After recently releasing three new DIRDs, George Knapp’s MysteryWire.com has now released two more including the Drake Equation DIRD that many people have been hoping for. They can be found on MysteryWire’s Document page.
Introduction to the Statistical Drake Equation
George Knapp and Jeremy Corbell have also been interviewed in one of the most listened to Podcasts in the world, The Joe Rogan Experience. Listen to it here!
TLDR: Page 23: “…with 75 percent probability, the nearest extraterrestrial civilization is located in between the distances of 1361 and 3979 light years from us, having assumed the input values to the Drake Equation…” I’m not a Drake Equation expert, but the assumptions are there are ~400 billion stars with ~100 billion planets on which technical civilizations have existed at some point – not necessarily now. It goes on to say how out of billions of years of our planet we’ve only had a few decades of radio broadcast, the method by which SETI works. So the potential for radio contact starts high and then gets cut down by a technical civilization existing and broadcasting at the same range of us listening. What the assumption doesn’t take in to account, however, is a civilization being able to traverse space/time faster than radio waves. This would then make the distance moot. Either way, I think the power of this topic is breaking down the belief that we’re alone in the universe. Perhaps it’s like the 4-min mile where once it was done once it was easy for others to do.