planetarium" engineered to present us
with the illusion that the Universe is devoid of intelligent life. Or ETs are
us, a logical consequence of the idea that our planet was "seeded" by
primitive life from space. It's a game we can all play, which is half the
fun.
Webb sadly confesses that the only solution that makes sense to him is that
we really are alone. Personally, I prefer Arthur C. Clarke's more upbeat
explanation: "I'm sure the Universe is full of intelligent life - it's just
been too intelligent to come here
Marcus Chown
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