The Drake Equation

This equation said that 9 planets with intelligent life are in our galaxy. This may not seem a lot but if you take all the galaxies in the universe there could be a TRILLION OTHER PLANETS WITH INTELLIGENT LIFE.

With that comes questions

Question #1- If there was a trillion planets with intellingnt life than wouldn't some have discovered and used anti-gravity technology?

Question #2- If these planets did have anti-gravity technology they should start there own SETI.

Question #3- Could earth be #1 in technology?

If a trillion seems to be a lot think again. It is hard to sustain life in the universe so it is bad odds. A trillion out of many more planets is not very good
I think earth is still special.

Personal Questions

If the trillion planets with intelligent life is true then does that make earth less special?

Do you believe in the Drake equation.

Ithink it ois highly likely their are a near infinite number of other plaets, and therefore a near infinite number of planets which may harbour life. Even if only a tiny fraction of planets had life , thats still some life. It is unthinkable that with all these planets there are no other intelligent species on them.

By anti-grav do you mean aircraft etc, or gravity neutralising stuff like is supposedly in ufos?

I believe in it but it can be flawed. Main thing is they allready be more advanced and may have a prime directive like in startrek which they don't involve in lower developed species. but if we find a way to travel faster as light they may contact us.. just like in st: First contact.

The drake equation is mostly a numbers game not something to actually go by.

The drake equation is based on a lot of approximation as well as assumptions and most of all just lack knowledge of the universe.

I think life, even intelligent life is possible. However humans are still basiclly stuck on earth and making estimates based on minimal knowledge of the rest of the universe.

Rather than worrying about the chances of other intelligent life, i think one should look at the obsitcles.

For one they would need to become technological without being too competitive or they would blow themselves up. (Still waiting to see how humans are on this) On the other hand if they aren't competitive enough they would not evolves intelectually to the point of looking for other life.

They would also need to develope protection against nature fast enough to avoid destruction.

If they evolved durring the age of a dying sun or just before a asteroid impact they may have been intelligent, but not fast enough.

The drake equation does not factor in many many things including the need for FAST development as well as driven.

But above all else the drake equation makes one HUGE leep. and that is the chance for life to become intelligent. How does one come to this number? On earth the most successful species tend to be single celled and insects. Why would a jump be made to intelligence? On earth only a few dozen species ever used tools and all but a few of them are now dead having not only missed out on space travel, but AGRICULTURE. Only humans have ever made the leep to planeting crops and raising cattle...thats not a very good statistic for predicting intelligent life.

Fun though game, but not based on real statistics.

For now human knowledge is no where near good enough to even attempt that equation and get real numbers.

Question #1- If there was a trillion planets with intellingnt life than wouldn't some have discovered and used anti-gravity technology?

Maybe or maybe not.. I mean it depends on how much their physical needs rely on gravity. Maybe they have developed something better.... Something outside of our understanding.

Question #2- If these planets did have anti-gravity technology they should start there own SETI.

Well, we are only guessing on how they will communicate. Maybe they are communicating and wondering why no one is answering them... ha ha

Question #3- Could earth be #1 in technology?

My guess is that we are maybe somewhere in the middle.

If the trillion planets with intelligent life is true then does that make earth less special?

I do not think that it makes us more or less special. Same reasoning... If you start college in a new town and find out that you are not the only person to study astrophysics, does it make you any less important.

Do you believe in the Drake equation.

Yes, I think that the Drake equation may be correct. May not also... ha ha

the theory seems ok - its when people start plugging numbers in that bothers me.

I wonder whether we will ever know the correct parameters.

[Edited on 24-5-2004 by Vanguard]

I believe that there is most probably life on other planets, but to me it seems that Drake just strung a bunch of variables out his a.s.s, put them together and called it an equation.