Page "Fermi paradox" Paragraph 8

The age of the universe and its vast number of stars suggest that unless the Earth is very atypical, extraterrestrial life should be common.

In an informal discussion in 1950, the physicist Enrico Fermi questioned why, if a multitude of advanced extraterrestrial civilizations exists in the Milky Way galaxy, evidence such as spacecraft or probes is not seen.

A more detailed examination of the implications of the topic began with a paper by Michael H. Hart in 1975, and it is sometimes referred to as the Fermi – Hart paradox.

Other common names for the same phenomenon are Fermi's question (" Where are they?

"), the Fermi Problem, the Great Silence, and silentium universi ( Latin for " silence of the universe ").