The Fermi Paradox
The universe is vast and ancient. Where is everybody?
The Fermi paradox is named after the physicist Enrico Fermi, who reportedly asked "Where is everybody?" during a lunch discussion in 1950. The paradox lies in the contradiction between the billions of stars with planets in our galaxy on one hand, and the complete lack of evidence for extraterrestrial intelligence on the other. If life is common, we should have seen signs by now. If it's rare—why? Proposed explanations include that life is extremely rare, that civilizations destroy themselves, or that they exist but avoid contact.
Imagine a message in a bottle. If you toss a single bottle, the chance of a reply is tiny. If you toss billions of bottles over billions of years and still get zero replies—that is the paradox.
The paradox is a productive thought experiment. Every attempt to solve it reveals something about the limits of biology, technology, or civilization.
The Fermi paradox doesn't prove that we are alone. It points out a contradiction in our expectations, not a final conclusion.
Write a sentence about which of the solutions feels most likely to you—and why.
Either life is extremely rare, or it exists and we just aren't detecting it.
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