More than 200 years ago, mankind started the industrial age and embarked on the road of technological development. With the help of technology, we soon realized our dream of flying out of the earth and began to explore the universe.
Only when we really get out of the earth can we know how vast the universe is and how small the earth is. In front of the universe, the earth appears insignificant, it is too small. After seeing the vast and mysterious universe, scientists naturally shift their focus of exploration to the universe.
Among the many mysteries of the universe, what mankind wants to understand most now is whether there is an alien civilization. At the moment when human beings walked out of the earth, we thought of the possibility of extraterrestrial civilization. Whether it is from the vastness of the universe or from the age of the universe, the probability of existence of extraterrestrial life and alien civilization is infinitely close to 100%. .
Especially with the continuous progress of human civilization and the continuous improvement of cognition of the universe, it is increasingly believed that alien civilization exists. Since alien civilization exists, why have we searched for more than half a century, but still haven’t found the slightest? In this regard, the famous astronomer Fermi proposed the Fermi paradox.
Fermi believes that from the perspective of the age of the universe, some alien civilizations may be born tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands or even hundreds of millions of years earlier than humans. Imagine a civilization that developed hundreds of millions of years earlier than human beings. Their technological strength is beyond our imagination. Such a civilization may already be an advanced civilization. For an advanced civilization, it seems that it is not difficult to cross the interstellar, but why did they not leave any traces in the universe?
I believe that many friends also have the same doubts, there should be a large number of advanced civilizations in the universe, but why have we not seen any of them? In response to this doubt, many scientists have also put forward some conjectures, such as laboratory theory, virtual cosmology, etc.
In fact, apart from the above conjectures, few people have thought about such a possibility: alien civilization is a low-level civilization, and human beings are the high-level civilization of the universe? Perhaps in the eyes of many people, humans should be low-level civilizations, and alien civilizations are high-level civilizations. The reason for this cognition is mainly affected by two reasons.
The first reason is that they have been influenced by many science fiction works. Whether it is science fiction or science fiction movies, the alien civilizations are more advanced than human civilizations. They not only have strong physical fitness, but also have the ability to sail across the stars. Technology beyond our imagination, such as the alien civilization in “Three-Body”, is so powerful that it shocks us, especially the dimensionality reduction attack, which subverts our cognition.
In the eyes of alien civilizations, the various technologies and weapons that mankind is proud of may be just toys for children of alien civilizations. I have read a science fiction novel, in which all kinds of scientific and theoretical knowledge of the highest level of human beings are just the kindergarten enlightenment education on the planet of alien civilization.
The second reason is that the history of human development is too short compared to the history of the universe. As we all know, the universe originated from the singularity big bang 13.8 billion years ago. 13.8 billion years have passed since the birth of the universe. The development history of human civilization is only about 10,000 years, and the history of science and technology development is only a short 200 years. for many years.
In the 13.8 billion-year history of the evolution of the universe, there should have been living planets and intelligent civilizations at different time periods. If this is the case, then the existence of the universe is hundreds of millions of years more advanced than human beings, and billions of years of extraterrestrial civilization may also make sense.
It is precisely because of the above two reasons that many people believe that human beings can only be regarded as a low-level civilization in the cosmic civilization, and in the 1960s, the Soviet astronomer Nikolai Kardashev proposed the famous The Kardashev level index divides the universe civilization into three levels according to the strength of the civilization’s use and consumption of energy.
According to the classification standard of energy level, human beings are only zero-level civilization, which is 0.3 level short of first-level civilization. No matter from which aspect, it seems that humans cannot be equated with advanced civilizations. Alien civilizations seem to be advanced civilizations, and I don’t know how many times higher than humans. So is human beings really a low-level civilization in the big family of cosmic civilization? Will we be the real advanced civilization?
Perhaps many people think that this is impossible, but after searching the universe for more than half a century, no discovery has been made. It seems to be telling us that this possibility may not be impossible. In fact, as long as we carefully consider and analyze it, the possibility of human beings being an advanced civilization still exists. Why?
First of all, we have to admit that the age of the universe is indeed very old, even if it is not 13.8 billion years, then there will be at least more than 10 billion years. The earliest stars in the universe were formed shortly after the Big Bang. After hundreds of millions of years of continuous evolution, the universe stabilized and formed a large number of galaxies.
With a stable cosmic environment, then theoretically speaking, the conditions for the emergence of living planets are also available. Therefore, from the perspective of the age of the universe, a large number of civilizations in the universe were born much earlier than human beings. But let us not forget that the birth time may not be able to develop to the interstellar stage, to the advanced civilization stage.
The universe looks peaceful, but through human observation and research for more than half a century, it has been discovered that the universe is not at all peaceful at all. Big and small explosions happen every day and every moment. The explosion event in the universe is actually a supernova explosion, which is a process that a massive star must go through after reaching its end.
Supernova explosion is the most intense explosion phenomenon in the universe. Gamma-ray bursts will appear in the process. This is a strong and terrifying cosmic ray, known as the terminator of life harvesting. Gamma-ray bursts have a very wide range of influence. Once a planet of life thousands of light years away is swept by it, it may cause the extinction of life.
There have been five mass extinction events on the earth. One of them may be caused by a gamma-ray burst. Fortunately, the star is far away from the earth, but it was slightly swept by the gamma rays. Even so, it almost caused the earth. Life ends completely. It can be seen how unfriendly gamma-ray bursts are to life, and they are real life-harvesting rays.
The vast universe is distributed with a large number of stars, and there will be supernova explosions at all times. If there is a living planet within the scope of its explosion, then the life on this living planet will most likely usher in the end of the doomsday. Therefore, in the vast universe over tens of billions of years, perhaps countless various intelligent civilizations have been born, but due to the existence of supernova explosions, batches of intelligent civilizations have come to an end.
From this perspective, mankind is undoubtedly very lucky. Through observations, the number of stars around the solar system is small. Even if there are massive stars, they are still in a young stage, and there is still a very long time before the supernova explosion. During this time, humans should not worry about being terminated by gamma rays. As long as human technology continues to develop and become a real interstellar civilization, we can go out and become an interstellar civilization.
On the whole, due to the existence of various disasters in the universe, especially the existence of gamma-ray bursts, a large number of extraterrestrial civilizations were harvested without being able to develop to the interstellar stage, and human beings may be very bad due to the relatively biased position of the earth Security has developed to the current initial stage of moving towards interstellar. Therefore, there may be a large number of intelligent civilizations in the universe, but their level may not be as high as that of human beings, and we are the advanced civilizations.