People from the moment of the emergence seek to learn as the world is arranged. And on this difficult way they periodically face surprising secrets and paradoxes. One of such paradoxes — Fermi's paradox.
Essence of a paradox and why it so is called
The fact that we authentically know about existence of only one reasonable look (ourselves) is the cornerstone of Fermi's paradox though scales of the Universe blow the mind and its age exceeds 13.5 billion years.
The paradox is called in honor of the talented physicist from the USA, the Nobel laureate Enrico Fermi. In 1950 in cafeteria of the Los Alamos scientific laboratory it talked to three colleagues scientists. During this conversation the thesis was stated that in the Milky Way there is a huge set of the developed alien civilizations. And then Fermi asked: "Well and where all of them?". There is no answer to the matter satisfying all yet.
"Great silence of the Universe" and SETI project
Since the beginning of the sixtieth years purposeful search of extraterrestrial mind (this search can be called the SETI project) by means of powerful radio telescopes and other means are conducted. Today all this did not yield significant results — aliens are not found.
And "great silence of the Universe" (it is one more name of a paradox of Fermi) becomes more and more frightening in the light of the last discoveries. Already now it becomes clear what the planets similar to Earth and being in a manned zone (that is in a zone where existence of water in a liquid form is possible), can be much even in a radius of 5000 light years.
Let's present that a certain reasonable life form appeared in the Milky Way earlier, than mankind, on four billion years. In these conditions she (considering our rates of technological development) for certain would occupy long ago each corner of the galaxy, and we by all means would see traces of its existence. The total lack of such traces gives very rich food for philosophical reflections.
Some explanations of a paradox
By this moment dozens of explanations of a paradox of Fermi are thought up — from banal (like the assumption that life represents the unusual occurrence) to very extravagant. For example, there is a version that nobody comes to us into contact because all Universe — computer simulation where the place is prepared only for us. But who also for what purpose created such simulation, it is necessary only to guess.
Other version says that for the civilizations which developed to ultrahigh level, conquest of space spaces becomes an uninteresting task. Perhaps, they went to parallel measurements or design the worlds. Speaking differently, it is boring for these civilizations having incomprehensible potential for us to travel around space.
The third version is as follows: we cannot contact extraterrestrial beings as we are a fruit of their activity. It is quite possible to imagine that certain aliens threw viable material on our planet, and subsequently during evolution we appeared. Perhaps, they sent this material to space, being on the verge of global and inevitable disaster and therefore now we do not see them (that is they died).
And one more (very gloomy) explanation: some part of scientists considers that there is some universal reason killing at a certain stage one and all developed civilizations. And somewhere in the future us, people of Earth, the most serious danger expects.