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Milky Way may be home to 30 alien civs


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Well we do know of one.

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Pretty broad. It doesn't take in all the factors involved for technological life to develop. 

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I know of one of them too but intelligent? 

Edited by 'Walt' E. Kurtz
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The 30-civilizations-in-the-galaxy figure appears to be based on the assumption that these civilizations last about as ours has, since learning how to make ourselves somewhat conspicuous with radio waves. That amounts to about a hundred years. I assume that the number of radio-detectable civilizations is proportional to their technological longevity. If so, a thousand year lifetime would make for 300 civilizations in the galaxy. 10 thousand years-- 3000 civilizations, etc. 

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3 hours ago, freetoroam said:

Well we do know of one.

Now we only need to collect the other 29 for a complete set.

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19 minutes ago, Orphalesion said:

Now we only need to collect the other 29 for a complete set.

I would not want to bestow our virus riddled world on others. Wait til they start reading our facebook pages or see our leaders. :D

 

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1 hour ago, bison said:

The 30-civilizations-in-the-galaxy figure appears to be based on the assumption that these civilizations last about as ours has, since learning how to make ourselves somewhat conspicuous with radio waves. That amounts to about a hundred years. I assume that the number of radio-detectable civilizations is proportional to their technological longevity. If so, a thousand year lifetime would make for 300 civilizations in the galaxy. 10 thousand years-- 3000 civilizations, etc. 

We have only been able to detect  radio broadcasts for a little over a hundred years, so the lifespan of the receiver plays into this too.  I do not think that in another 100 years we will still be pumping out a lot of radio waves in all directions.  We are already reducing omni-directional broadcasts with cell phone towers, internet, and cable that have replaced many less efficient methods. 

You could be right, there may be 3000 civilizations out there that do not have a large detectable signature any longer.

In another hundred years maybe we will be looking for directional or coded neutrino emissions because that is what we might be producing.

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Radio waves are notably easy to produce. They may still be in use in the future, just as we still use fire, even though it was discovered hundreds of thousands of years ago. Yes, narrow beams and more efficient digital transmissions are already with us, and probably will be more so, in the future.

Something like a planetary protection radar would presumably still need to be relatively high powered, and effectively omnidirectional, though perhaps serially. If any extraterrestrials want to contact 'beginners' like us, at some point in our development, they'd need to use what we can receive, 

Edited by bison
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28 minutes ago, Tatetopa said:

We have only been able to detect  radio broadcasts for a little over a hundred years, so the lifespan of the receiver plays into this too.  I do not think that in another 100 years we will still be pumping out a lot of radio waves in all directions.

We haven't been for about thirty years. All modern broadcast towers (excluding shortwave) focus radio waves down towards the ground where the receivers are. There is simply no reason to send expensive transmission energy into space where no one will receive it.

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Only thirty?  I'm in regular contact with a dozen, and I know of at least twenty alien civilisations that have me permanently blocked.

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6 hours ago, Piney said:

Pretty broad. It doesn't take in all the factors involved for technological life to develop. 

Agreed.   Also, I don't think 1 planet (Earth) is enough to give us great info of how long or how often intelligent life shows up.   If not for that asteroid, would Dinosaurs still rule the Earth and apes not had evolved?   

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1 hour ago, Tom1200 said:

Only thirty?  I'm in regular contact with a dozen, and I know of at least twenty alien civilisations that have me permanently blocked.

On top of the Midlands, the North and Scotland. :yes:

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Thirty seems awfully low. I mean, I�m no scientist, but... wait, I am. I�m sticking with awfully low.

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4 hours ago, freetoroam said:

I would not want to bestow our virus riddled world on others. Wait til they start reading our facebook pages or see our leaders. :D

 

OIP.jdzmDZ5D1p46J_mzTQbZ3QHaFO?w=193&h=1

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Got to wonder how they come up with that number. Yet there are many billions of suns in our galaxy alone.

Edited by razman
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If you read what Bison said then I might have a clearer understanding 

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9 hours ago, freetoroam said:

Well we do know of one.

I dunno, they’re awfully self-destructive on the whole. Not very civilised.

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3 hours ago, DirtyDocMartens said:

Thirty seems awfully low. I mean, I�m no scientist, but... wait, I am. I�m sticking with awfully low.

It seems extremely high to me. The odds of any other life in the galaxy could be a trillion trillion trillion to one.

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11 hours ago, Hankenhunter said:

"But as it is, the Drake equation is fundamentally 'unsolvable' and contains a major variable we can't know until we find intelligent life: What's the average length of time alien civilizations are detectable?"

This is just one of the major variables we don't know. Solving an equation when you don't know what values to put in it is at best a waste of time and at worst a way to mislead people. It's like a crook investor who "guarantees" a 20% return on your investment.

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Dr. Frank Drake never intended his famous equation to provide firm answers. This was understood from the start. Various persons have gotten widely varying answers from it, using figures for the variables which the preferred.  The Drake equation was devised to provoke thinking about the issues involved. It has certainly succeeded in that. It has also spurred thinking about how the equation could be modified to deal with newly-conceived factors, which Dr. Drake did not consider, such as territorial expansion of species from their home worlds to others.

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Calling numbers on how many civilizations there could be in the universe, is wet work at best. First of all we still have no clue whatsoever on our own evolution as humans. Think of the missing link for instance which is still not solved. 

Secondly and I do not remember who actually made that docu anymore. The chances of evolution going towards being a species that is intelligent enough to evolve towards space travel are enormously small. Factor in the time how long that species planet exists and how fast it evolves. Measure in the chance of some natural catastrophe on that planet, like we had the meteor impact which created the Big Bang, or something like the year 536 BC.

So saying the possibility is that there are 30 civilizations could be right, but maybe those other 29 besides us are even less evolved than us. For all we know they are still in a section of life we can compare with the time dinosaurs still lived here. 

Or those other species are more evolved than us but because of the distance between us and there planet takes so long to travel that it is almost impossible to have contact with each other. 

Then again even this, and it is likely, is still conjecture at best. 

Edited by Leon G
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