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Originally Posted by
Meh Reh 
No. More. Questions.
She wanted to know about those letters. She stared and stared and stared.
Maybe they would magically appear in her brain? Yeah, right. Magic didn't work like that. She leaned on one arm and listened to the answers. While fascinating (not), she had another question.
"If we're not calculating it," she said. "What does the equation do?"
"Are you asking me historically or mathematically? Mathematically, the equation does do what I described. That is, if you enter correct values for all those factors, it will give you the number of alien civilisations in our galaxy we might possibly be able to communicate with. Of course, you have to assume that the factors will give you a result that is correct in the actual, real Universe, and you have to know the values, and so on..." He waved his hand expansively.
"But that aside, that's what the equation does. If you're asking me about the equation's history, then its original purpose was to show that the search for extraterrestrial life was, in fact, a scientific endeavour, and that the chances of finding life could be expressed in easily expressed numbers. Does that, er, help at all?"
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Originally Posted by
Deniiz Evan listened contently to the discussion. It was an interesting topic, surprisingly for Astronomy, and even though he didn't believe in 'life on other planets' at all, he still wanted to ask something, perhaps to show his scepticism and point something out that bugged him greatly about this alien issue.
"You answered to Fee that if the star is too far, life cannot develop," he said, hand in the air. "But, what if that form of life dies with heat? I mean, we only know out civilisation and as far as we're concerned they may be living on different conditions..."
"What if, indeed," Risu said, nodding. "Very good point, and this is, in fact, one of the criticisms of the Drake equation." He paused. "Of the search for other life in general, actually. We
assume that such life, while most likely not looking similar to what we can find on Earth, will be close enough essentially to say that it needs... water, air, an atmosphere, a balance of heat and cold, and all those things we have here on our planet. It is very possible that other forms of life work completely differently."
He rested against the blackboard. "Of course, there are good reasons for looking for life that is similar to us. We know what sort of planets to look for, we can expect certain signature radio waves, and so on. But as you said, there is no, say, universal principle that decrees that life has to be even remotely similar to what we have here."