New calculations carried out by an American mathematician showed a low probability of detecting advanced extraterrestrial civilizations, which can partially explain the famous Fermi paradox.
The Fermi paradox is named after the Italian physicist Enrico Fermi. It sounds something like this: "If there are countless alien civilizations in our Universe, why don't we see any traces of their existence?" Proof of the reality of extraterrestrial intelligence, according to Fermi, could be a radio broadcast, a spaceship or an unmanned probe. According to official versions, mankind has not encountered anything of the above and created outside the Earth for all the years.
Now American mathematician Daniel Whitmire from the University of Arkansas has offered his explanation. Previously, the scientist believed that humanity is a relatively young and "stupid" civilization, since our active technological progress began only a little over a century ago. At the same time, extraterrestrial civilizations could develop for millions of years and, therefore, reach an incredibly high level of development.
The researcher drew attention to the fact that the mind was formed in our ancestors in a relatively short time - about seven million years. In other words, in theory, civilization can arise in the interval between global cataclysms, such as those that led to the great Permian extinction or to the Cretaceous-Paleogene.
These "optimistic" conclusions, however, do not greatly increase our chances of meeting "brothers in mind." Further calculations by Whitmire showed that the lifetime of an extraterrestrial civilization, comparable in level with the terrestrial, is on average no more than 500 years. Then they: a) destroy themselves; b) become victims of a global catastrophe.
Daniel Whitmir also proposes an alternative scenario, according to which humanity may well be the "cosmic firstborn." That is, our civilization could arise first (or among the first), and other advanced extraterrestrial civilizations will appear much later.
On the basis of the data obtained, Whitmere also formed the "principle of mediocrity." It means that all the "unique" features of the development of human civilization are a "mediocre" norm due to the fact that we do not know examples of the existence of civilizations of a similar level that arose under completely different conditions. In other words, our knowledge is limited to earthly realities.
Earlier, we recall, Serbian scientists came to the conclusion that extraterrestrial civilizations can be issued by their protection from supernovae.