(ORDO NEWS) — A pair of researchers from the Carnegie Institute of Science and the California Institute of Technology have developed a possible solution to the Fermi paradox.
In an article published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface, Michael Wong and Stuart Bartlett suggest that the reason we haven’t been visited by aliens from other planets is because of super-linear scaling, which results in a singularity.
A few years ago, physicist Enrico Fermi asked a colleague why aliens from outer space hadn’t visited Earth. They noted that due to the vast size of the universe, it is unlikely that there could be intelligent life on Earth alone. So Fermi asked, “Where are they?” In their new work, the researchers tried to unravel this mystery.
They started by studying how human civilizations have risen and fallen throughout history. Further, they studied the history of large cities, and there they noticed that most grew up to a certain point, and then collapsed.
They developed a hypothesis according to which such a rise and fall of alien space civilizations could lead to one of two scenarios. In the first case, the civilization realizes that it is getting too big and stops traveling or colonizing other worlds.
Secondly, they do not recognize their stupidity and therefore fail. From our point of view, both scenarios would have the same result – the aliens would not visit us and would not even show evidence of their existence. The distance from them to us is too great.
The researchers describe their hypothesis as super-linear scaling, where civilization grows exponentially, colonizing other worlds until they become unable to sustain the energy demands of their constant invasion.
Eventually, if they take no action, they will reach the Singularity, the point of no return where they cannot save their civilization from collapse. Scientists note that if it were not for the huge distances, we would easily find signs of an alien civilization on the verge of collapse, because it would radiate a huge amount of energy.
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