Quoting Nick Land, expat Brit philosopher in Shanghai, “The cosmic reality visible to us is characterized by an intense, efficient aversion to the existence of advanced civilizations.” He calls whatever it is that prevents the existence of advanced civilizations “The Great Filter.” Longtime science fiction readers familiar with Gregory Benford’s Galactic Center series or Fred …
After numerous posts, we’ve now reached an analysis of the final term in the Drake equation, L, the average lifespan of high-tech civilizations. If you thought putting a value on f_c, the likelihood of an intelligent civilization developing a high enough technology to make its existence known across interstellar distances, was a prime avenue for …
The Fermi Paradox and the Drake Equation – The Longevity of High-Tech Civilizations (L) Read More »
So far in the series, we’ve gotten a range for N, the number of detectable civilizations in the galaxy, to [5e-7 to 8e-6] * f_c * L. Today’s post will estimate the value of f_c, the fraction of intelligent species that go on to develop a civilization detectable (through electromagnetic transmissions and/or probes travelling at …
The Fermi Paradox and the Drake Equation – From Intelligence to High-Tech Civ (f_c) Read More »
In our last post, we looked at some of the many ways life could be prevented from giving rise to a pre-intelligent species–say, an animal like Proconsul, the earliest known ape, living about 25 million years ago. In doing so, we knocked f_i down to 0.02. Here, we’ll look at what could prevent the descendants …
The Fermi Paradox and the Drake Equation – From the Cusp, to Intelligence (f_i, part 2) Read More »
Uncertainty in calculating the Drake Equation has led us to a broad range, with N = [0.84-16.03] * f_i * f_c * L. Despite the uncertainty, we concluded that relatively high values of f_i (the fraction of life-bearing worlds that give rise to intelligence), f_c (the fraction of intelligent species that develop technology detectable across …
This has been the toughest post in the series to write, because the question of how life arose is the most open. A look at the linked article will show a lot of different conjectures. Which one(s) explain how life actually arose on Earth and/or would arise on other planets are still unknown. Let’s make …
The Fermi Paradox and the Drake Equation – Fraction of Planets Where Life Arises Read More »
As we discussed in the series so far (1 2 3), the Drake Equation gives an estimate of the number of civilizations in our galaxy with which communication might be possible, N. After entering the first two values, we have: N = 5.625 * n_e * f_l * f_i * f_c * L Today, we’ll …
The Fermi Paradox and the Drake Equation – Planets Potentially Supporting Life Read More »
As we discussed in the series so far (1 2), the Drake Equation gives an estimate of the number of civilizations in our galaxy with which communication might be possible, N, as: N = 6.25 * f_p * n_e * f_l * f_i * f_c * L Today, we’ll talk about the second term, …
The Fermi Paradox and the Drake Equation – Stars with Planets Read More »
As we discussed in the last post, the Drake Equation gives an estimate of the number of civilizations in our galaxy with which communication might be possible, N, as: N = R * f_p * n_e * f_l * f_i * f_c * L Today, we’ll talk about the first term, R = the average …
The Fermi Paradox and the Drake Equation – Star Formation Read More »
