Technology Review: Blogs: arXiv blog: Sustainability: The Clue That Could Solve Fermi's Paradox

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Technology Review: Blogs: arXiv blog: Sustainability: The Clue That Could Solve Fermi's Paradox

The Fermi paradox states that, given the size and age of the universe, would should be able to find many advanced civilizations but not one has been found. Two Pennsylvania State University researchers have postulated that the flaw in the Fermi paradox is that it assumes exponential population spread outward from the home world, something that would require an exponential expansion in the amount of resources available. Instead, they suggest that sustainable growth is limited because materials and energy are finite resources, so any advanced civilizations that do exist are those that have managed to curb the tendency toward exponential expansion.