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 umanor rated 6 months ago- From the page: "The Drake equation (also sometimes called "The Green Bank equation", "The Green Bank Formula" or often erroneously labeled "The Sagan equation") is a famous result in the speculative fields of exobiology and the search for extraterrestrial intellige...
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7 Reviews
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- umanor rated 6 months ago
- From the page: "The Drake equation (also sometimes called "The Green Bank equation", "The Green Bank Formula" or often erroneously labeled "The Sagan equation") is a famous result in the speculative fields of exobiology and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI).
This equation was devised by Dr. Frank Drake (now Professor Emeritus of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz) in 1960, in an attempt to estimate the number of extraterrestrial civilizations in our galaxy with which we might come in contact. The main purpose of the equation is to allow scientists to quantify the uncertainty of the factors which determine the number of such extraterrestrial civilizations."
This is pure common sense, not science, per se, but still somewhat useful, if not obvious/trivial...
- ottofox rated 17 months ago
- From the page: "N is the number of civilizations in our galaxy"
Drake estimates this number to be 10.
The Milky Way is 1,000 light years wide at the Galatic core, with a diameter of 80,000 to 100,000 light years. That's a lot of space to find 9 other civilizations, even if they want to be found.
- MarsCol rated 7 months ago
- absolutely beautiful math.
- tentmaker3 rated 13 months ago
- The Drake Equation is a way of estimating mathematically, what the odds are that intelligent ET civilizations exist. It's fun to play around with.
- k-sea rated 13 months ago
- From the page: "N = R^* \times f_p \times n_e \times f_l \times f_i \times f_c \times L"
- eyevariety rated 18 months ago
- From the page: "The remarkable thing about the Drake equation is that by plugging in apparently "plausible" values for each of the parameters above, the resultant expectant value of N is generally often (much) greater than 1. This has provided considerable motivation for the SETI movement. However, this conflicts with the currently observed value of N = 1; i.e., one observed civilization in the entire galaxy. Other assumptions give values of N that are (much) less than 1, in accord with the observable evidence. Ultimately, a dispassionate observer would acknowledge that all factors in the equation and the equation itself are purely speculative."
- fxtl rated 20 months ago
- I'm not a math person, but I like this Drake equation, because it's so full of speculation and too many unknown variables, so it actually isn't math anymore :)
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