Table for One?

While most science fiction books and movies portray a universe teeming with a plethora of space-faring alien species, the reality may be quite different. Few of us could look up into the night sky and not feel the enormity of the cosmos and the seemingly infinite number of stars that should, at least in theory, harbor a multitude of intelligent civilizations. Yet so far, our attempts to identify signs of extraterrestrial life have all amounted to nothing. The apparent lack of observed intelligent life in the universe beyond Earth in the face of what would seem to be an almost limitless potential for such life to arise is known as the Fermi Paradox.