65- The Fermi Paradox and the Great Filter

Enrico Fermi is the man behind today’s episode, as we’re going to talk all about the Fermi paradox. In essence, why do we not see anyone else out there in the universe besides ourselves? Well, a number of solutions have been proposed- and they have to do with the second concept in today’s episode: the Great Filter.

Sources for this episode:

• Bailey, M. M. (2023), Could AI be the Great Filter? What Astrobiology can Teach the Intelligence Community about Anthropogenic Risks. arXiv preprint arXiv:2305.05653.
• Borger, J., the Guardian (2022), Cuban missile crisis 60 years on: new papers reveal how close the world came to nuclear disaster (online) [Accessed 08/07/2023].
• Buser, R. (2000), The Formation and Early Evolution of the Milky Way Galaxy. Science 287(5450): 69-74.
• The Editors of Scientific American (2015), Exoplanets: Worlds Without End. New York: Scientific American.
• Laughlin, R. B. and Pines, D. (2000) The Theory of Everything. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 97(1): 28-31.
• Raschky, P. A. and Wang, L. C. (2017), Reproductive behaviour at the end of the world: the effect of the Cuban Missile Crisis on U.S. fertility. Applied Economics 49(56): 5722- 5727.
• Re, F. (2022), Can the Theory of Everything be the Great Filter?
• Stern, S. M. (2005), The Week the World Stood Still: Inside the Secret Cuban Missile Crisis. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.
• Author unknown, NASA (date unknown), Hubble’s New Shot of Proxima Centauri, our Nearest Neighbour (online) [Accessed 09/07/2023].
• Author unknown, NASA Exoplanet Exploration (date unknown), Largest Batch of Earth-size Habitable Zone Planets Found Orbiting TRAPPIST-1 (online) [Accessed 09/07/2023].
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