The speculative science podcast that explores the past, present and future of sentient beings everywhere.
The podcast is commercial free and free to download or subscribe to.
Note: there were a couple of correctable audio defects found after the original file was uploaded to the host. These consisted of short silences. This has been corrected, so please re-download the file.
This is our third episode to directly address the Fermi Paradox. Given some reasonable assumptions, the
Earth should have been colonized by a superior technological civilization. We see no evidence of this. Why is that?
No one knows, but the Fermi Paradox serves as a wonderful mental lens to probe our assumptions and ask deeper questions about how well we really understand our universe and its tendency to give rise to long-lived, technologically sophisticated societies with both the ability and drive to colonize their galactic neighborhood.
We also talk about the life span of technological civilizations, and I speculate how accidental contact could be important to understanding how this life span could increase over time.
There is no persuasive evidence that aliens from other star systems have ever visited our planet - a situation Michael Hart dubbed "Fact A." However, as Enrico Fermi pointed out in 1950, this is something of a surprise. This podcast is the first in a series examining what has become known as the Fermi Paradox.
We'll talk to award winning SF author and NASA scientist Geoffrey Landis about one of his proposed solutions to this paradox, and set the stage for further explorations. We'll also sample some powerful music by 21st Century Jazz artist Jason Robinson from his new CD "Tiresian Symmetry" and experimental sound sculptor Sleep Research Facility from the new CD "Stealth," based on sounds recorded in a B2 bomber hangar in the UK.
Paul Carr talks to Daniel Cartin about his test paper "Upper Limits on the probability of interstellar civilization arising in the local Solar neighborhood"
