LMR-080 · Life

Drake Equation

A recipe for guessing how many alien civilizations there might be.

§ A first look

§ Depths

Six ways into the same idea — from bedtime story to chalkboard. No order required.

L1 · Crayon

Told like a bedtime story.

For a curious 10-year-old. No jargon. Just a picture in your head.

If you wanted to guess how many other intelligent friends might be out there in our galaxy, where would you even start? In 1961, an astronomer named Frank Drake wrote a kind of recipe for the guess. He broke it into small steps: how many stars are there, how many have planets, how many of those planets could host life, how many actually do, how many go on to grow smart life, how many build something we could hear from far away, and how long does that something last before something goes wrong. Multiply all the guesses together. That recipe is called the Drake equation. It is mostly a polite way to be ignorant on paper.

§ Strange but true

01Multiply seven unknowns and you get the estimated number of alien civilizations we should be able to talk to right now.
02Plug in optimistic guesses: millions. Pessimistic: less than one. We are exactly that ignorant.
03It was written on a chalkboard in 1961 to organize a conversation. It still is the conversation.

§ From the field journal

Drake Equation

"A recipe for guessing how many alien civilizations there might be."

— observed, sketched, not yet fully understood.

field sketch · graphite & gold leaf

§ Nearby