Page "Fermi paradox" Paragraph 19

In 1950, while working at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Fermi had a casual conversation while walking to lunch with colleagues Emil Konopinski, Edward Teller and Herbert York.

The men discussed a recent spate of UFO reports and an Alan Dunn cartoon facetiously blaming the disappearance of municipal trashcans on marauding aliens.

They then had a more serious discussion regarding the chances of humans observing faster-than-light travel by some material object within the next ten years, which Teller put at one in a million, but Fermi put closer to one in ten.

The conversation shifted to other subjects, until during lunch Fermi suddenly exclaimed, " Where are they?

" ( alternatively, " Where is everybody ?").

One participant recollects that Fermi then made a series of rapid calculations using estimated figures.

( Fermi was known for his ability to make good estimates from first principles and minimal data, see Fermi problem.

) According to this account, he then concluded that Earth should have been visited long ago and many times over.