On Fermi's Paradox: Challenging the Principle of Mediocrity

Editor's Note : With the release last week of Christopher Nolan's blockbuster Interstellar, dealing with the prospect of colonizing worlds beyond our planet, we are pleased to present a new series at ENV, "Exoplanets." Daniel Bakken is anengineer who teachesastronomy at the college level, and an entrepreneur in compound semiconductor crystal growth. In a series of articles he will critically examine recent claims about exoplanets beyond our solar system, asking whether our own planet Earth is...