61 years ago, with the help of science and technology, mankind’s first artificial satellite was finally successfully launched. Its success marked that mankind had truly stepped out of the earth and started a new chapter. After we walked out of the earth, we saw a vast universe. Only when we truly see the vastness of the universe can you truly feel the smallness of the earth and human beings.
As human beings walk into space, the research and exploration of the universe has also become the focus of scientists. On the road of cosmic exploration, a mystery we most want to understand has been haunting mankind. Does alien civilization exist? From the perspective of the universe, the probability that an alien civilization does not exist is basically zero.
If extraterrestrial civilizations exist, then different wisdom civilizations are formed at different times due to the parent stars they are in, and the time of the birth of life is different, so the time of existence and development of wisdom civilizations is also different. Some civilizations may be about the same time as human beings were born, while the history of some intelligent civilizations may far surpass human beings and reach a height that we cannot imagine.
So a friend raised the topic of such a super brain hole, that is, if there are advanced civilizations in the universe that are 100 million years more advanced than human beings, how powerful will they be? One hundred million years is only a short period of time for a planet and for the universe. But for the development of a civilization, this is a relatively long time.
You must know that it has only been more than 2 million years since the birth of mankind, and it has only been more than 5,000 years since the formation of civilization, and the time for human science and technology development is only a few hundred years. We all know that although the history of human civilization is more than 5,000 years old, it is only the centuries after entering the scientific and technological era that really made the leap of human civilization.
It took us hundreds of years to realize the dream of flying to the sky. Many of the things that the ancients fantasized and dreamed thousands of years ago have now been realized. We can foresee that many things in human fantasy and dreams that are thought to be impossible, with the continuous development of human technology, may become reality in the future, such as time travel, immortality, and so on.
Hundreds of years of scientific and technological development have allowed mankind to achieve huge leaps again and again. As long as the speed of human science and technology development continues as it is now, then 1,000 years later, 10,000 years later, human science and technology strength will experience a qualitative increase. It is possible that after 1000, human beings will become an interstellar civilization, free to travel through all corners of the galaxy.
Technology is so powerful, it can make a civilization constantly surpass itself and become more and more powerful. So if human technology can develop for 100 million years, how strong will it be? It may be difficult for us to imagine. Although we can’t imagine it, it is foreseeable that at that time, human civilization will colonize planets in the universe, and there will be many colonizing galaxies.
It takes 100 million years for human civilization to become a powerful and advanced civilization of the universe, making the entire universe the back garden of mankind. Human beings can do it, so other intelligent civilizations are naturally possible. Any intelligent civilization, as long as it develops to a certain stage, will basically embark on the path of technological development.
The rules of the universe have basically been fixed since the day it was born. The various laws of physics and the laws of time and space in the Milky Way are similar in other galaxies and in all corners of the universe. Therefore, advanced civilization may have already walked the path that human science and technology have traveled.
Therefore, the technological strength of an advanced civilization that developed 100 million years earlier than human beings is hard to imagine now. Human beings exist like ants in front of advanced civilizations, so will there be civilizations that are 100 million years more advanced than humans in the universe? Let’s think about this problem from the perspective of the universe.
The universe was born 13.8 billion years ago. Before the universe was born, time, space, and matter did not exist. After the Big Bang, stars, planets and other celestial bodies are not formed soon, but require an evolutionary process. The original universe had only elements such as hydrogen, helium and a small amount of lithium. After 380,000 years, the first ray of light appeared, and after tens of millions or hundreds of millions of years, the first star was born. Subsequently, the stars of the universe continued to form, and stars and dots appeared.
The first stars to be born were basically super-large stars, and their masses were very large, so their life spans were only tens of millions of years. Then there was a supernova explosion, and various materials needed to form planets appeared. According to current discoveries in the observable universe, the first galaxy GN-Z11 was formed approximately 400 million years after the birth of the universe, and the first planet was formed 1.2 billion years after the birth of the universe.
Although having planets may not necessarily be able to become a planet of life, or intelligent life may not be able to be born, but from the point of view of the time when the stars of the universe and the formation of the planets. There are too many planets in the universe that are older than the earth. From a probabilistic point of view, there should also be a large number of intelligent civilizations that are hundreds of millions of years more advanced than human beings.
Data and probability tell us that advanced civilizations more than 100 million years more advanced than humans should exist in the universe. However, the actual situation may not be the case. In the previous analysis, we analyzed that as long as human science and technology can develop for 100 million years, we may become a powerful cosmic civilization that can cross the universe and travel freely in all corners of the universe.
Then, as long as the technology of alien civilization develops for 100 million years, it may reach the level of traveling across the universe. If this is the case, then the universe should not be as deserted and lonely as it is now, and even if it is not a smart civilization, then we should be able to get in touch with advanced civilizations. However, it has been more than half a century since human beings walked out of the earth. We have not observed any traces of extraterrestrial civilization, and no extraterrestrial civilization has come to the solar system on its own initiative.
This result makes us feel scared, where are these powerful civilizations that should have existed? At this time, we have to think of the big filtration theory put forward by scientists. This theory believes that the universe is a big filter, and intelligent civilization will face various barriers in the development process. Only through each level can we truly become a powerful cosmic civilization.
The higher the level of civilization, the higher the difficulty of the level. Maybe there were a large number of advanced civilizations in the universe, but in the process of moving to a higher level of civilization, they did not pass the level. They were eliminated by the big filter and disappeared. In the long river of universe.
If the big filter theory is correct, then mankind will also face various levels in the future. Can we survive each difficulty and become a powerful civilization in the universe? If not, what is the point of human development?
Of course, these are just our guesses. Because humans’ technological strength is still very weak, we still don’t have the strength to get out of the solar system to explore other galaxies. Naturally, we also know the situation of other intelligent civilizations. Perhaps in the near future, we will find the remains of various civilizations in other galaxies, and we may be able to find some important evidence from the ruins.