Quote:
Originally Posted by
fire_faerie 
"And here's another one; technically, if fi doesn't exist on a planet, then fc couldn't ever ever happen. They're all dependable on each other, but those two the most," she said, speaking quickly so that she wouldn't lose her track of thought, which happened way too often for her liking. "Why is fi so important, in the end? One could just take fl and fc and be done with it, no?"
Risu
had been a little surprised to see that a fairly heated - by his classroom's standards - discussion had developed. He felt it was time to step in at this point to steer it a little.
"The assumption behind
fi," he said, then added after a slight pause, "and all other fractions that depend on each other, really, is that they are a necessity for communication, which is the end goal of this equation, of course, but that they are not a certainty. There is no rule in the Universe that states every life that develops will eventually become 'intelligent' and send messages into space. It would be possible, I suppose, to mesh all those together into one fraction and be done with it, but this would be even more difficult," he paused again, and a slight smile tugged on his lips, "or perhaps more impossible, to calculate. Let's call it
ft.
"If you had, for example, a fairly good idea of the true value of
fi, the accuracy of the equation would increase, but if you skipped this step - which would then, at any rate, have to appear hidden in one of the other factors, you would be stuck with
ft and a useless equation until every hidden value in
ft was known. It's just fleshed out more the proposed way, I guess."
Quote:
Originally Posted by
fire_faerie "And another thing, specifically about the f thingies in the equations - . It just takes fl for granted. Everything that is in this equation is by OUR definitions; who ever said that they were correct? WE defined that light speed is 300,000 km/s because we said that THIS MUCH," she extended her hands a little bit to show a specific length, "was a km and this time," the brunette clicked her fingers, "was a second. Their definitions might be different and then how would our transmitters and our satellite probe space things be able to detect anything? This equation is purely mathematical and I think it needs a little bit more science… Er, I mean astronomy, in it in order to make it better," Ryden summed up, eying the people around her as if daring them to contradict her.
Risu nodded. "This is another aspect of the problem mentioned by a few of you - why do we assume extraterrestrial life to need the same thing as life on Earth? We can safely say that they will have no idea of what a kilometre is, or a second. These are just conventions used here on Earth. Some form of, er, translation or transcription would be needed. This is, I can tell you, something we will try to deal with in our next lesson."
Quote:
Originally Posted by
sweetpinkpixie "Did anyone ever stop to think that THIS is the exact reason why the equation is accepted?" she asked everyone in the general area waving her arms around for emphasis. Although, Kurumi wasn't sure that accepted was the right word. Acknowledged was probably better. She was risking repeating herself, but no one had seemed to have heard her the first time. "This equation is stimulating intellectual curiosity, nothing more seeing as it is based on essentially stabs in the dark," she said firmly. She pointed back at the board. "Essentially all those properties that are listed are based on what we, as humans, consider signs of life and civilization. It makes us feel connected to the universe and helps us see just how connected and integrated we are with the universe." She suddenly felt the urge to stand, but she refrained. "As I see it, it is an elaborate metaphor for hope and chance. To make us feel like out planet isn't alone." Yep, she had definitely said that earlier.
She glanced back at her notes and at the board. "This equation doesn't take time into consideration either....there is nothing that indicated WHEN there were Earth-like planets or intelligent beings." She swallowed. "Also, when it says detectable signals...whose to say that there are planets producing signals that are beyond what we are capable of reading?"
Constellations...please?
"You are correct, of course, to mention these things, Miss Hollingberry," Risu said, "but I might need to clarify a minor detail. Questions of, say, detectable signals or time are assumed in the factors of the equation. A huge number of different ideas stand behind each factor - for example, if intelligent life took, on average, a few billion years to develop, then this number would be important to consider in several of our factors;
ne would only include planets surrounding a star capable of shining for at least that long, and so on."
He wandered back to the blackboard. "I think we've discussed the merits or lack thereof to a great extent. Before we continue with a different concept in our search for alien life, I have to know if there are any remaining questions. Or, perhaps, things that are unclear that I should talk about."