It is argued that if extraterrestrial intelligent beings exist, then their spaceships must already be present in our solar system. - Frank J. Tipler

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It is argued that if extraterrestrial intelligent beings exist, then their spaceships must already be present in our solar system.

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About Frank J. Tipler

(born February 1, 1947) is an American mathematical physicist and cosmologist, holding a joint appointment in the Departments of Mathematics and Physics at Tulane University. Tipler has written books and papers on the based on Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's religious ideas, which he claims is a mechanism for the resurrection of the dead. He is also known for his theories on the (Tipler time machine) and for the , an argument that no intelligent life exists outside of the Solar System. His work has attracted criticism, notably from systems theorist George F. R. Ellis who has argued that his theories are largely pseudoscience.

Also Known As

Native Name: Frank Jennings Tipler III
Alternative Names: Frank Jennings Tipler

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Additional quotes by Frank J. Tipler

[T]he eternal life assumption... implies... there must exist in this future (but in two precise mathematical senses, also in the present and the past) a Person Who is simultaneously transcendent to yet immanent in the physical universe of space, time, and matter. In the Person's immanent temporal aspect... changing (forever growing in knowledge and power), but in the... transcendent eternal aspect, forever complete and unchanging. How this comes about as a matter of physics will be described...

The basic idea... is straightforward and... has led other authors, such as Fermi... Dyson... Hart... Simpson... and Kuiper & Morris... to conclude that extraterrestrial beings do not exist: if they did exist and possessed the technology for interstellar communication, they would also have developed interstellar travel and thus would already be present in our solar system.

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The probability that intelligent life which eventually attempts interstellar communication will evolve in a star system is usually expressed by the :<math>p = f_pn_ef_lf_if_c</math>where <math>f_p</math> is the probability that a given star system will have planets, <math>n_e</math> is the number of habitable planets in a solar system, <math>f_l</math> is the probability that life evolves on a habitable planet, <math>f_i</math> is the probability that intelligent life evolves on a planet with life, and <math>f_c</math> is the probability that an intelligent species will attempt interstellar communication within 5 billion years after the formation of the planet...

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