Where Is Everybody?
“Where is everybody!?”
Enrico Fermi asked that question during lunch back in 1950.
Fermi was a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, one of the fathers of the Atom Bomb, and an expert on quantum mechanics. He was a serious scientist, and he asked serious questions.
“Where is everybody?”
During that lunch in 1950, Fermi was chatting with several other titans of science, when the conversation strayed to recent reports of UFOs (back in the late 40’s and early 50’s, reports of UFO sightings were common). Fermi did some quick calculating, and identified a problem that now bears his name: the Fermi Paradox.
The Fermi Paradox says that there are so many stars in the universe (about 700,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 at latest count) that the place should be teeming with life: the cantina scene in Star Wars should be the norm. If the Earth is a typical planet, and only 1 of every million solar systems could support life, there should be millions of planets out there with intelligent life forms.
“Where is everybody?”
Scientists have now identifed more than 650 planets outside our solar system, and last week announced the discovery of a “Super-earth” that could be habitable. It’s about 36 light years away, which in universal terms is just around the corner. Many scientists now believe that most solar systems probably have planets. Not all of those planets would be in the “Goldilocks Zone” (not too hot, not too cold—just right!), but as Enrico Fermi would tell you, the law of probability dictates that millions of planets should fall into this zone.
Shouldn’t they?
The SETI project has been searching for signs of intelligent life for more than 50 years—scanning the heavens for radio signals or any electronic sign that someone else is out there. Not a peep. Every year SETI researchers explain why they haven’t found anything yet, but now that astronomers are discovering planets all over the place, it makes you wonder.
Maybe the Earth isn’t typical.
That would answer the Fermi Paradox, but it would run counter to conventional wisdom, as well as virtually every science fiction movie ever made.
Just so you don’t feel depressed by the fact that we might be alone, I’ll offer two thoughts:
First, all of the hydrogen in your body was created within the first minute after the Big Bang. Since 70% of your body is composed of water, and water is mainly hydrogen, you are primarily composed of atoms that have existed since the very beginning of time. Perhaps 10 billion years ago the hydrogen in your body was part of another star that died and eventually seeded the solar system you now live in. You’re actually made up of some very ancient stuff. You go all the way back….
Second, consider that the Earth IS the only inhabited planet…for now. Consider that God really did start here, working first with a small, insignificant tribe and eventually expanding the knowledge of his ways and his will until the Earth becomes filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. Then when his Kingdom encompasses this planet, it can be extended to others as his people become ready to assist in the Kingdom, which includes 700,000,000,,000,000,000,000,000 stars, and counting.
petermaize 