\n<\/p>\n
It seems that we are completely alone in the universe. But simple reasoning suggests that there should be an abundance of alien civilizations. Maybe they\u2019re all out there, but they are keeping their distance. Welcome to the zoo (hypothesis).<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n The story goes that in the summer of 1950, eminent physicist Enrico Fermi was visiting colleagues at Los Alamos National Laboratory. It was the initial peak of UFO mania, and naturally the physicists brought it up over lunch. After a short while, Fermi went silent. Later, well after the conversation had turned to other topics, he exclaimed \u201cWhere is everybody?\u201d<\/p>\n Everybody knew what he meant. We know that the universe is capable of producing intelligent life. We\u2019re literally living proof of that. But the cosmos tends to not do things just once. If life happened here, it likely also happened elsewhere. In fact, given the extraordinary age of the universe and the incredible number of stars and planetary systems in any given galaxy, the Milky Way should be abuzz with intelligent space-faring civilizations.<\/p>\n Humanity itself is right on the cusp of developing a sustained interplanetary presence, and our species is still in its youth, at least as cosmic reckoning is concerned. We should see evidence for other intelligent species everywhere: radio signals, megastructures, wandering probes, and so on.<\/p>\n But we\u2019ve got nothing. So where is everybody?<\/p>\n \n