I also liked Contact, and you're right about Judy Foster. Especially after seeing Tarter in flesh and bones, but also the rest of it, the mind. I guess Foster did her job well, whatever the director asked of her. I can't even remember who the director was.
I just wiki-ed him. Wow, he lived to 92, only died a couple of years ago. Drake was an actual scientist, astrophysicist and astrobiologist, also involved with SETI, which is fine. I like Jill Tarter; is she still the top honcho there. I think she's pushing 80. I saw her give a talk maybe ten years ago or less (not that long ago) and she was very good and sharp. I like her.
Anyway, even a non-civilian like me only remembers the damned equation. A bit like reducing Einstein to that fucking little equation of his, which people don't know what it means, anyway.
So, Drake is just fine; it's only the equation that I don't care for. I mean, if we want to estimate, get a number, I guess we use it. But it only gives a very rough guesstimate, with error bars the size of the solar system, or the galaxy. Nobody talks about the error bars, do they. If you write a post on error bars I guesstimate that you would have one reader (me). And the other way around; if I write it, you may want to read it. And if we're really lucky, maybe we double that number.
I’m a fan of both the novel, Contact, and the movie adaptation. I love Sagan’s idea about deliberate messages from the Creator hidden deep in the digits of transcendental numbers. (But while Foster is a deliberate analogue of Tarter, I’ve always thought she looked more like theoretical physicist Lisa Randall.)
Yeah, as I mentioned in the post, Drake never intended the equation to provide any sort of realistic number. It was solely to instigate discussion at a conference he was to attend. He never realized it would turn out to have the legs it does.
As you say, just like Einstein’s famous equation. Most don’t realize the part they know is only half the equation. It doesn’t work for light, because light has no mass.
I also liked Contact, and you're right about Judy Foster. Especially after seeing Tarter in flesh and bones, but also the rest of it, the mind. I guess Foster did her job well, whatever the director asked of her. I can't even remember who the director was.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Zemeckis
Pfft, Drake, schmake. I barely started reading.
What don't you like about Frank Drake?
I just wiki-ed him. Wow, he lived to 92, only died a couple of years ago. Drake was an actual scientist, astrophysicist and astrobiologist, also involved with SETI, which is fine. I like Jill Tarter; is she still the top honcho there. I think she's pushing 80. I saw her give a talk maybe ten years ago or less (not that long ago) and she was very good and sharp. I like her.
Anyway, even a non-civilian like me only remembers the damned equation. A bit like reducing Einstein to that fucking little equation of his, which people don't know what it means, anyway.
So, Drake is just fine; it's only the equation that I don't care for. I mean, if we want to estimate, get a number, I guess we use it. But it only gives a very rough guesstimate, with error bars the size of the solar system, or the galaxy. Nobody talks about the error bars, do they. If you write a post on error bars I guesstimate that you would have one reader (me). And the other way around; if I write it, you may want to read it. And if we're really lucky, maybe we double that number.
I’m a fan of both the novel, Contact, and the movie adaptation. I love Sagan’s idea about deliberate messages from the Creator hidden deep in the digits of transcendental numbers. (But while Foster is a deliberate analogue of Tarter, I’ve always thought she looked more like theoretical physicist Lisa Randall.)
Yeah, as I mentioned in the post, Drake never intended the equation to provide any sort of realistic number. It was solely to instigate discussion at a conference he was to attend. He never realized it would turn out to have the legs it does.
As you say, just like Einstein’s famous equation. Most don’t realize the part they know is only half the equation. It doesn’t work for light, because light has no mass.