Drake said, “only by doing the best we can with the very best that an era offers, do we find the way to do better in the future.”
Rest In Peace
Frank Drake, astronomer famed for contributions to SETI, has died
11–20 of 28 posts
Re: Frank Drake, astronomer famed for contributions to SETI, has died
#12I remember when I was pretty young someone gave me an article and said that, "This scientist made an equation to show many alien civilizations there are."
I was like: that's amazing! How could anyone figure that out? Science is nuts!
Then I read the equation. I was both disappointed and completely impressed. It didn't tell you how many aliens there are. It told you how to estimate that number and what you'd need to know to hone that estimate.
That, actually, had a pretty big influence on my through my eng career.
Re: Frank Drake, astronomer famed for contributions to SETI, has died
#13[deleted]
Re: Frank Drake, astronomer famed for contributions to SETI, has died
#14Inventor of the "Drake equation" [0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation
I just wish people would stop calling it a damn equation, because it clearly isn't. It's the Drake Estimate.
But that ship has clearly sailed.
Re: Frank Drake, astronomer famed for contributions to SETI, has died
#15What strange timing--I was writing a bit about the Drake equation this morning:
https://superbowl.substack.com/p/digging-into-the-drake-equa...
As an early teen I was fascinated by the fact that someone had seriously attempted to quantify this. It made me wonder, what _can't_ math do? Turns out, quite a bit. But it's a really fun exercise.
Re: Frank Drake, astronomer famed for contributions to SETI, has died
#16Inventor of the "Drake equation" [0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation
I just wish people would stop calling it a damn equation, because it clearly isn't. It's the Drake Estimate. But that ship has clearly sailed.
It's an equation. The individual components of the equation are speculative, and their values are estimates.
Re: Frank Drake, astronomer famed for contributions to SETI, has died
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
I just wish people would stop calling it a damn equation, because it clearly isn't. It's the Drake Estimate. But that ship has clearly sailed.
It's an equation. The individual components of the equation are speculative, and their values are estimates.
There's unwritten fudge factors everywhere. That's not how equations work. But it is how estimates work.
There's zero shame in calling a thing what it really is.
Re: Frank Drake, astronomer famed for contributions to SETI, has died
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's an equation. The individual components of the equation are speculative, and their values are estimates.
There's unwritten fudge factors everywhere. That's not how equations work. But it is how estimates work. There's zero shame in calling a thing what it really is.
Well there's math, and then there's physics math. Physics math is different. All the world is a frictionless plane, and we are merely spheres of uniform mass and charge density upon it.
You should see some of the calculus acrobatics they do in plasma physics. It's absolutely bonkers.
Re: Frank Drake, astronomer famed for contributions to SETI, has died
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's an equation. The individual components of the equation are speculative, and their values are estimates.
There's unwritten fudge factors everywhere. That's not how equations work. But it is how estimates work. There's zero shame in calling a thing what it really is.
The fact that it's hard to know the inputs accurately and precisely doesn't make this any less of an equation. Given some inputs on one side, you get an output on the other. You might as well call y = mx + b an estimate.
Re: Frank Drake, astronomer famed for contributions to SETI, has died
#20RIP
And just this morning, before I read this news, I have watched 2 videos on drake equation.
Trippy and sad