Chapter 37: The Great Filter

The possibility that life in the universe is universal is assumed to be valid for the time being. Since they could not find a point of view that could be refuted, the scientists decided to accept this law for the time being.

"But whether intelligence is universal or not, we cannot conclude yet, there is too little information about this ..." said Professor Hagel.

"However, we can speculate with the information available ... its key is the Great Filter Theory." The logic began to become clear in Professor Heigl's account.

According to the Soviet scientist Kardashev's hierarchy, the civilization level of the universe can be divided into three categories:i-class civilization, ii-class civilization, and iii-class civilization, and for each level up, the available energy is increased by 10^9 times.

"Our new human civilization, including the old human civilization on Earth, have not reached the level of class i civilization. According to the classification, our technological level is about level 0.7, which gives us a slight glimpse of a level i civilization."

"I think that only civilizations that have reached at least level i, or are between level i and level ii, are qualified to soar into the universe. There should be no doubt about this, right?"

By soaring the universe, Hagel means actually coming and going between the stars, not as simple as launching satellites or landing on the moon. The distance between stars is really too far, commonly measured in light years. The closest star to the Sun, Alpha Centauri, is 4.37 light-years.

That's a light-year unit! What is a light year?

This distance is desperately large, with the fastest speed of the current human spaceship, it will take 100,000 years to sail!

One hundred thousand years, too long for humans to do.

Therefore, at least between the i-class and ii-class civilization, the speed of the ship must at least reach the level of sublight speed, the voyage will be shortened to within ten years or a hundred years, can be said to have taken a small step to travel in the universe ...

Scientists discussed in whispers for a while and agreed with this view. If you follow this division, humans are indeed the lowest level civilization ... this does not sound very comfortable, but it is true.

Only civilizations that have reached level i, or are between level i and level ii, can spaceships accelerate to the level of sublight speed, compressing flight time to tens of hundreds of years. Only such a civilization is considered to have stepped into the stars, is a true interstellar civilization!

Humans, simply not ah ... people even if the use of cheating general, static mass constant Noah ship, there is no way to make it reach sublight speed. This is determined by the technology and the level of energy that can be utilized.

"Such an interstellar civilization should be very rare. At least none that we humans have observed in the last hundred or two years of modern science. Nor has any extraterrestrial civilization ever communicated with us." Hagel continued, "Does anyone disagree with this point?"

"Yes, indeed. ... Although one or two hundred years is not much on the cosmic scale. But humans have never observed the activities of extraterrestrial civilizations, which can also indirectly indicate that interstellar civilizations may be rare." Oliver thought about it and thought there was nothing too flawed in Hagel's words

"Then the question arises, since life is common in the universe, but interstellar civilizations are rare, why is that?"

Even Oliver couldn't help but think about it, and he didn't have a clear answer.

Assuming that life is universal in the universe, then why are interstellar civilizations so rare? According to Hagel, there must be some obstacle that stands in the way of the evolution of almost all life in the universe!

"We call this obstacle, the Great Filter!"

Hagel said seriously, "This Great Filter, will screen out all the unqualified beings, leaving only a very small number of races with good luck. Only civilizations that have passed the Great Filter can grow into interstellar civilizations!"

"This Great Filter, which almost all life will encounter, yes, I think almost every planet's life will encounter! It is like a wall of steel, blocking the advance of all life, and, trying to break through this wall is almost extremely difficult, if not, impossible to overcome!"

"Only a small number of extremely lucky, extremely strong civilizations can cross this large filter, and then slowly progress to interstellar civilization. The probability is: one in ten million to one in a billion ..."

"Such an explanation, I think, is a more likely hypothesis. If the Great Filter theory is valid, it can be judged that it must have appeared before interstellar civilization!" Hagel said categorically.

Talking about this, the topic was already very heavy. But Oliver had to fight the spirit and continue to listen. Life is too common, because of the existence of a large filter, only the vast majority of races screened out, indeed ... some truth ah.

Scientists are really powerful, in fact, they know nothing, the information in hand is even less, but can deduce so much by constantly guessing. This is wisdom, the wisdom that humans are most proud of.

So, what is this big filter? Has mankind crossed it, or, is it still ahead, waiting for mankind?

These are two extremely good and extremely bad situations ... If humans have unknowingly crossed this big filter, then the future will be smooth sailing.

If, however, the Great Filter is still ahead of mankind, then mankind will have to challenge that one in a million to one in a billion success rate ...

Thinking about it, Oliver's heart couldn't help but beat wildly, even if it was a one in ten million chance, it was still amazingly small! Humans, really can cross?

Even if the more confident people, to challenge the one in ten million chance, it is estimated that the face will be pale, heartbeat accelerated. One in ten million chance of passing, humans are really so lucky?

Oliver as the leader of the civilization, but also have to care about this so-called "big filter" is not really ... is not the scientists' wild imagination, in their own scare themselves.

"Professor Hagel, I have some ideas." Dr. Rimbaud suddenly raised his hand to indicate. "I've heard some about the Great Filter Theory. Now, I'll start with some possibilities of the Great Filter that you can distinguish."

"The first one, the formation of life, we used to think that the formation of life was very difficult and could only be formed by extreme chance. A large number of our previous experiments have not produced life artificially, so it was thought that this one had reason to be the big filter.

But because of the emergence of life on Mars ... life is likely to be universal and this one has been the first to be rejected. I will say no more."

"Second, the breakthrough of prokaryotic to eukaryotic life. This, which took our planet over a billion years to do, may be a very small chance ... of such a small probability of time having the potential to become a large filter."

"Yes, Dr. Rimbaud, it took more than a billion years after the birth of life on Earth to complete the evolution of prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells, and it is impossible to determine whether this evolution was inevitable or a very low probability chance. If the odds of producing eukaryotes are just one in a billion, then this could also be a large filter." Heigl agreed.

"And the fact that the Martian virus has not yet broken through to eukaryotic life provides a little evidence for this claim." Someone down the line snapped, "The fact that the Martian virus is not eukaryotic life is really good news for us."

Hearing this, scientists were talking about the fact that Martian life was carbonyl life, which was indeed relatively inferior. No eukaryotic type of life has been found on Mars either.

Thus, it seems that the breakthrough of prokaryotic to eukaryotic life this one, the probability of which may be very small, does qualify as a big filter!