R * = average rate of star formation per year in galaxyį p = fraction of those stars that have planets
N = number of civilizations in our galaxy that can communicate Back in 1961, Frank Drake encapsulated the issues involved in his eponymous equation: And any discovery of a distant civilization, say by analysis of microwave data or observation of laser-like signals, would certainly rank as among the most significant and far-reaching of all scientific discoveries. Behind his question was the following line of reasoning: (a) There are likely many other technological civilizations in the Milky Way galaxy (b) It is highly likely that other technological civilizations are many thousands of years more advanced than us (since if they are less advanced by even a few decades they would not be technological) (c) In a few million years, they could have explored or even colonized many distant planets, certainly encompassing the Milky Way (d) So why don’t we see any evidence of extraterrestrial civilizations?Ĭlearly the question of whether other civilizations exist is one of the most important questions of modern science. (Might take several hours after publication to appear.In the summer of 1950, while having lunch with colleagues who were chatting about recent reports of “flying saucers” in the news, nuclear physicist Enrico Fermi suddenly blurted out, “Where is everybody?”. This special edition of the Ars Technicast podcast can be accessed in the following places:
There you’ll find deep-dive interviews with other world-class thinkers, founders, and scientists-tackling subjects including synthetic biology, cryptocurrency, astrophysics, drones, genomics, neuroscience, consciousness, privacy & government hacking, and a whole lot more. A full archive of my episodes can be found on my site, or via your favorite podcast app by searching for “After On” (the podcast’s title). If you enjoy this installment and just can’t wait for Part 3 (which goes up on Ars tomorrow), you can find it in my podcast feed, where it first appeared in September of last year.
Click here for a transcript and click here for an MP3 direct download.
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