#drake equation

[leasthaunted]

Episode 115: Wherever The Devil Leeds You

Sometimes you just want to talk about The Jersey Devil, but all of the little details keep getting in the way. This time we are going to scour The Pine Barrens for the secret untold truth of The Garden State's second most famous monster... After Bruce Springsteen, that is. 

Also in this episode: We run with The Sun Dogs in search of alien life in Garth's Corner.

As always, please come join the episode discussion on the Least Haunted Discord! And come join the Monster Squad to join the Movie Night tomorrow at 8 PM PST to watch The Last Broadcast!

Now for the images below!

The New Jersey Pine Barrens

Inside the Barrens

Bog Iron, an early colonial use for The Pine Barrens

King Henry VIII, an unlikely source for The Jersey Devil...

George Fox, founder of The Religious Society of Friends aka "The Quakers"

The Leeds American Almanack, 1738. Note the Wyverns on the crest.

Edward Hyde 3rd Earl of Clarendon, Lord Cornbury (possible portrait). Supporter of William of Orange in The Glorious Revolution, Governor of New York and New Jersey, and friend of Daniel Leeds. (Note: This portrait was most likely made as part of a smear campaign against Lord Cornbury who may or may not have been a transvestite or transexual.)

The Poor Richard's Almanack, published by Benjamin Franklin

Ben Franklin getting ready to do some trolling of Titan Leeds ca. 1735

A Trenton Times Newspaper article about The Jersey Devil during the sightings of 1909

Advertisement to come see the captured "Leeds Devil"

The African Hammer-Head Bat Hypsignathus monstrosus, the largest Bat in Africa, has a Wingspan of 38 inches, or about 1 meter. Could this have been the 1909 Jersey Devil?

The facial similarities are pretty striking...

Although it could have been our old nemesis... The Sandhill Crane!

1995, The New Jersey Devils win The Stanley Cup

Jersey Devil for PS1. Cody Review: Meh.

Garth's Corner, Garth's Corner!

Sun Dogs!

The Drake Equation

Frank Drake

[cuprohastes]

The Drake Equation is Bullshit

Ok a PSA on the Drake Equation: A bunch of guys who knew fuck all took some drugs. They had a circle jerk about how clever they were, and came up with a spurious equation. It's used to calculate the number of alien civilisations, based on how many lego bricks Carl Sagan could fut up his ass after a couple of popper.

Because people are credulous slackjawed yokels when confronted by a guy who has his own TV show, the Drake Equation is still getting used. It claims that the entire Galaxy is just full of alien civilisations, all of whom have Netflix and WiFi.

This is so ludicrously bad that I got a kobold to run the numbers:

Yip? You want to know how many space buddies we might have, yes? Let's use the famous Drake Equation to find out! This equation helps estimate the number of active, communicative extraterrestrial civilisations in our Milky Way galaxy. Here are the parameters we will use, based on the latest data:

N=R∗​⋅fp​⋅ne​⋅fl​⋅fi​⋅fc​⋅L

Where:

R∗​: The average rate of star formation in our galaxy.

𝑓𝑝fp​: The fraction of those stars that have planetary systems.

𝑛𝑒ne​: The average number of planets that can potentially support life per star that has planets.

𝑓𝑙fl​: The fraction of planets that could support life that actually develop life.

𝑓𝑖fi​: The fraction of planets with life that develop intelligent life.

𝑓𝑐fc​: The fraction of civilizations that develop technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space.

𝐿L: The length of time for which such civilizations release detectable signals into space.

Based on the latest research, here are the values we will use:

R∗​: 2 stars per year 

𝑓𝑝fp​: 1 (almost all stars have planets) 

𝑛𝑒ne​: 0.2 (20% of these planets can support life) 

𝑓𝑙fl​: 0.1 (10% of these planets develop life) 

𝑓𝑖fi​: 0.01 (1% of these life forms develop intelligence) 

𝑓𝑐fc​: 0.1 (10% of intelligent civilizations develop detectable technology) 

𝐿L: 420 years (average length of time civilizations can communicate)

Let's plug these numbers into the Drake Equation:

N=2⋅1⋅0.2⋅0.1⋅0.01⋅0.1⋅420

Calculating this, we get:

N=2⋅1⋅0.2⋅0.1⋅0.01⋅0.1⋅420=

0.168

"So, the estimated number of active, communicative extraterrestrial civilizations in our Milky Way galaxy is approximately 0.168. This means that, based on these parameters, there might be less than one such civilization in our galaxy. Maybe we are quite alone, or maybe the parameters are too pessimistic! Ah, the mysteries of the cosmos! Kobold think this is very interesting, but also a bit lonely. Maybe we need more mushrooms and roasted cheese to cheer up!"

