If the Universe Is Teeming With Aliens...Where Is Everybody?

by Webb, Stephen

• ISBN13: 9780387955018
• ISBN10: 0387955011
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-10-01
• Publisher: Copernicus Books

Summary

During a Los Alamos lunchtime conversation that took place more than 50 years ago, four world-class scientists agreed, given the size and age of the Universe, that advanced extraterrestrial civilizations simply had to exist. The sheer numbers demanded it. But one of the four, the renowned physicist and back-of-the-envelope calculator Enrico Fermi, asked the telling question: If the extraterrestrial life proposition is true, he wondered, "Where IS everybody?" In this lively and thought-provoking book, Stephen Webb presents a detailed discussion of the 50 most cogent and intriguing answers to Fermi's famous question.

Table of Contents

Preface	ix
Figure Credits	xi
Where Is Everybody?	1	(6)
Of Fermi and Paradox	7	(20)
Enrico Fermi	8	(4)
Paradox	12	(5)
The Fermi Paradox	17	(10)
They Are Here	27	(34)
They Are Here and They Call Themselves Hungarians	28	(1)
They Are Here and Are Meddling in Human Affairs	29	(4)
They Were Here and Left Evidence of Their Presence	33	(11)
They Exist and They Are Us --- We Are All Aliens!	44	(2)
The Zoo Scenario	46	(3)
The Interdict Scenario	49	(2)
The Planetarium Hypothesis	51	(4)
God Exists	55	(6)
They Exist But Have Not Yet Communicated	61	(80)
The Stars Are Far Away	62	(10)
They Have Not Had Time to Reach Us	72	(2)
A Percolation Theory Approach	74	(5)
Bracewell-von Neumann Probes	79	(5)
We Are Solar Chauvinists	84	(1)
They Stay at Home . . .	85	(1)
. . . and Surf the Net	86	(2)
They Are Signaling But We Do Not Know How to Listen	88	(6)
They Are Signaling But We Do Not Know at Which Frequency to Listen	94	(8)
Our Search Strategy Is Wrong	102	(3)
The Signal Is Already There in the Data	105	(1)
We Have Not Listened Long Enough	106	(2)
Everyone Is Listening, No One Is Transmitting	108	(3)
Berserkers	111	(2)
They Have No Desire to Communicate	113	(3)
They Develop a Different Mathematics	116	(2)
They Are Calling But We Do Not Recognize the Signal	118	(3)
They Are Somewhere But the Universe Is Stranger Than We Imagine	121	(1)
A Choice of Catastrophes	122	(12)
They Hit the Singularity	134	(3)
Cloudy Skies Are Common	137	(1)
Infinitely Many ETCs Exist But Only One Within Our Particle Horizon: Us	138	(3)
They Do Not Exist	141	(92)
The Universe Is Here for Us	143	(4)
Life Can Have Emerged Only Recently	147	(3)
Planetary Systems Are Rare	150	(3)
We Are the First	153	(3)
Rocky Planets Are Rare	156	(2)
Continuously Habitable Zones Are Narrow	158	(2)
Jupiters Are Rare	160	(4)
Earth Has an Optimal ``Pump of Evolution''	164	(2)
The Galaxy Is a Dangerous Place	166	(6)
A Planetary System Is a Dangerous Place	172	(8)
Earth's System of Plate Tectonics Is Unique	180	(4)
The Moon Is Unique	184	(5)
Life's Genesis Is Rare	189	(17)
The Prokaryote--Eukaryote Transition Is Rare	206	(5)
Toolmaking Species Are Rare	211	(4)
Technological Progress Is Not Inevitable	215	(2)
Intelligence at the Human Level Is Rare	217	(6)
Language Is Unique to Humans	223	(8)
Science Is Not Inevitable	231	(2)
Conclusion	233	(8)
The Fermi Paradox Resolved...	234	(7)
Notes and Further Reading	241	(34)
References	275	(8)
Index	283