Drake Equation

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Drake Equation

Postby azazul » Thu May 18, 2006 11:44 am

I made a webpage that evaluates the Drake Equation according to your inputs. The Drake Equation estimates the number of civilizations capable of communication within a galaxy according to some variables.
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Postby Lance » Thu May 18, 2006 1:19 pm

Thanks.

So, I came up with numbers that indicate the galaxy should be teaming with life. I wonder why we can't see them.
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Postby Ikyoto » Thu May 18, 2006 8:45 pm

`Cause we using one narrow band of the EM to listen? And `cause we've only invested enough in it to build maybe half a dozen tanks over the last decade? `Cause the technology that could come out of looking fer ET could take us to areas of science and marketable inventions that we could use all over the world if people weren't so damned shortsighted?

nah....
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Postby Dragon Star » Thu May 18, 2006 9:13 pm

*Thinks about the effects of mentioning SETI*

...

I will say this, I do not believe we are alone in this galaxy, much less the universe, there is just WAY too much possablility. I support the SETI program, but I feel as though it is insufficient as to the search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence.

For with our current technology, it should be much more advanced.
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Postby azazul » Thu May 18, 2006 9:53 pm

Lance wrote:So, I came up with numbers that indicate the galaxy should be teaming with life. I wonder why we can't see them.

Well, you have to remember the immense size of the Milky Way galaxy, I am not sure what numbers you use, but I tend to get around 7,000. Now, one figure I found for the radius of the Milky Way is 6,000ly. So, the area of the Milky Way is about 113,097,240ly^2. 7,000 civilizations within 113,000,000ly^2 leaves lots of space between the civilizations.

Ikyoto wrote:Cause we using one narrow band of the EM to listen?

That combined with the short amount of time we have been "listening" should make it obvious why we have not detected a signal from ET. We need more time and to use a much more broad spectrum.

I personally want them to continue enhancing the methods used and broaden the spectrum until we would detect civilizations like ourselves. Ones, that are not actively sending signals but whose technologies would emit signals into space. If we develop technology that can pick up signals from those who are not actively sending a signal, that is when we could talk more seriously about whether or not we are alone.
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Postby Doe, John » Fri May 19, 2006 12:11 am

One thing people never seem to consider in this listening for other civilations is the incredible distances involved and the effect that distance has on radiated signals. Consider how close we are to the sun and how a really good solar storm can put out em radiation many ordersof magnitude greater than what we can. Now go out and look at all the stars in the sky and consider that they are all suns, some much more energetic than ours. The odds of us hearing some other civilations broadcasts are about on par with me in montana talking to somebody in france by getting up on the roof of my house with a loudspeaker and an ear trumpet.
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Postby Ikyoto » Fri May 19, 2006 12:46 am

azazul wrote:I personally want them to continue enhancing the methods used and broaden the spectrum until we would detect civilizations like ourselves. Ones, that are not actively sending signals but whose technologies would emit signals into space. If we develop technology that can pick up signals from those who are not actively sending a signal, that is when we could talk more seriously about whether or not we are alone.
BINGO!

Trying to detect a discernable signal from out of all the possible types - figure out the odds that we're on the right channel for the biref moment that we might be looking in the right direction. We need more time - and the spin off tech would make great marketing to the military R&D. (hey - get funding where you can)
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Postby Dragon Star » Fri May 19, 2006 12:56 am

I disagree, we don't need more time, we need to implement the technology we already have. I bet there is already a way to better search for intelligent life then SETI program as of now, but it costs money and no one is going to pay for it.

Money is what we need, not time.
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Postby Enzo » Fri May 19, 2006 3:37 am

Same old same old. The Drake equation is nothing more than a guy's attempt at rationalizing what he sees around him in th universe.

Looking at the boxes, aside from the rough approximation for the first one on star formation, we have no way to plug meaningful numbers into all the rest of the boxes other than whatever feels comfortable to our own sensibilities - whatever that might mean. So any result from the process is also meaningless. Though perhaps meaningless to a large number of significant digits.

As to SETI, it listens hard to a frequency WE do not transmit on to announce our own existence in hopes of some other ETs transmitting on it to announce their existence.

We might be the one and only
We might be the first of many
We might be the first of a few
We might be the last of many
We might be the last of a few
We might be one among many
We might be one among a few
Are we?
No one knows.
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Postby pmcolt » Fri May 19, 2006 8:18 pm

azazul wrote:Now, one figure I found for the radius of the Milky Way is 6,000ly. So, the area of the Milky Way is about 113,097,240ly^2. 7,000 civilizations within 113,000,000ly^2 leaves lots of space between the civilizations.


I've always heard the diameter quoted as about 100,000ly, which would bump your area estimate up by a factor of about 10^2.

Or, looking at it another way, if there are 100 billion stars in the Milky Way, and 7000 civilizations, then only about 1 in 14-million stars hosts a communicating civilization.

