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No, that's exactly it. Those numbers will just keep on getting more precise as time goes on, though - we'll never know from the Drake equation alone, but it's t

No, that's exactly it. Those numbers will just keep on getting more precise as time goes on, though - we'll never know from the Drake equation alone, but it's the best guideline we have right now.

dtparr 10y ago
I suppose, but having more precise terms in the first half doesn't seem to really do much for us given that the terms dealing with the probability of life forming can't even really be estimated. This article is basically saying "surely it's more than 1 in 10^22", but I don't see any hint of why that would be, other than 'it's such a small chance that it had to be written in italics'.
- ghaff 10y ago
  Right. What's happened with the Drake Equation is that the terms related to possibly habitable planets have largely moved to the "almost certainly lots" realm. But, as you say, with respect to life (or at least complex multi-cellular life), we just don't know. But the Drake Equation encourages thinking like, even it's it's a 1 in a trillion chance effectively zero!, we'd have all these aliens running around. Because 1 in a trillion = 0 is pretty much what we're informed by day-to-day usage and intuition.
  - JumpCrisscross 10y ago
    > Because 1 in a trillion = 0 is pretty much what we're informed by day-to-day usage and intuition Avogadro's constant is 6.022 x 10^23 [1]. There are a hundred billion sets of a trillion constituent particles in ever mol of anything. A reaction that happens to water once in a trillion years would occur 20,000 times a second for each 18 mL of water. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avogadro_constant https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avogadro_constant
    - ghaff 10y ago
      You're being an engineer :-) Yes, I am aware of those things but those sorts of numbers do not correspond to day-to-day usage and intuition of most people (as I said).
- freeduck 10y ago
  Scientist all arround the world is trying to create artificial life. If they are successfull then we have a mesure for level 4
xkxx 10y ago
And that's why I think it's a very bad news article: there is no news here. Also: that sensationalistic title.

No, that's exactly it. Those numbers will just keep on getting more precise as time goes on, though - we'll never know from the Drake equation alone, but it's the best guideline we have right now.

dtparr 10y ago

I suppose, but having more precise terms in the first half doesn't seem to really do much for us given that the terms dealing with the probability of life forming can't even really be estimated. This article is basically saying "surely it's more than 1 in 10^22", but I don't see any hint of why that would be, other than 'it's such a small chance that it had to be written in italics'.

ghaff 10y ago
Right. What's happened with the Drake Equation is that the terms related to possibly habitable planets have largely moved to the "almost certainly lots" realm. But, as you say, with respect to life (or at least complex multi-cellular life), we just don't know. But the Drake Equation encourages thinking like, even it's it's a 1 in a trillion chance effectively zero!, we'd have all these aliens running around. Because 1 in a trillion = 0 is pretty much what we're informed by day-to-day usage and intuition.
- JumpCrisscross 10y ago
  > Because 1 in a trillion = 0 is pretty much what we're informed by day-to-day usage and intuition Avogadro's constant is 6.022 x 10^23 [1]. There are a hundred billion sets of a trillion constituent particles in ever mol of anything. A reaction that happens to water once in a trillion years would occur 20,000 times a second for each 18 mL of water. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avogadro_constant https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avogadro_constant
  - ghaff 10y ago
    You're being an engineer :-) Yes, I am aware of those things but those sorts of numbers do not correspond to day-to-day usage and intuition of most people (as I said).
freeduck 10y ago
Scientist all arround the world is trying to create artificial life. If they are successfull then we have a mesure for level 4

xkxx 10y ago

And that's why I think it's a very bad news article: there is no news here. Also: that sensationalistic title.