S4F: Can Anyone Intelligent Communicate with Me? Other Than My Earthling Friends.

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By David Siegel Bernstein, PhD

Is there intelligent life outside our little corner of the Milky Way? If there is, can they communicate with us here on Earth? In science fiction it is fun to say yes to both questions. But how likely are both to be true?

First off I’ll leave it to you to decide the definition of intelligent life. Fiction writers are allowed a more liberal definition. So go crazy.

Now back to the science (in this case the math). There are two views on the possibility of intelligent outside our solar system—both of them rely on statistical probability. The first group shouts out “Definitely yes” and the second group is tapping their shoulder saying, “I wouldn’t be so sure if I were you.” In this post I’m going work out the numbers for group telling you: “Oh Yeah” there’s intelligent communicating life out there. I’ll give you the other side of the argument next time.

The affirmative view comes from the famous Drake equation. The television show The Big Bang Theory gives a good summary of the Drake equation (and its application to Lady’s night). However, I’ll leave it for others to prove the Wolowitz Coefficient.

Click here to watch the Big Bang Theory (the show, not… um, the theory) describe the Drake equation.

The Drake equation calculates the number alien civilizations who can communicate with us right now. There is a lot of fancy notation you can look up, but I’ll break it down for you in list form.  Who doesn’t like lists?

  1. We being by calculating the number of stars in the universe.   The observable universe is estimated to have about 9 sextillion stars (In scientific notation, 9 X 10^21).  I think it’s best to focus on the Milky Way which has a mere 200 billion stars.  Communication outside the Milky Way would take some very interesting fiction to explain.
  2. Calculate the fraction of stars in our galaxy which have planets in their orbits. Let’s be conservative and say 20% of the stars have planetary systems. (20% of 200 billion = 400 million stars with planetary systems)
  3. Calculate the fraction of planets that can sustain life. Let’s go with 1 planet for each star I calculated in #2 above.
  4. Calculate the fraction of life sustaining planets where life has evolved. Let’s try 50% (note: where life does occur, 100% of it has evolved).
  5. Calculate the fraction of planets where the life has evolved intelligence. For fun, I’ll assume 30% of planets where life exists to have evolved intelligent life.
  6. Calculate the fraction of planets where intelligent life has the ability for interstellar communication. I’ll posit 10% to be conservative. If they can communicate, it would be nice of them to follow me on twitter. So I’m rooting for them.
  7. Calculate the civilization’s longevity. What is the fraction of communicating civilizations are still around to get a twitter account? For example, they may have been able to communicate with us 10,000 years ago, but we weren’t listening back then.   Do you think our civilization will still be able to send messages into space in 10,000 years from now?  As post-humans would we want to? (You don’t know what a post-human is?  I suggest you keep reading S4F to find out).  Let’s set the chance of two civilizations existing at the same time and willing to communicate to 1 in a 10,000 (this assumes we survive for another 10,000 years).

Using my estimates for 1-7 above, the Drake equation calculates there are 600 communicating civilizations in our galaxy. Where are they? I’ll leave that for you to ponder.

See you next time when I’ll discuss the possibility that intelligent life is rare and that we may never make contact.

I know Halloween has passed this post by, but if you’re interested in a spooky libation (and horror micro-story—yes, sometimes I write horror.) check out The Hair of the Wolf That BitYou.

See you in time and space… and S4F

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