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Dr. Drake is especially famous for the Drake Equation (as the article mentions) which is a fascinating way to think about how many intelligent civilizations mig
by jph 6y ago
Dr. Drake is especially famous for the Drake Equation (as the article mentions) which is a fascinating way to think about how many intelligent civilizations might be findable.
https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/news/1350/are-we-alone-in-the-universe-revisiting-the-drake-equation/ https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/news/1350/are-we-alone-in-the-un...
- SirLJ 6y agoSorry, but I always thought the equation meaningless...
- taneq 6y agoI agree - it's basically just a way to arrive at a meaningless number by multiplying a whole lot of wild-ass guesses together. Do we have anything better, though?
- JKCalhoun 6y agoYeah, that's probably the point. You have to start somewhere. Personally I'm blown away that some parameters, like the fraction of those stars that have planets, we are able to capably plug values in for. I really never thought we'd be able to get statistics for things like that in my lifetime. I mean short of faster-than-light travel, I had assumed ignorantly that astronomy would be stuck more or less where it is for centuries to come.
- cgriswald 6y agoI wrote a presentation for undergrad on the equation; and that was the focus. I went through each value and talked about the bounds for each value and arguments for those bounds. We’re still incredibly ignorant, but the bounds on the values have improved a lot. At the time the equation was written, it was assumed other stars had planets, but it wasn’t known and the value could have been anything. Now we know the f_p ≈ 1.
- ArnoVW 6y agoAmazing isn't it? I really appreciated 'archives of the universe', which describes the chronological advancement of astronomy since the ancient Greek. Often by simply annotating the original works or papers. Amazing to see how humanity has gained insight piece by piece, thanks to the hard work of a select group op people. https://cmsw.mit.edu/archives-of-the-universe-marcia-bartusiak/ https://cmsw.mit.edu/archives-of-the-universe-marcia-bartusi...
- eholk 6y agoI see it as a way of focusing the discussion. The numbers we could plug into it are mostly all wild guesses, but the exercise of plugging in different numbers can still be instructive. For example, we now know there are a huge number of planets out there, and even planets in the habitable zone. Yet we haven't found any extraterrestrial life, so that suggests maybe the other factors are smaller than we initially would have guessed.
- lisper 6y agoBecause....?
- s1artibartfast 6y agoIt is a fabulous equation which describes the factors that would contribute to alien life. It can inform how to think and pursue SETI and gauge our current knowledge. Any result that you see bandied about is meaningless because we don't know the inputs.
- ekianjo 6y agoAnd deeply flawed...
- enjoyyourlife 6y agohttps://xkcd.com/384/ https://xkcd.com/384/
- chairmanwow1 6y agoThe alt text is so great for this one
- zokula 6y agoI would bet a million dollars that there are no other intelligent civilizations in the universe.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- s1artibartfast 6y agoI would take that bet. The observable universe is estimated to have 10^21 stars and the actual universe is infinite.
- warent 6y agoI'm not sure what you mean by the "actual universe" but there's no proof that space is infinite. Unfathomably vast yes, but still finite.
- internet_user 6y agowhat's the proof it's finite?
- warent 6y agoOur senses are finite; we cannot directly know infinity through them. Because of that, I think the burden of proof is on the claim that it is infinite.
- mnjn 6y agoIsn't space itself continuously expanding?
- mathdev 6y agoExpansion of space doesn’t preclude the universe being infinite.
- s1artibartfast 6y ago
- jes5199 6y agoI’ve heard that the Drake equation was originally (?) intended to be a parable that makes you think about whether our civilization is likely to destroy itself before making a noticeable impact on the universe, in order to promote nuclear disarmament
- EE84M3i 6y agoAs far as I know, the concept of the 'great filter' was invented by (the now canceled) Robin Hanson.
- jes5199 6y agoHanson gave it that name in the 90s but it’s implied in Drake’s equations - I think people in the 1960s were aware of the subtext
- cgriswald 6y agoI’ve studied this a lot but it’s been awhile. Drake et al we’re doing this during the Cold War and were definitely aware we could wipe ourselves out either with weapons or through ecological disaster. The L term is specifically about civilizations destroying themselves (although it can also be advances in technology which end radio-as-we-know-it). The great filter is an attempt to explain the Fermi Paradox. Fermi was there, but the paradox necessarily came after the Drake equation.