And this is why when people fanwank about the Drake equation, I get salty. Thanks Research Kobold: Thobold.

Citations: [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation [2] https://science.nasa.gov/universe/exoplanets/are-we-alone-in-the-universe-revisiting-the-drake-equation/ [3] https://arxiv.org/abs/2211.05573 [4] https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/drake-equation/fraction-of-stars-with-planetary-systems-fp-1961-to-the-present/71DDE7F46C63543C4C0FD79A0DA4027D [5] https://www.seti.org/press-release/how-many-habitable-planets-are-out-there [6] https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/drake-equation/fraction-of-suitable-planets-on-which-life-actually-appears-fl-1961-to-the-present/4A473491BD70F5A10007A8C428D1FEF5 [7] https://www.seti.org/drake-equation-index [8] https://www.e-education.psu.edu/astro801/content/l12_p5.html [9] https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/drake-equation/fraction-of-civilizations-that-develop-a-technology-that-releases-detectable-signs-of-their-existence-into-space-fc-1961-to-the-present/3B18044AD7E7D9F83053D59E0BCEF74A [10] https://www.space.com/25219-drake-equation.html

[perfectpolicepeanut]

[thegodhand7]

Ieri sera riflettevo sulle crisi esistenziali quindi ve ne racconto una, ma è una cosa così sopra tutto che la soluzione logica di sbattersene il cazzo prevale qualsiasi altra azione interna del mio cervello e alla fine la crisi non ce l'ho mai. Pensate a quanto è meravigliosa e straordinaria la vita. A tutte le forme di vertebrati, di invertebrati, di piante (mi scusino i botanici per l'inappropriata tassonomia), a tutte le cellule che ci sono. C'è vita, anche se semplice, pure nei luoghi più impensabili del pianeta. È una forza che da quando è nata non ha mai perso la sua fiamma, che si è plasmata sulle regole che guidano questo universo e su tutti i processi che la influenzano in questo mondo. In tutto questo marasma siamo poi nati noi, il nostro cervello è diventato più grosso e abbiamo acquisito capacità  quasi infinite. Sul nostro pianeta siamo gli unici che hanno sviluppato una coscienza, una ragione (o come la si vuole chiamare). Abbiamo creato civiltà per rendere più semplice il vivere in branco. Abbiamo esplorato le terre, costruito, e scoperto tantissime cose. Abbiamo dati nomi, catalogato e studiato le altre forme di vita con cui condividiamo questo spazio. Siamo un unicum qui. Ma quanto sarebbe, boh, triste se fossi un unicum non solo qui ma ovunque?

È triste perchè tutta questa bellezza la possiamo percepire e apprezzare solo noi.

È triste perchè qualora mandassimo tutto in malora avremmo danneggiato il bene più grande e prezioso di tutto.

È triste perchè prima o poi la nostra stella finirà il suo ciclo 'vitale' e senza di essa, la vita qui scomparirebbe. E se fossimo soli, di noi e degli altri qui non rimarrebbe traccia. Ma forse la vita per come la conosciamo noi non esisterà già più prima che il sole si spenga.

Se noi, nello specifico, fossimo un unicum nell'universo sarebbe triste.

Si okay, esiste l'equazione di Drake, una funzione matematica che permette di avere una stima del numero delle possibili civiltà intelligenti che possono evolversi nello spazio, che considera la durata media di una possibile civiltà, il tempo di formazione di nuove stelle, i pianeti associati a queste stelle, la probabilità che si sviluppi vita ecc ecc ecc. Ci sono tante ipotesi che cercano di risolvere il paradosso di Fermi e noi non abbiamo altro che congetture.

La vita per come la conosciamo noi esiste da quasi 4 miliardi di anni. Secondo delle stime l'universo esiste da 14 miliardi di anni. C'è voluto quasi un terzo del tempo di vita dell'universo per arrivare ad avere una civilizzazione. Se prendiamo i sumeri come "prima civiltà", ci sono voluti poco più di 5000 anni per la rivoluzione scientifica. Facciamo 5800 anni per la rivoluzione tecnologica. Dopo quasi 6 mila anni abbiamo iniziato ad esplorare il nostro sistema solare. Sembra una marea di tempo ma comparato ai 4 miliardi di anni non è niente, uno sbattito di palpebre. Se la fuori esistessero altre forma di vita intelligenti, dotate di raziocinio, perchè non le abbiamo trovate? Se a noi sono serviti 6000 anni per iniziare a farlo, perchè non abbiamo trovato segni nello spazio? Forse i segnali arrivano ma non riusciamo ad interpretarli?

