The Fermi Paradox
The universe is ancient, enormous, and full of ordinary stars much like ours. So where is everybody?
1950 (Fermi's remark), 1975 (Hart's argument)22 min read
Italian-American physics
Enrico Fermi
1901 – 1954
Architect of the first self-sustaining nuclear reactor and of the theory of beta decay, and famous for order-of-magnitude estimation from almost no data. Over lunch at Los Alamos in the summer of 1950 he interrupted a conversation about flying saucers to ask "Where is everybody?" — a question about the feasibility of interstellar travel that was later built into an argument he never published.