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Galaxy Quest: 38,000 Earths? |
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Dr. Samuel Says -
Weirdness
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Written by Dr. Samuel Centralia, Ph.D., D.D.S., Esq.
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Wednesday, 25 February 2009 |
So I was skimming the International Journal of Astrobiology this morning -- I like a little light reading before breakfast -- when I came across this fascinating report. It seems researchers at the University of Edinburgh (Scotland gets all the best scientists) have constructed a detailed computer model of a synthetic galaxy much like our own Milky Way.
 The model suggests that not only could there be intelligent life on
other planets, but that -- considering everything we know about
astrobiology to this point -- it would be very nearly impossible,
mathematically, for Earth to be the only inhabited planet in the
galaxy.
In fact, the computer model suggests that at least 361 intelligent
civilizations have emerged in the Milky Way, and perhaps as many as
38,000 exist in total. "The computer model takes into account what we
refer to as resetting or extinction events,” lead researcher Duncan
Forgan told CNN. “The classic example is the asteroid impact that may
have wiped out the dinosaurs. I half-expected these events to disallow
the rise of intelligence, and yet civilizations seemed to flourish."
Of course, our knowledge of astrobiology is still woefully limited, and
computer models don’t actually prove anything. I found this out the
hard way last year when I fed baseball spring training statistics into
the ANGUS-7000, our new supercomputer here at Dyscern World HQ, and bet
the mortgage on the Detroit Tigers winning the World Series.
Anyway, thought you might like to know about the other civilizations
out there. Maybe one of them has figured out a way to institute a fair
system of digital rights management over peer-to-peer networks. That
would be nice.
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