Related papers: "First in, last out" solution to the Fermi Paradox
The Kepler mission has shown that a significant fraction of all stars may have an Earth-size habitable planet. A dramatic support was the recent detection of Proxima Centauri b. Using a Drake-equation like formalism I derive an equation for…
All matter is made up of fermions -- one of the fundamental type of particles in nature. Fermions follow the Pauli exclusion principle, stating that two or more identical fermions cannot occupy the same quantum state. Antisymmetry of the…
The Galactic Center Excess (GCE) remains one of the defining mysteries uncovered by the Fermi $\gamma$-ray Space Telescope. Although it may yet herald the discovery of annihilating dark matter, weighing against that conclusion are analyses…
We announce here that Fermat's Last theorem was solved, but there is an easy proof of it on the basis of elemetary undergraduate mathematics. We shall disclose such an easy proof.
A major aspect of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) involves searching for electromagnetic transmissions from extraterrestrial sources, often using our own transmissions as a guide. Previous studies have suggested that…
We estimate the relative likelihood of success in the searches for primitive versus intelligent life on other planets. Taking into account the larger search volume for detectable artificial electromagnetic signals, we conclude that both…
The search for technosignatures from hypothetical galactic civilizations is going through a new phase of intense activity. For the first time, a significant fraction of the vast search space is expected to be sampled in the foreseeable…
Extinction is the elephant in the room that almost everyone tries to avoid when analyzing optical/IR data: astronomers tend to find a quick fix for it that the referee will accept, but that does not mean such a solution is correct or even…
If the human race comes to an end relatively shortly, then we have been born at a fairly typical time in history of humanity. On the other hand, if humanity lasts for much longer and trillions of people eventually exist, then we have been…
The number of people able to end Earth's technical civilization has heretofore been small. Emerging dual-use technologies, such as biotechnology, may give similar power to thousands or millions of individuals. To quantitatively investigate…
The James Webb Space Telescope has recently detected massive, fully formed, galaxies at redshifts corresponding to few hundred million years after the Big-Bang. However, our current cosmological model cannot produce such massive systems so…
In a previous paper we addressed the question "Does the Rapid Appearance of Life on Earth Suggest that Life is Common in the Universe?" The non-observability of recent biogenesis is a self-selection effect that needs to be considered if…
The data recently accumulated by the Kepler mission have demonstrated that small planets are quite common and that a significant fraction of all stars may have an Earth-like planet within their Habitable Zone. These results are combined…
The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) has thus far failed to provide a convincing detection of intelligent life. In the wake of this null signal, many "contact pessimistic" hypotheses have been formulated, the most famous of…
This paper develops a taxonomy of expert perspectives on the risks and likely consequences of artificial intelligence, with particular focus on Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) and Artificial Superintelligence (ASI). Drawing from…
The Large Area Telescope (LAT), Fermi's main instrument, is providing a new view of the local energetic pulsar population. In addition to identifying a pulsar origin of a large fraction of the bright unidentified Galactic EGRET sources, the…
The Drake Equation has proven fertile ground for speculation about the abundance, or lack thereof, of communicating extraterrestrial intelligences (CETIs) for decades. It has been augmented by subsequent authors to include random variables…
Are we alone? It is a compelling question that human beings have confronted for centuries. The search for extraterrestrial life is a broad range of quests for finding simple forms of life up to intelligent beings in the Universe. The…
Traditionally evolution is seen as a process where from a pool of possible variations of a population (e.g. biological species or industrial goods) a few variations get selected which survive and proliferate, whereas the others vanish.…
We discuss the recent "realpolitik" analysis of Wisian & Traphagan (2020, W&T) of the potential geopolitical fallout of the success of SETI. They conclude that "passive" SETI involves an underexplored yet significant risk that, in the event…