A New Empirical Constraint on the Prevalence of Technological Species in the Universe

Frank, Adam; Sullivan, W. T.

doi:10.1089/ast.2015.1418

Cited by 41 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…Soon after, von Hoerner, Shklovskii, and Sagan (von Hoerner 1961) (Shklovskii & Sagan 1966) concluded that the equation's precision depended principally on its parameter L -the mean lifetime of a communicating civilization -because L's value was uncertain over several orders of magnitude. While subsequent advances in astrophysics have improved the precision of several parameters in the Drake equation (Burchell 2006) (Frank & Sullivan 2016) (Vakoch & Dowd 2015), L remains highly uncertain (Oliver & Billingham 1971) (Ambartsumian & Sagan 1973) (Billingham et al 1979) (Duncan 1991) (Schenkel 1999) (Kompanichenko 2000) (Rubin 2001) (Forgan 2009) (Maccone 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biotechnology and the lifetime of technical civilizations

Sotos¹

2019

International Journal of Astrobiology

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The number of people able to end Earth's technical civilization has heretofore been small. Emerging dual-use technologies, such as biotechnology, may give similar power to thousands or millions of individuals. To quantitatively investigate the ramifications of such a marked shift on the survival of both terrestrial and extraterrestrial technical civilizations, this paper presents a two-parameter model for civilizational lifespans, i.e. the quantity L in Drake's equation for the number of communicating extraterrestrial civilizations. One parameter characterizes the population lethality of a civilization's biotechnology and the other characterizes the civilization's psychosociology. L is demonstrated to be less than the inverse of the product of these two parameters. Using empiric data from PubMed to inform the biotechnology parameter, the model predicts human civilization's median survival time as decades to centuries, even with optimistic psychosociological parameter values, thereby positioning biotechnology as a proximate threat to human civilization. For an ensemble of civilizations having some median calculated survival time, the model predicts that, after 80 times that duration, only one in 10 24 civilizations will survive -a tempo and degree of winnowing compatible with Hanson's "Great Filter." Thus, assuming that civilizations universally develop advanced biotechnology, before they become vigorous interstellar colonizers, the model provides a resolution to the Fermi paradox.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biotechnology and the lifetime of technical civilizations

Sotos¹

2019

International Journal of Astrobiology

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“…Depending on the assumptions made about the lifetime of technological civilizations, Frank and Sullivan calculated the number of civilizations that could have existed to be on the order of tens of thousands to a trillion civilizations that could have appeared over cosmic history. 77,78 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Destination Universe: Some Thoughts on Faster-Than Light (FTL) Travel

Bennett¹

2016

52nd AIAA/SAE/ASEE Joint Propulsion Conference

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Faster-than-light (FTL) travel is a staple of science fiction and it has been seriously investigated by a number of physicists. Despite the challenges both theoretical and practical, the idea of FTL travel is intriguing because if it can be achieved it offers the human race the chance to travel to the stars within the lifetimes of the crew. Three of the principal FTL concepts are discussed in this paper: (1) tachyons which are hypothetical FTL particles with properties consistent with the special theory of relativity; (2) wormholes which offer a window to distant star systems using general relativity; and (3) warp drives which employ general relativity to modify spacetime to get around the velocity of light speed limit. Issues facing hypothetical FTL travelers are discussed. In space there are countless constellations, suns and planets; we see only the suns because they give light; the planets remain invisible, for they are small and dark. There are also numberless earths circling around their suns, no worse and no less than this globe of ours. For no reasonable mind can assume that heavenly bodies that may be far more magnificent than ours would not bear upon them creatures similar or even superior to those upon our human earth.-Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) Burned at the stake for heresy (

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“…Many estimates have been made of the number of extraterrestrial civilizations using approaches such as the Drake equation. These estimates vary considerably according to the many assumptions made, and range from millions to zero (for example, Drake and Sobel 1992;Wilson 2001;Forgan 2009;Frank and Sullivan 2016;Sandberg et al 2018). Considerations include whether the estimates apply to the Milky Way or the observable universe, include past and future civilizations, and whether communication constraints such as the speed of light are considered.…”

Section: Advanced Civilizations In Universes and Multiversesmentioning

confidence: 99%