The Fermi paradox or Fermi's paradox, named after Enrico Fermi, is the apparent contradiction between high estimates of the probability of the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations, such as in the Drake equation, and the lack of evidence for such civilizations.[1] The basic points of the argument, made by physicists Enrico Fermi (1901–1954) and Michael H. Hart (born 1932), are:
There are billions of stars in the galaxy that are similar to the Sun [2][3] including many billions of years older than Earth.[4][5]
With high probability, some of these stars will have Earth-like planets,[6][7] and if the Earth is typical, some might develop intelligent life.
Some of these civilizations might develop interstellar travel, a step the Earth is investigating now.
Even at the slow pace of currently envisioned interstellar travel, the Milky Way galaxy could be completely traversed in about a million years.[8]
Sourcehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_Creative_Commons_Attribution-ShareAlike_3.0_Unported_LicenseFermi's basic question of 'Where are they', was made during lunch with several other scientists. The implications of the question were fairly obvious to those who heard them with out his needing to break down the meaning of the question. Every one understood he was talking about why the Earth doesn't have recorded proof, known to the public, of some other galactic civilization in existence. The basics were, why haven't we been visited and why don't we know about it.
The basics behind the statement are that if a civilization developed a star drive of some sort, even a generation ship and colonized a new planet, and if that planet as well as the host planet that launched the ship then created another when they had the capabilities, within a million years or so of geometric progression, the entire Milky Way galaxy should be populated. Given that at some point we should have had a knock on the door so to say.
Yet everything we've done, gives no clue that we are not alone as far as an intelligence goes. We've tried radio searches, we've tried sending a message through both a wandering interstellar space craft (which admittedly won't be seen by other intelligences even if they exists for thousands of years), we've tried beaming a signal at what we believe to be the most likely candidates for life, we've listened to the galactic bands, but nothing we've tried has given forth results that indicate anything other than we are alone. So where are they?
We can go wild in speculation of 'what ifs' but the real thing comes down to we only know one kind of life that is proven to exist; ours. If there are other kinds of life, such as silicon based, rather than carbon based, it is speculation, no more, no less, with no proof of any kind such can/does happen. This is why NASA and all the other space agencies look for life as we know it. It's the one proven way.
Sometimes I like to speculate on the why's of this. For instance I believe there is a window if such another civilization exists, where contact is possible. Outside that window, there is no chance to recognize an alien signal as being from an intelligence. The most obvious example of this is a technological progression. You can't send a radio signal to a caveman and expect an answer. The caveman is simply not equipped to receive much less answer.
In the same way an advanced civilization wouldn't be recognized either as intelligent communications. In the era of the late 1800's early 1900's we are communicating with ships by Marconi's morse code with the new technology of wireless communications. The stronger the broadcast signal, the further you could reach out to sea to contact a ship. Those made sure that we had started an ever expanding globe of radio signals leaving this planet. Then came radio, where voices could be heard and code was no longer necessary. This followed in fairly rapid progression with TV, where not only were voices heard but images as well. Each time signals were ever more powerful as well as on different bands of the spectrum. Each advance complicated the signal but still appearing to the watchful as from an intelligent source.
Then came satellite bounces from earth to satellite back to earth. Only now the signals are less strong and they are being redirected back inwards, not outwards. Those signals being directed towards the satellite are now narrow band and unless you just happen to be in the right place, with super sensitive equipment, you're not going to receive them, if you were our alien equivalent looking for signs of intelligence. But it doesn't stop here.
Along comes pay for view and the broadcast companies need some way to keep people who don't pay from watching. So encryption comes along to answer that and suddenly your signal no longer makes so much sense. This progression keeps happening. It gets faster and faster to the changes as time goes along. Next thing you have is encoded signals where two signals are buried in one transmission. Think of it as two different stations on the same broadcast. One polarized differently than the other. Now we are looking at quantum entanglement. The idea that if two electrons are entangled, that time is not a factor in telling the difference in states. It's the basis for the next instantaneous communications with distant objects and theoretically should work should we have a colony on a different planet that there would be no time lag at all in communications. While the technology is still in it's infancy today, that's our future. How would you intercept this so called signal to tell it was communications?
This is my point on a window where communications are possible to be detected of an alien race. You try outside that window and you get nothing. One side or the other is incapable of recognizing the signal as being from intelligence.
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