jeriaska2 votesThursday, March 13, 2008 at 1:22 AM
The article comments "the odds of there being some type of life out there are good..." without addressing the more pertinent question, "So, where are they!?"
It might be useful to mention that Toronto-based futurist George Dvorsky has written a series of great blog posts on this puzzling observation on the state of the universe commonly referred to as the Fermi Paradox.
tyrhaynes1 votesThursday, March 13, 2008 at 7:53 AM
We did a series of calculations I think in either Astrophysics or honors calc on the probability of life, intelligent life, and civilized life with different parameters and it was pretty fun. It was all based on carbon based life though and I brought this up and the prof said we have no real guesses on non-carbon based life at the time to be able to make equations to predict with any power other types of life.
To answer your question the odds depend on at least 12 factors if I remember correctly with some being highly elastic like odds of terran planets. The base calculation was 10 million planets with life with several thousand civilizations in this galaxy alone in the present.
My guess is you were using the Drake Equation. There is much debate over the results of using this equation as most of the parameters are based on educated guesses, and differing estimates of these parameters lead to wildly different probabilities of intelligent life existing.
Ray Kurzweil addresses the Drake equation rather elegantly in "The Singularity is Near", and actually makes a good argument that we may be the first "intelligent" life in the universe.
I'm not trying to be a pessimist, but even IF there is intelligent life (carbon based or otherwise), communicating with them introduces a whole bunch of practical issues namely: even at the speed of light, a simple introduction and reply message would take many many years.
Don't get me wrong, I'd love for these folks to be right, and I'm not saying we are 100% for sure alone in the universe, but there are a lot of unknowns here which I think makes the 20 year estimate for first contact a big load of... wishful thinking.
tyrhaynes1 votesSaturday, March 15, 2008 at 8:32 AM
Yeah, it is simply just the odds. Even if the odds for us being alone are a trillion to one it might just be the truth. It was the Drake Equation.
The speed of light limitation is no longer valid. With some success in using entangled particles and quantum teleportation it seems inevitable that improvements beyond the quantum bit in information transfer will be made. The ansible made reality; which will be tremendously useful even within the Sol system and absolutely necessary for effective and organized development outside our system.
are good..." without addressing the more pertinent question,
"So, where are they!?"
It might be useful to mention that Toronto-based futurist George Dvorsky
has written a series of great blog posts on this puzzling observation
on the state of the universe commonly referred to as the Fermi Paradox.
http://sentientdevelopments.blogspot.com/2007/08/fermi-paradox-back-with-vengeance.html
And Michael Anissimov, on the same topic.
http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/michael/blog/?p=323