Fermi Revisited

Enrico Fermi, a man of many thoughts -- Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
I haven't written a blog that was really "out there" for a while, so I thought I'd broach a science topic. This one is a little past mixed with future.

Enrico Fermi was a Nobel Prize winning Italian physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project. He was a brilliant quantum theorist; he immigrated to New York in the late 1930's due to the rise of Mussolini and threats against academic freedom. Also his wife was Jewish and they feared for the whole family's safety. In America, he made many great contributions -- Time magazine ranked him as one of the 20 greatest scientists in the 20th century. Tragically, Fermi died at 53 from stomach cancer contracted in experiments with radio active material. One of Fermi's most celebrated contributions is more in the domain of pop culture than hard science. In 1950, Fermi originated "Fermi's Paradox" -- a speculation about other intelligent life in the universe.

FERMI'S PARADOX

Basically it says, "Why aren't they here". Fermi postulates that if intelligent life was a natural, random occurrence anywhere in the universe there surely would've been other planets that preceded us in establishing advanced civilization. These advanced civilizations would surely have developed interstellar space flight; even with current speed/technology limitations it seems we would've seen their spaceships cavorting around us. But we haven't. Why not? Various naysayers have challenged Fermi's assumptions. Maybe they exist in a different "fold" of space-time, maybe they don't look like anything familiar, etc. In spite of others' objections I think Fermi had a point, and I could embellish it with my own speculation.

BLOGSPOTTER'S PARADOX

An advanced civilization (let's say, 1 million years advanced beyond us) would probably not limit itself to interstellar flight. It would probably engage in planetary engineering whereby whole solar systems could be manipulated, even manufactured for the service of intelligent life. We would not only see their space ships flying by, we'd see their artificial, macro-planetary structures through telescopes. Much as putative Martians could infer earth intelligence based on buildings, highways and power lines, we could infer a distant intelligence based on symmetrically aligned planets, non-spheroid objects and other evidence of intelligent tinkering. But ... we don't see any of that. At best, we've seen a couple of planets circling distant stars in what might be a "life belt". But we have no real evidence, no stirrings of life in any of these places.

THEY'RE ALREADY HERE

BlogSpotter will put forth another speculation and this one is really out there. It's more to kick around and abuse than really take as a concrete idea:

The Earth itself is a portal for intelligence (all intelligence) within the universe. Somehow, any creature which achieves a certain level of organization and self-awareness finds itself here. Thus you have creatures that look alien right here among us -- insects in particular. Viruses, bacteria any manner of biotic entities -- end up in Earth's bionosphere. The idea is that planet Earth is somehow a collection point, maybe a sought-after destination for sentient beings. The obstacles of space and time might be overcome by a sci-fi contrivance, maybe a worm hole. I have not a shred of proof for any of this, but it would be the making of a good sci-fi story.

In all seriousness, it looks like Earth is the only planet where life is happening. Maybe it is a gateway, a portal of sorts and we have yet to figure out why. I do think there are other possibilities. Some Fermi critics said, "Maybe you're not looking for the right sign -- your criteria is too limited". There is some merit to that. I can close by saying "Something's afoot" but I have the humility to say I don't know what, how or why. I'm not going to make up a story or concoct a religion to explain any of it, unless there are royalties involved. :-)

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