wieloryby-i-delfiny: Fermi paradox

Evidence: 100 • authority: 72

The Fermi paradox is the seeming inconsistency between the lack of evidence of extraterrestrial civilizations and the apparently high likelihood of their existence. In simple terms, the Fermi paradox asks why, given the vast number of stars and potentially habitable planets in our observable universe, there is no clear evidence of extraterrestrial civilizations. The paradox is named after physicist Enrico Fermi who blurted out the question—remembered by Emil Konopinski as "But where is everybody?"—during lunchtime after the conversation had already moved on to other topics. This happened at Los Alamos in 1950 with colleagues Konopinski, Edward Teller, and Herbert York. The paradox first app…

Evidence: 22 • authority: 88

The Fermi Paradox Is Neither Fermi's Nor a Paradox. The so-called Fermi paradox claims that if technological life existed anywhere else, we would see evidence of its visits to Earth—and since we do not, such life does not exist, or some special explanation is needed. Enrico Fermi, however, never published anything on this topic. On the one occasion he is known to have mentioned it, he asked “Where is everybody?”—apparently suggesting that we do not see extraterrestrials on Earth because interstellar travel may not be feasible, but not suggesting that intelligent extraterrestrial life does not exist or suggesting its absence is paradoxical. The claim “they are not here; therefore they do not…

Evidence: 22 • authority: 80

Has the Lucas Paradox been fully explained?

Evidence: 22 • authority: 72

Enrico Fermi (Italian: [enˈriːko ˈfermi]; 29 September 1901 – 28 November 1954) was an Italian and naturalized-American physicist, renowned for being the creator of the world's first artificial nuclear reactor, Chicago Pile-1, and a member of the Manhattan Project. He won the 1938 Nobel Prize in Physics "for his demonstrations of the existence of new radioactive elements produced by neutron irradiation, and for his related discovery of nuclear reactions brought about by slow neutrons". He has been called the "architect of the nuclear age" and the "architect of the atomic bomb". He was one of very few physicists to excel in both theoretical and experimental physics. With his colleagues, Ferm…