One solution to the Fermi Paradox: Technological civilisations trigger their own destruction?

Question

A few scientists are concerned that ever-more-powerful particle accelerators could one day generate a black hole which ends up consuming the entire planet. Could this be why we haven't detected any signals from intelligent extra-terrestrials? Maybe they all unwittingly cause their own destruction.

Answer 1

There have already been observations thought to be consistent with black holes in currently existing paticle accelerators, let alone the Large Hadron Collider which would be more likely to cause this phenomena.

What needs to be considered regarding black hole creation in particle accelerators is that gravity isn't the dominant force with quantum black holes, which are highly unstable and wouldn't last long enough to acquire enough mass to start a chain "mass eating" reaction (for lack of better words). Atoms are mostly empty space and the odds are astronomical for a quantum black hole created on Earth to be able to pick up enough mass by random interaction with other particles to pose a threat beyond negligible levels. (We're talking absurdly negligible, the same kind of "threat" you face of quantum tunneling through your chair)

One interesting proposition for the Fermi Paradox could be that advanced civilizations have more efficient means of communication than broadcasting on electromagnetic spectrums, which if you think about it is terribly inefficient (just as light radiating from the sun diminishes according to inverse cube ratios).

Observe how America at least is making the transition from broadcasting television to digital signals. I wouldn't be surprised if crude transmission of information stopped altogether with the advance of technology -- everything would be more efficient for instance if we were to take up the endeavor of converting all media to fiber optics. A civilization "out there" looking for our signals at that point wouldn't find them, save for the transmissions we'd already made prior.

Consider that civilizations "out there" may have already existed for some reasonable amount of time before we even bothered to look for EMR transmissions -- their transmissions could have already "passed through," at which point their civilization advanced enough not to use such crude media, in which case we wouldn't detect them at all.

It's speculative, of course, but interesting to think about!

Answer 2

Auto-destruction has sometimes been offered as a solution to the Fermi paradox.  However, particle accelerators are not the best examples in such cases.

The black hole that could be generated by even the next generation of accelerators (never mind the one that is just starting) are way too small to do anything bad.  IF we are lucky, they will exist barely just long enough to be actually detected (then they will evaporate);  but most think that they will evaporated before detection and we will be left with supposing their existence from the particles created by the energy of the evaporation.

(That is if they produce any black holes in the first place)

Answer 3

Self annihilation seems very plausible to me - technological progress + economic forces can easily lead to an ecological holocaust.

Wars can also do the trick, but particle accelerators seem pretty safe to me: events like those in a particle accelerator happen all the time around Earth, with all the cosmic and solar radiation around, particles combine and fall apart spontaneously, with no one around to observe them.

It's Human hubris to think we could destroy our world with a particle accelerator - with over 10^30 particles on earth, just think of the types of energies available at the very tip of the Boltzman distribution....

Answer 4

Atomic warfare would also lead to this same result.

Excellent book on this subject:

http://www.amazon.com/Universe-Aliens-Ev...

Answer 5

i'm starting to think that the probability of finding life is so fleetingly small that we're the only ones here.

and we better not f*ck it up, if we want to turn the universe into a giant computer.

Answer 6

I prefer another solution to the Fermi Paradox.  That is, in order to avoid attenuation of signal, it needs to be aimed as tightly as possible at a particular target.  When you have maybe 1,000 billion targets, it takes time to get around to them all, and we don't know where we are on their list, or even if we are on a list at all!

Answer 7

Would they not, like ourselves, have sent signals before destruction!?