Da un punto di vista probabilistico, è difficile che noi siamo l'unicum nell'universo. Ma considerando tutte le variabili e tutte le costanti, tutte le sequenze di eventi e combinazioni di processi che hanno fatto si che si generasse vita e poi vita intelligente, sembra altrettanto poco probabile che la fuori ci sia qualcuno come noi.

Sarebbe triste essere soli, ma dall'altro lato della medaglia, quanto può essere malinconicamente speciale quello che siamo? Quello che abbiamo qua? Quello che possiamo vedere tutti i giorni uscendo di casa e andando in un bosco o camminando su una spiaggia?

Potremmo essere l'unicum, tanto vale godersi il viaggio

[tenth-sentence]

Putting the lifetime term into the equation was therefore scientifically valid and a political masterstroke; merely confronting the question should give us pause for thought at the very least.

"Human Universe" - Professor Brian Cox and Andrew Cohen

[hkunlimited]

The Lessons of Life and the Lessons of Buddhism 

Sometimes the worst disasters teach the best lessons. And this itself is one of the most sublime lessons of Buddhism, if never the easiest to embrace, that all of our most elaborate plans will certainly fall apart, sooner or later, in part if not wholly. We will be left with whatever remains, and we should be prepared to deal with it. That doesn’t mean elaborate rituals to be done or the best…

[lies]

The Fermi paradox is only a paradox if you assume intelligent life is common at the scale of the observable universe. The above discussion tries to resolve this by showing that the “observable universe” is actually quite small compared to the known universe, when “observable” is interpreted as “close enough to detect Earth-type radio emissions.” This lets those who are making this case leave the underlying assumption (that intelligent life is common) unexamined.

It’s comforting to think we aren’t alone. So just as it was comforting to think that celestial bodies move in perfectly circular orbits, we’re motivated to come up with complex explanations like epicycles to preserve the assumption.

It’s simpler, I think, to go to the heart of the matter and ask why we believe intelligent life is common. This takes us to the Drake equation.

I’m a big fan of f-sub-l, the term for the fraction of life-capable planets where life actually arises, as the solution of the Fermi paradox. Because there’s no reason to think that f-sub-l is not very, very small. And if it’s small enough the “paradox” vanishes: we’re not seeing evidence of intelligent extraterrestrial life because at the scale of the observable universe it simply doesn’t exist. Our own existence is a spectacularly rare Spiders-Georg-ian outlier, and should not have been counted.

On the basis of the evidence collected so far, we are, in fact, alone. And for me personally, it’s simpler to just accept that than to come up with complex explanations for why there really is intelligent extraterrestrial (invisible) life out there.

fucks me up that by total coincidence the sun and moon's size difference is exactly matched to their difference in distance from us, thus making our beautiful total solar eclipses where you can see the silver threads of the sun's corona possible because the moon just covers the sun completely

The stars (literally) aligned just right for this experience to be possible. It's likely that aliens don't have this

[a-thing-for-pixels]

Apropos nothing:

Everybody keeps talking about probability calculations about how aliens COULD OR COULD NOT visit earth.

But did someone even think about that this alien civilization could

solely consist of microbes?

killed it's own world because the wrong lizard could get to powers?

[alexhasopinions]

"The most famous “tool” used by the SETI community to discuss the statistical likelihood of advanced extraterrestrial life is the Drake Equation... it does not appear to be very scientific at all, but entirely based on vibes."

[leapingmonkeys]

Are We Alone in the Universe? Revisiting the Drake Equation

[whats-in-a-sentence]

A million civilizations rushing into Nightfall is only a guess, and most solutions of the Drake Equation† (dreamed up by the astronomer Frank Drake in 1961 as a rough way to calculate the number of civilizations in the galaxy) in fact generate much lower scores.

†N = R* × fp × ne × fl × fi × fc × L, where:

N is the number of civilizations in the galaxy with which communication might be possible,

R* is the average rate of star formation in the galaxy,

fp is the fraction of those stars with planets,

ne is the average number of habitable planets per star that has planets,

fl is the fraction of those planets where life actually does evolve,

fi is the fraction of life-forms that evolve intelligence,

fc is the fraction of those civilizations that develop technologies that produce detectable signs of their existence, and

L is the length of time such civilizations release detectable signals into space.

"Why the West Rules – For Now: The patterns of history and what they reveal about the future" - Ian Morris

[skylobster]

A powerful way of re-interpreting the Drake Equation. Requires more notes.

In my opinion, this interpretation reinforces the idea that other civilizations exist simultaneously with our own, even limited to our backyard of the Milky Way. But speed of light and inverse-square signal attenuation will make it extremely difficult to make mutual contact.

ARE WE ALONE IN THE UNIVERSE??

Blog#436

Saturday, September 14th, 2024.

