The most important image ever taken and variations on the Drake equation

I was just watching a cute video about the depth of field of Hubble telescope. Of course one can only remain amazed at the beauty and grandeur of the universe.

About 10 years ago I wrote a paper on some variations of the Drake equation. There is no really scientific ground to this equation.

Vulgarly speaking, this might be considered a pseudo-existential proof in mathematics.
In order to prove the existence of an element you extremely under/over-estimate the composing factors and show that even with all those estimations you still get at least one entity.

The Drake equation tries to estimate the number of civilizations in our galaxy with which we might hope to be able to communicate.

It does this by trying to show that the product of all factors that would compose the previous statement produce an integer number.

Here are some details from Wikipedia:
"Considerable disagreement on the values of most of these parameters exists, but the values used by Drake and his colleagues in 1961 were:

• R* = 10/year (10 stars formed per year, on the average over the life of the galaxy)
• f_p = 0.5 (half of all stars formed will have planets)
• n_e = 2 (2 planets per star will be able to develop life)
• f_l = 1 (100% of the planets will develop life)
• f_i = 0.01 (1% of which will be intelligent life)
• f_c = 0.01 (1% of which will be able to communicate)
• L = 10,000 years (which will last 10,000 years)

Drake's values give N = 10 × 0.5 × 2 × 1 × 0.01 × 0.01 × 10,000 = 10"

In my paper I was arguing that, besides all the controversy about the specific values, the formula is incomplete.

Momentarily the astrophysics is bound to a couple constants one of them being the speed of light. Meaning that any communication cannot surpass the speed of light.

So I was proposing to consider each planet civilization in a cube of say 1000 light years, adding another variable in the equation (the inverse of the minimum communication radius in light years). Put this way it becomes clear that it is impossible to establish a 2-way communication between us an an extraterrestrial civilization.

We might as well sit and wait... and focus on our own pale blue dot.

The fact that the universe is way too large has 2 quite opposing conclusions:
1. the probability to have intelligent civilizations increases
2. the probability for us to communicate with those civilizations decreases

Anyway you get the point.

But still I do believe that in the next 30 years we will be able to push even further the astrophysics theory that will reposition the whole communication issue.

We just have to be aware of the fact that right now with our understanding of communication it is impossible to establish a contact with any extraterrestrial civilization.

Personally I think that the creation of life and consciousness is much more complex with a probability close to 0.

We should be amazed of being alive and amazed :).

Imagine the deep existential anguish we should face by knowing that we are not alone and at the same time, for all practical purposes, being completely alone.

Here is a nice video.

--- Octavian Mihai