Poul Anderson’s Answer to Fermi

Centauri-Dreams ^ | 8/30/10 | Paul Gilster

[LibWhacker]

Oh, what the heck? I can't resist posting this. There are just too many Freepers who either like scifi, or Poul Anderson, or Fermi's question, or physics, or cosmology, or astronomy, or space, or interstellar travel, or Von Neumann probes, or SETI.

Then there are the Freepers who just like to drop in to say, "Neener, neener, neener, scientists are a bunch of pseudo-intellectuals poopy heads who don't know nothin'." You can always count on them.

So if I don't get more than four replies, I'll be really surprised.

[SERKIT]

If you study cosmology and cosmetology, do you end up with stars in your eyes?

[mdmathis6]

neener neener!

(sorry couldn’t resit) ;)

[mdmathis6]

neener neener!

(sorry couldn’t resist) ;)

[Flag_This]

I read several of his books when I was a kid. I loved “Three Hearts and Three Lions,” “The High Crusade,” and several of the Flandry series. I’m sure I read several more, but it’s been a long time...

[DaxtonBrown]

I think the data breakdown problem is not such a big deal as evidenced by DNA and its ubiquity - though genes change, they tend to remain functional through many millions of years.

[Gadsden1st]

You need to change your “or”s to “and”s, then you got me. I’m not an either\or person.

[ScreamingFist]

Even if it takes one or two million years for a civilization to develop and use interstellar travel, that is but a blip in terms of the 13.7 billion year age of the universe.

I love "what if's"! What if all the current civilizations in the universe started at exactly the same moment, I.E. The Hand of God? Maybe it's a race, like Starcraft.........

[Brilliant]

“So if I don’t get more than four replies, I’ll be really surprised.”

Yeah.... I don’t think you’re going to have to ask the question “Where are they?”

BTW, I just don’t believe it is practical to travel more than a light year or two at best, and that there is no intelligent life within several hundred light years at best. So Fermi’s Paradox never bothered me.

[Psycho_Bunny]

It's difficult for me to imagine God leaving the entire universe just to humanity.

At the same time, I think the Drake Equation was wildly....wildly optimistic.

I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if it turned out that our nearest technological neighbor was in another galaxy....and that we'll never meet them nor be aware of their existence.

[Mister Da]

As long as there is curiosity, the bubbles will always expand.

[Ransomed]

Poul Anderson is just fantastic. His good buddy Jack Vance, in my opinion one of the best writers ever, is still kicking. I think he’s 93!

Freegards

[Old Student]

“There are just too many Freepers who either like scifi, or Poul Anderson, or Fermi’s question, or physics, or cosmology, or astronomy, or space, or interstellar travel, or Von Neumann probes, or SETI.”

Let us not forget those for whom it is “and” not “or”. ;)

OS

[The Comedian]

The-Federation-is-basically-confined-to-Alpha-quadrant-and-the-Borg-are-in-Delta ping.

Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.

[Old Student]

All those you listed, and Operation Chaos. ;)

And the Star Fox..., and...

OS

[wally_bert]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6hlTb7AUj8

[SuziQ]

Ping!!

[Mister Da]

“BTW, I just don’t believe it is practical to travel more than a light year or two at best,...”

Why?

Seems to me that to make interstellar travel & communications practical, you have to have harnessed space/time to your advantage, giving you relatively unlimited range. This may be why we never hear from others - they are transmitting at something beyond light speed while we are listening at light speed & below.

[dr_lew]

BTW, I just don’t believe it is practical to travel more than a light year or two at best, and that there is no intelligent life within several hundred light years at best. So Fermi’s Paradox never bothered me.

I agree with you. It's amazing the way Star Trek, more than any other space epic, took pure fantasy and created the illusion in the mind of several generations that it represented some kind of scientific extrapolation.

[6SJ7]

This may be why we never hear from others - they are transmitting at something beyond light speed while we are listening at light speed & below.

I've always thought this is the answer to "where is everybody?". Up until now, we've been looking in the radio spectrum for messages. Radio waves only travel at light-speed; so it'd be a pretty crummy means of interstellar communization. We're already on the verge of instantaneous communication via quantum entanglement (sometimes rather confusedly called teleportation). Perhaps when we latch on to whatever communication method might be out there we'll find the "airwaves" flooded with extra-terrestrial transmissions.