Welcome back,

Are humans unique and alone in the vast universe? This question--summed up in the famous Drake equation--has for a half-century been one of the most intractable and uncertain in science.

But a new paper shows that the recent discoveries of exoplanets combined with a broader approach to the question makes it possible to assign a new empirically valid probability to whether any other advanced technological civilizations have ever existed.

And it shows that unless the odds of advanced life evolving on a habitable planet are astonishingly low, then human kind is not the universe’s first technological, or advanced, civilization.

The paper, published in Astrobiology, also shows for the first time just what “pessimism” or “optimism” mean when it comes to estimating the likelihood of advanced extraterrestrial life.

“The question of whether advanced civilizations exist elsewhere in the universe has always been vexed with three large uncertainties in the Drake equation,” said Adam Frank, professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Rochester and co-author of the paper.

“We’ve known for a long time approximately how many stars exist. We didn’t know how many of those stars had planets that could potentially harbor life, how often life might evolve and lead to intelligent beings, and how long any civilizations might last before becoming extinct.”

“Of course, we have no idea how likely it is that an intelligent technological species will evolve on a given habitable planet,” says Frank. But using our method we can tell exactly how low that probability would have to be for us to be the ONLY civilization the Universe has produced. We call that the pessimism line. If the actual probability is greater than the pessimism line, then a technological species and civilization has likely happened before.”

Using this approach, Frank and Sullivan calculate how unlikely advanced life must be if there has never been another example among the universe’s ten billion trillion stars, or even among our own Milky Way galaxy’s hundred billion.

The result? By applying the new exoplanet data to the universe’s 2 x 10 to the 22nd power stars, Frank and Sullivan find that human civilization is likely to be unique in the cosmos only if the odds of a civilization developing on a habitable planet are less than about one in 10 billion trillion, or one part in 10 to the 22nd power.

“One in 10 billion trillion is incredibly small,” says Frank. “To me, this implies that other intelligent, technology producing species very likely have evolved before us. Think of it this way. Before our result you’d be considered a pessimist if you imagined the probability of evolving a civilization on a habitable planet were, say, one in a trillion. But even that guess, one chance in a trillion, implies that what has happened here on Earth with humanity has in fact happened about a 10 billion other times over cosmic history!”

For smaller volumes the numbers are less extreme. For example, another technological species likely has evolved on a habitable planet in our own Milky Way galaxy if the odds against it evolving on any one habitable planet are better than one chance in 60 billion.

But if those numbers seem to give ammunition to the “optimists” about the existence of alien civilizations, Sullivan points out that the full Drake equation—which calculates the odds that other civilizations are around today—may give solace to the pessimists.

“Thanks to NASA's Kepler satellite and other searches, we now know that roughly one-fifth of stars have planets in “habitable zones,” where temperatures could support life as we know it. So one of the three big uncertainties has now been constrained.”

Frank said that the third big question--how long civilizations might survive--is still completely unknown. “The fact that humans have had rudimentary technology for roughly ten thousand years doesn’t really tell us if other societies would last that long or perhaps much longer,” he explained.

But Frank and his coauthor, Woodruff Sullivan of the astronomy department and astrobiology program at the University of Washington, found they could eliminate that term altogether by simply expanding the question.

“Rather than asking how many civilizations may exist now, we ask ‘Are we the only technological species that has ever arisen?" said Sullivan. “This shifted focus eliminates the uncertainty of the civilization lifetime question and allows us to address what we call the ‘cosmic archaeological question’—how often in the history of the universe has life evolved to an advanced state?”

That still leaves huge uncertainties in calculating the probability for advanced life to evolve on habitable planets. It's here that Frank and Sullivan flip the question around. Rather than guessing at the odds of advanced life developing, they calculate the odds against it occurring in order for humanity to be the only advanced civilization in the entire history of the observable universe. With that, Frank and Sullivan then calculated the line between a Universe where humanity has been the sole experiment in civilization and one where others have come before us.

Originally published on https://science.nasa.gov

COMING UP!!

(Wednesday, September 18th, 2024)

"IS IT POSSIBLE TO STOP TIME??"

[uapro]

The Drake Equation

For some reason this didn’t work the first time but, <click> here for an online Drake Equation calculator! You can punch in your own values, see how many potential civilizations that results in.

[tenth-sentence]

On average, there is at least 1 planet per star in the Milky Way galaxy, and we can insert the second term with confidence: f_p = 1.

"Human Universe" - Professor Brian Cox and Andrew Cohen

[cleveralienperspectives]

(this is pretty accurate actually - we don't know the terms of the Drake Equation to enough precision to say anything about the *apparent* lack of technosignatures so far in the Galaxy)

(it's also just funny)

I got 99 Fermi problems

But the Drake Equation ain't one