we learned this in astronomy but as my teacher said (an astronomer) he said yes there is life out there-- but the distances are so vast it would be a miracle to run into someone
Imho it misses the mark big on “intelligent” life. We had how many billions of years of life & humanity’s time has been minuscule as an “intelligent” being
Good but I do think it will have to change if we find organics or life in the oceans of Europa. As that I think will increase odds of life everywhere and thus intelligent life. Just a thought.
Like Fermi’s paradox, it leaves out the question of when these other civilisations exist. Earth could very well receive signals & even visits regularly. But if they reach us say, once every 10 mill yrs, humans will never experience them.
So to answer Fermi’s question of ‘where is everybody?’, the answer could be ‘they’ve often been here, but the last visit was 10 mill yrs ago. Give it another 10 mill and someone else might come along. Given the age of the earth, we may have been visited 100s or even 1000s of times.
It strikes me as probably correct. And given the massive numbers that begin the equation, before all the winnowing, it leaves me hopeful. But I reckon Betelgeuse will explode before we hear from anyone else.
Haven’t seen recent reports of alien visitors. Either people who used to make those claims realize Drake was right or they’re too busy claiming leftists killed them all.
It’s a sacred cow ready for the ash heap of history. It’s a nice enough way to parse the problem, but it doesn’t move us even an inch closer to solving it. There’s a whole chapter on this in my upcoming book, Reinventing SETI.
I think it's missing a lot of steps. A planet could be flooded with a single type of organism that never evolved because it never needed to, or a lack of radiation prevents the mutations needed for evolution and they got stuck in place. Maybe they lack eyes and don't know space even exists.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong mathematically with it but I do think that given we have no idea where to even start on most of those constants makes it pretty useless. As a result I think it is probably the most overexposed piece of math in astronomy
I also think it's a good thought experiment, but we don't have enough data to make good estimates for most of the terms. And there are lots of additional factors that could be included.
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As someone loosely connected to a decent amount of astrobio research, I think it is sometimes useful as a conversation starter and science communication aid, but that is about it. Personally? I just think it is a bit over discussed for what it actually is.
I like to think that if this theoretical equation is halfway accurate, it implies we simply haven't been around long enough and there are very few of us intelligent species. But neither condition means we couldn't one day in the far future find eachother
In the end it's likely life exists other places in the universe, or has existed in the 14 billion years since the Big Bang. It doesn't appear that any candidates for life are anywhere near us.
Actually, given the rate and frequency of exoplanet discoveries since 1992, we can pretty much call the third one complete, with a planet formation rate of 100%.
Planets are so common, even post-supernova neutron stars have them in a second generation of formation.
Clear error in that: The length of time they emit signals should be divided by the length of time life has been possible, which is a long time. 1,000 civilisations emitting signals for 1 million years each across a 5 billion year period gives about a 22% chance of one being active now: 1.0002^1000-1
I prefer the version of Drake’s equation that includes space ‘settlement’ - or at least self-replicating interstellar robots. (Could not find an easy reference.) Though this makes the Fermi paradox even harder, since you can sweep across the Galaxy in only 10^7 to 10^8 years. ‘Where are they?’
It seems to give the likelihood of contact with intelligent life in our galaxy! Inputs consist of a lot of iffy variables and some wild eyed guessing..
Makes sense in theory but seems like a long way off as a possibility since interstellar communications, especially at the necessary speed, would seem very futuristic.
It’s a brave attempt that is going to end in failure as you are just stacking assumptions on top of assumptions. Any data it gives you is educated guesswork to the xth degree.
My own entirely unscientific hunch? Intelligent life with means to communicate extremely rare. Maybe 1 or 2 per galaxy.
How does the equation account for what constitutes “life”? Only carbon-based life forms analogous to our DNA profile? From that variable to the end, especially, the equation reads like species-centric science fiction.
I feel it’s well thought out. Needs to be adjusted for the assumption that any other intelligent life will also monitor the content of the broadcasts they receive and those other civilizations may opt out from returning a greeting. And I’m sure any craft two light-months out all made U-turns lol
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rare earth huh
i hope L can be infinite
But it's not a real equation because there's no valid input
It bucketizes the problem and facilitates both discussion and study.
There are too many compounding errors for it to be predictive.
It does serve as a good measure of our knowledge though.
saying "Danger Humans"
Any answer it produces reflects the personal opinions of whoever is using it b/c we have no data for most of the equation.
it’s a philosophical answer not scientific
Planets are so common, even post-supernova neutron stars have them in a second generation of formation.
My own entirely unscientific hunch? Intelligent life with means to communicate extremely rare. Maybe 1 or 2 per galaxy.