[HN Gopher] Frank Drake, astronomer famed for contributions to S...
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Frank Drake, astronomer famed for contributions to SETI, has died
Author : cratermoon
Score : 159 points
Date : 2022-09-02 16:48 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| timmg wrote:
| I 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.
| bradneuberg wrote:
| Sad to hear. Amazing person and contributor to the field of radio
| SETI, hoping his family are doing ok during this tough time.
| [deleted]
| ianai wrote:
| His book is very approachable. It's wild, but apparently he just
| started writing the Drake Equation out at a (the first?) SETI
| discussion/meeting without much prior deliberation.
|
| The world definitely needs more Frank Drakes. He will be missed.
| abetusk wrote:
| Inventor of the "Drake equation" [0].
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation
| exmadscientist wrote:
| 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.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| It's an equation. The individual components of the equation
| are speculative, and their values are estimates.
| exmadscientist wrote:
| 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.
| dakr wrote:
| 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.
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| 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.
| bombcar wrote:
| I'm sure he's much more known for this than for SETI
| contributions.
| capableweb wrote:
| FWIW, I hadn't heard about Frank Drake before, nor of "Drake
| equation", but I do know what SETI is since before.
| pleb_nz wrote:
| RIP
|
| And just this morning, before I read this news, I have watched 2
| videos on drake equation.
|
| Trippy and sad
| superb-owl wrote:
| What 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.
| devindotcom wrote:
| RIP.
|
| Some may see the Drake Equation as reductive, and that's kind of
| the point. Its simplicity makes it compelling: presenting the
| enormousness and diversity of the universe as a near infinitude
| that seems incapable of supporting only one planet full of life.
| It's also easily understood by anybody who can do basic math,
| with a 30-second explanation. You can make anyone think and make
| an informed guess on one of the most profound questions of all.
|
| Here's hoping we prove his intuition right one day, I'm glad he
| lived to see so many advances in astronomy and physics, it must
| surely have felt like an unfolding of possibility to him.
| ipnon wrote:
| 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
| kairozu wrote:
| RIP. Somehow I still find this song in my head from time to time.
|
| http://www.setileague.org/songbook/equation.htm
| http://www.avsport.org/drseti/audio/equation.mp3
| ctoth wrote:
| My favorite Drake story is the time when they were just starting
| SETI and thought they had found aliens at the second star they
| pointed at. Seriously, this reads like an old SF short story.
| Check it out.
|
| http://www.bigear.org/vol1no1/ozma.htm
| jamiek88 wrote:
| What a delightful slice of history!
| ProAm wrote:
| The Drake equation and the Fermi paradox are extremely fun and
| entertaining thought experiments.
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(page generated 2022-09-02 23:01 UTC)