Determining Life - The Drake Equation

As recounted in Howard Blum’s Out There the Drake equation was the brainchild of a young radio astronomer working at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank, West Virginia. Radio astronomy was in its infancy and Frank Drake was a second generation adherent. Radio astronomy had reared is pretty head in 1931 when Karl Jansky working at Bell Telephone Laboratories kept encountering radio interference that he could not initially track down. After some home-brewed experiments he discovered the heavens above and beyond earth were filled with radio static. This discovery led to a the new science that landed young Frank Drake in the small, remote  observatory in the wilds of West Virginia in 1959.

The source of these radio waves was not clearly understood and there was a great deal of speculation as to what we were hearing; they ran the gamut from thunderstorms somewhere on earth being bounced through the atmosphere to waves being released by distant nebulae only now just washing the earth. But Drake began to speculate that perhaps they were waves emitting from distant planets. Maybe it wasn’t just stars and galaxies, but planets. Why not? His math showed that the smaller telescope in Green Bank could “hear” noise from 10 light years away. Why not something more? He posed this at a lunch at Antonine’s Diner to his colleagues.

As Blum relates, one of the astronomers challenged him with a french fry with a so what? attitude. Perhaps, Drake replied, the planets were the source, and the source lay in extraterrestrial civilizations. He then pitched an idea on how to figure this out. By choosing a specific frequency that was the most logical for a civilization to use (this is a whole different tale) that might be able to “hear” them. It didn’t hurt that this frequency also allowed them to search for magnetic fields, and for that they could certainly get funding from the government. They would need about $2,000 to begin their search. He was given the go ahead by the head of the observatory, because, well scientists like to science, and he built his relay and begin listening. Though he only got one hit from his gear it did not dampen his enthusiasm, in fact it was something of a catalyst for the creation of the Order of the Dolphin (another story, and was some of the driving force behind the SETI observatory).

Two years on, in 1961, the Space Science Board of the National Academy of Sciences invited selected astronomers to gather at Green Bank for a meeting. There, amidst news of a Nobel for one of the invitees and discussions about possible life on other planets Frank Drake posed the Drake Equation, the equation that became and remains the standard for determining the number of technologically advanced civilizations in the galaxy.

The Drake equation is thus:  N = R × fp × ne × fl × fi × fc × L

For a more thorough discussion of the equation head to the Seti website.

From this small beginning in the hills of West Virginia begins a long discussion of the possibility of life on other planets, and where that life may be in their arc of development and how, if at all, that life may interact with earth.

Go check out Howard Blum’s book Out There. It is replete with a history of this and other weird science that circles the whole UFO phenomena.