Conquer the Galaxy
While thinking of #FermisParadox, I came across a small exercise of exponential growth.
What if humanity comes up with a canonical plan to go to another star system. We take it conservative and plan for the year 3000 until all technology is in place. Then we set out with a big generation ship to settle in the system of Alpha Centauri.
From then on, we do the same every 1.000 years. With these basic rules in mind, I've tried to calculate how long it would take to conquer the whole milky way. I came across a somehow spheric expansion and took the rather flat geometry of our galaxy into consideration. The result was an exponential factor of 1.0018.
Put it the other way, it would take 15000 iterations to fill the whole galaxy. Or 15 million years. That sounds much - and also not. 15 million years ago, the dinosaurs were already 50 million years history. Yet all these numbers sound pretty conservative considering our current technological progress.
#sciencefiction