So this past week, I managed to get a bit of a celebrity encounter. Elon Musk, the founder of SpacX, Tesla, the Boring Company, Solar City, commented on an article I wrote. The article itself (“New Model Predicts That We’re Probably the Only Advanced Civilization in the Observable Universe“) was about a recent study that took a fresh look at the Fermi Paradox.
Based on the range of uncertainties that are inherent in the calculations of the Drake Equation, they claimed, it is quite likely that humanity is alone in the observable Universe. Hence why we have failed to find evidence of extra-terrestrial intelligence (ETI) yet. In response, Musk posted that this conclusion made it all the more important for humanity to explore and colonize the known universe.
WELL! As you can imagine, everything that Musk says and does becomes news. Shortly after he posted his responses to this article, a number of news sources picked up the story and ran with it. The first that came to my attention (thanks for my friend and colleague Paco) was Business Insider, which quoted Musk and mentioned the original study. I immediately told my boss, who said that countless media outlets were reporting on this. He started sending me thinks. They included…
Tech Insider
CNBC
Yahoo News!
Nature World News
CNET
I’m sure there are others, but I got tired of my boss posting links and I felt he had made his point. And while NONE of the publications happened to mention then original article, Universe Today, or the author (i.e. ME!), they did draw attention to the original research and the questions it raised. As for the rest, they focused strictly on Musk himself. Damn famous people, getting all the attention!
Needless to say, I wrote to Musk on Twitter and thanked him for taking an interest. He didn’t respond, but that was to be expected to. He’s a busy man and thousands of people were posting about the article. In the end, its okay to catch a ray of sunshine as it shines on someone else!
Stories by Williams 
Maybe he’ll read The Cronian Incident next.
Ah, I wish! I really do, and even mentioned that I’m a writer to him. So far, no response.
C’est la vie. I guess we’ll have to find other ways to become bestsellers, won’t we?
Yep, I guess we’ll just have to rely on our talent and loyal readers 🙂
I’m tempted to say, “We’re doomed!” But I know we have plenty of talent and imagination. And I don’t know about my work, but I can see the Formist books being remembered and inspiring future writers and scientists. Assuming humanity doesn’t ruin the planet by 2070, that is.
Well, thanks for the vote of confidence! And I can your books inspiring horror aficionados, and perhaps even securing a movie or a Netflix deal!
Wouldn’t that be nice! Thanks, Matt. 😊