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Image: Enrico Fermi (1901-1954), whose famous question may have been misunderstood by subsequent writers.

Priority of publication and accuracy suggests using a name like Hart-Tipler argument instead of ‘Fermi paradox.’ Using Fermi’s name for the so-called Fermi paradox is clearly mistaken because (1) it misrepresents Fermi’s views, which were skeptical about interstellar travel but not about the possible existence of extraterrestrials, and (2) its central idea ‘‘they are not here therefore they do not exist’’ was first published by Hart. Maybe we should leave Fermi’s name out of this, writes Gray: Tipler concluded that we were probably the only intelligent species in the universe since we had not encountered evidence for the existence of such probes. Frank Tipler’s subsequent paper (1980) took us into the realm of artificial intelligence, claiming that self-replicating probes could use even current spacecraft speeds to colonize the galaxy in less than 300 million years. This followed upon Michael Hart’s 1975 discussion, which Gray sums up as ‘they are not here therefore they do not exist,’ an argument Hart used to question the wisdom of pursuing SETI. It would be another 27 years before the term ‘Fermi paradox’ even appeared in print, inserted into a JBIS paper by D.

Robert Gray (Gray Consulting, Chicago) believes this is a misunderstanding, and sorts through the aftermath of that particular event. The famous lunch conversation at Los Alamos in 1950 when he asked ‘Where is everybody’ (or perhaps ‘Where are they’) has often been seen as a venue for Fermi to express his doubts about the existence of any extraterrestrial civilization, and the ‘Fermi Paradox’ has become a common trope of interstellar studies.

It’s an interesting point, because as it turns out, Fermi himself never published anything on the subject of interstellar travel or the consequences if it proved possible. Gray making the case that there is in fact no paradox, and that Fermi’s intentions have been misunderstood. We’ve talked often enough about the so-called ‘Fermi paradox’ in these pages, but Gregory Benford recently passed along a new paper from Robert H.