Though the biggest problem with the Drake equation is a lack of knowledge about any of the terms. I get a different number every time I try to think it through, and it's usually between 0.1 and 100.
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Postby Enzo » Sat May 20, 2006 12:22 am

And therein lies the problem. How tall is that tree? Between .1 and 100 meters. How much weight did you lose? Between 100 grams and 100 kilos. How long will the meeting take? Between ten minutes and two years. The only value of Drake's equation is the joy it gives you to plug arbitrary numbers into it.
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Postby Ikyoto » Sat May 20, 2006 12:35 pm

The greatest thing about the Drake Juggling is that it proves that humanity has an overwhelming need to argue about shit it can't know yet instead of just saying "don't know one way or the other".
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Postby I Am He » Fri Jul 21, 2006 5:03 am

Now I was just wondering something. If it takes light from our nearest star millions of years to arrive here, isn't it the same in reverse?? Now what would other civilizations see (depending on their distance) if they looked at Earth?? A planet in development or no planet at all??
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Postby umop ap!sdn » Fri Jul 21, 2006 5:34 am

The closest star to our Sun is a little over 4 light years away, but yes it does work in reverse; if an observer in the Alpha Centauri system could observe the Earth right now, they'd see it as it was in early 2002.
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Postby Enzo » Sat Jul 22, 2006 4:18 am

And if they were 65 million light years away, then they could watch our dinosaurs go extinct.
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Postby Doe, John » Sat Jul 22, 2006 7:42 am

Cool idea but, you'd have to have a reception device the size of a galaxy to capture enough photons to generate a usable image.
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Postby Мастер » Sat Jul 22, 2006 11:58 am

Doe, John wrote:Cool idea but, you'd have to have a reception device the size of a galaxy to capture enough photons to generate a usable image.


Well, we'd better get started then.
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Postby Frogmarch » Sun Jul 23, 2006 3:26 am

I think that there may not be fossil fuels on many planets with intelligent life on and without that would they get to the level of being able to broadcast a signal into space-some people at the BAUT say yes, but I am not so sure.
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Postby Doe, John » Sun Jul 23, 2006 5:27 am

Khrushchev's Other Shoe wrote:
Doe, John wrote:Cool idea but, you'd have to have a reception device the size of a galaxy to capture enough photons to generate a usable image.


Well, we'd better get started then.


just think, with that and faster than light travel we could watch the Roman Legions marching through Gaul. See the first amphibian flop on the beach. it would be so cool.
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Postby KLA2 » Fri Aug 03, 2007 4:10 pm

I think it very likely that life exists elsewhere in our galaxy (let alone the universe!)
The discovery that the basic building blocks of life probably exist in comets, evidence that major impacts may “splatter” material from one planet to others (ex. Mars meteorites found on Earth), the staggering numbers of stars, planets, etc, the unscientific but seductive logic that if it could happen once, it could happen many times … and so on.

Other possibilities for failing to detect EM signals (in addition to than what other posters have contributed) occur to me. These thoughts are probably not original, in which case I apologize in advance to whoever stated them first.

1) Other life exists, it just has not developed along the same technological lines as us. They are not sending out detectible EM signals.

2) Perhaps every life form / civilization that does develop along the same technological lines as us destroys itself in fairly short order. Not necessarily with weapons of mass destruction, but simply through overpopulation, pollution, destruction of environment, disease. Depressing, or what?

Is SETI a waste of resources? From an academic point of view, (or to be able to say “In your face” to the (fundamentalist) religionists if other life was detected), perhaps. Given the distances and time scales involved, two way communication is impractical / impossible.

Unless, of course, they are sending us the plans for that Warp 10 engine …

Yah, that’s it. “To serve man”, only they are too lazy to pick up. They want delivery … :lol:
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Postby hazzard » Fri Dec 12, 2008 10:55 pm

Yes, the Drake equation... is nothing more then an "educated" guess.



R * FP * NE * FL * FI * FC * LN = N = number of advanced technical civilizations emitting detectable radio signals.

R = mean rate of star formation averaged over the lifetime of the galaxy.
FP = fraction of stars with planetary systems.
NE = mean number of planets per system with environments suitable for the origin of life.
FL = fraction of such planets on which life does develop.
FI = fraction of such planets on which intelligent life rises during the lifetime of the local sun.
FC = fraction of planets on which advanced technical civilizations rises.
L = lifetime of this technical civilization.


When explaining this equation, Carl Sagan once said the formula means that at least 1 million of the 100 billion stars in our Milky Way galaxy have planets which have developed advanced intelligent civilizations.

Now, if we consider the astronomical fact that there are over 10 billion galaxies in the universe, each holding at least another million solar systems, one may start to think that we may not be the only life in the universe.
I still await the compelling Exhibit A.
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Postby Enzo » Sat Dec 13, 2008 8:34 am

On the other hand

R = rough guess
FP = mostly a guess
NE = totally and completely a guess
FL = absolutely a guess and based on no information
FI = No basis for making a determination in the slightest
FC = well, nothing times anything is still nothing - total guess here as well
L = how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

But aside from those concerns, it seems like a pretty rigorous equation.
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Postby Halcyon Dayz, FCD » Sat Dec 13, 2008 8:42 am

I came up with a number lower then 1.
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Postby Enzo » Sat Dec 13, 2008 9:14 pm

Perhaps if you try it in metric?
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Postby Arneb » Sat Dec 13, 2008 9:17 pm

He probably did. And still he didn't get more.
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