The "Drake Equation" and its modern meaning

[crfriend]

Warning: Random thoughts follow.

Back 1961, a chap named Frank Drake began a low-budget search for extraterrestrial intelligence, assuming that radio-waves would be proof. He also came up with his eponymously-named "equation" of what the probabilities would be for the continued existence of said intelligences.

Fifty light-years out, I believe that I Love Lucy is becoming apparent to those within "hearing" range. Thirty or so years later it was, Mork and Mindy, more or less around the same time than an ex-US President announced that, "The bombing begins in five minutes."

So, what of the "Drake Equation"? How does it apply -- does it even? -- if most of the "sides" that have substantial (enough to obliterate life on the planet) reserves have brought them down to below the noise threshold? I'd like to think that the primary antagonists on this insignificant little rock are on the right path, and I suspect they actually are. This is good from a species-survival perspective, but we have other threats to worry about.

As a species, we've survived the most formidable before -- that of "Dark Ages" -- but it's set us as a species back by centuries, and I'm worried that we're headed there yet again. It pains me, even though I know that I will never have children who will suffer through them - or grand/great-grand/great-great-great-great (you get the picture) children.

I suppose that in the original instantiation of the Drake Equation a "Dark Age" would be indistinguishable from nuclear annihilation as all transmission would have gone away. Recently, in terms of cosmic time, we've done the same; our primary emission that would have been perceptible from light-years away has gone silent, to be replaced by a low-strength noise. I speak, of course, of the new digital television signal that is devoid of high-energy sync-pulses that are evident in the midst of all other noise in the channel. Does this mean that other civilisations will think we've self-destructed (or gone otherwise dark)?

Based on what I'm seeing around the globe today, I am becoming more and more convinced that the level of fundamentalism we're seeing in many belief systems are coming to a head. They truly stand a chance to put the world as we know it on its head as happened in the early Tenth Century (BCE) and stayed that way for 500-odd years.

Can the Cosmos know that we're actually OK? (Assuming, that is, that we don't poison ourselves in our own emissions before word gets out.)

[Jack Williams]

Ahh.. but is anybody out there? And if there is, would they be interested?

[couyalair]

If "they" had the misfortune to pick up our television programs, I bet they switched off pretty quickly, so I don't think we'll be attracting any visits.

Martin

[skirtingtoday]

I am not convinced that the any signal would be detectable at all - some scientists believe that the limit of detection is about 5 light years given the strength of signal output we have - just about close enough for the nearest stars to pick up, If they are pointing in the right direction and for long enough. Those stars would then be limited to just Proxima Cantauri and alpha Centauri, the latter being a double star.

Jupiter and Saturn are far more powerful radio transmitters and would likely swamp any signals from planet Earth long before that.

The only real way to be detected at large spacial distances is by using coherent light - like a laser - a form of light that doesn't exist naturally in nature as it is a very narrow wavelength variation - and this would be a sign of intelligent life. They may also be able to detect unusually high carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere at equally great distances.

[Tassierob]

We must of course assume that ET actually uses radio waves as we know them to communicate! If we are such a young civilization compared to the age of the universe then ET may have advanced communications well beyond radio assuming he has been around for even a thousand years more than us. You only have to look at the changes in technology in the last 50 years to realize we can't begin to imagine what may be developed in the next 100 years in energy, communications and transport. Not to mention medicine and computing! We may well be able to travel at the speed of light and have computers that can think for themselves.

The world as we know it will I suspect be changed in every way, for better or worse depending on how our leaders choose to use and share these new technologies.

[Grok]

Has anyone calculated ranges for neutrino or anti-neutrino signals?

[Big and Bashful]

That is presuming someone can figure out how to capture and train neutrinos! They are not like pidgeons! Something like 4.5% of the power produced in a fission reactor is lost in the form of anti-neutrinos, it isn't even worth ducking! they just pass right through any matter, which is why they are so hard to detect.

[Kirbstone]

With the Universe expanding as it is and accelerating, I reckon time/distance will put paid to any meaningful 'dialogue' with any other civilisation even if we eventually detect one.

T.