Using the mathematical formula to prove E.T.'s exist

The Drake equation, written by Frank Drake in 1961 while working on Project Ozma at NRAO. It is not an unusual
equation in that it comes from basic statistics to compute a probability. The first thing to know about probabilities is
are you dealing with an emperically derived probability or are you using a model ? Next, what are you using it for.
The use of probabilitites is to make predictions, extrapolations, or in the Drake case, pure guesses. It proves
NOTHING. While we can make ballpark estimates for the first three values, the rest are pure guesses so the
result is the same.

Just remember when using statistics, my favorite topic quote.

"There are lies, dam lies, and statistics."

Numbers can be horribly misleading sometimes.

This New Discovery of the prevalence of PANHs throughout the Universe is definitely going to prompt SETI and Frank Drake to re-calculate their estimates for ( N ) the Drake Equation.

As it directly effects the variables ( ne ) and ( fl ) .

How bout 0, the amount of life found out side earth...plug this into your equation and there is no chance of life elsewhere...

Ok, all that said... (It’s one big *ss sky to "listen" to - in terms of SETI) ... Let's say that somewhere out there, there is a civilization that is on exactly the same technological level as us, and they are also sending out radio signals - and listening for other ET signals (our signals)...

Let's put them "close" to earth - 50 light years away. That mean they had to send out radio signals 50 years ago for us to "hear" it today. (Radio signals are electromagnetic waves, such as light or X-ray. The speed of electromagnetic waves in vacuum is 300000km/sec - approx.)
So, we get all excited and we send them a message back... They will in return only get the message 50 years later. Let's face it; communication in that way would be frustrating to say the least. And what about the worst-case scenario? Let's put them on the other side of the universe. 5 billion light years away? And we get a radio signal. We only proved that 5 billion years ago there was intelligent life... Are they still there? We’ll never know. Or maybe when we get an answer back 10 billion years from now?
What if we did get some sort of message? Then what? If we can prove beyond reasonable doubt that life exists on another planet - because of radio signals we got, then what?

Personally I feel that it's a waste of time and money - and trust me I want to find ET as much as the next guy, but is radio signals the answer? Yes I understand that radio signals are the strongest, travels the best through space, etc. but isn't it all a bit futile?

How bout 0, the amount of life found out side earth...plug this into your equation and there is no chance of life elsewhere...

It's an interesting point, that if any of the variables of that equation are 0, then the result will always be 0...

but isn't it all a bit futile?

Well we won't know until we get a signal, IF we do, hehe...and then all we'll know is that it WASN'T futile.... I admit, the odds of SETI picking up such a signal is FAR more infinitismally small than most are aware....but still, it's a shot, and we've learned a lot more about the behavior of such waves in the universe along the way too....

[edit on 13-10-2005 by Gazrok]

reply to post by Enrikez

You would need a formula to calculate when these civilisations would exist and the rate at which they would co-exist. The length of time becomes very short when you consider most civilisations end up destroying themselves. according to NASA there are about 250 known earth like planets. Now the time existence shows that a planet like ours lasts about 3 billion years. It takes about 1-1.5 billion years to start intelligent life "bugs". About another .5 billion to get to inteligent life froms like us. So your time frame for intelligent life is 1-1.5 billion years. Then you consider these other planets that are like ours have to exist pretty close in age to ours. You have 10-20,000 years existence for each intelligent life form. There would be 50-1,000 of these per planet over time. So I think our chances of meeting other intelligent life is probably about 1 in 4,000. Are we going to meet others? Time will tell.

Originally posted by lost_shaman
The way that I understand the Drake Equation , is that it solves for the Fraction of Planets in the Milky Way Galaxy that would have Communicating Civilizations at any given time.

Yeah, exactly - it can be explained by rearranging the equation you played around with in your other post.

R - Rate of formation of suitable stars in our galaxy (aggregate number) R = 200billion

R is the one term we know something about and it's supposedly around 10 stars/year.

Combining that with a value for L in years, gives the number of civilizations that would then be communicating at any given time.

It's like if you took the number of babies born per year and multiplied it by the average lifespan of a person - (assuming for the sake of analogy that neither of those terms ever changed) it would give you the number of living people you can expect to meet at any given time, not the total amount that ever lived.