Life: A Scientific Inquiry.” Angelina Dohre/Photo Editor
ANGELINA DOHRE
Photo Editor
Students, faculty and community members gathered for last week’s Brown Bag Lecture series.
Dr. Neal Evans from the University of Texas at Austin presented “Extraterritorial Life: A Scientific Inquiry.” He focused on cosmic transformation and the scientific explanation of life beyond Earth.
Opening remarks were made by Fredonia physics professor Michael Dunham. He is one of several Fredonia professors who helped direct this year’s Brown Bag series.
Other professors include psychology professor Jack Croxton, biology professor Scott Medler, computer and information sciences professor Michael Scialdone, communication professor Roslin Smith and politics and international affairs professor Ivani Vassoler.
Evans began the talk with how to approach extraterrestrial life. “We’re going to say, ‘How can we deal with this in a scientific way?’” he said.
To approach this topic in a scientific manner, Evans explained how to calculate answers to questions like “How many communicable civilizations are in our galaxy?” and “Is there more than just life out there; is there intelligent life?”
“We approach these questions through something called the Drake equation,” he said. “That means we’re going to do a little bit of mathematics, which usually induces that state of reaction in people, but it’s really straightforward mathematics.”
Attendees were given a Drake equation worksheet and Evans explained each factor of it. The first factor that’s considered is calculating how many stars are formed per year. We must assume that life exists on planets around stars.
According to Evans, the best way to communicate with outside intelligent life would be through radio waves.
“We have the capability to communicate,” he said. “Do we have the interest in communicating? The capability and interest are both part of this next factor: what fraction of planets with intelligent life actually develop a technological civilization that’s capable and interested in interstellar communication?”
The next factor gets rid of the rate, which is how many per year, and turns it into a number. This number shows how long a civilization lasts.
Smith helped submit and obtain finances for Evans’s flights and accommodation from last year’s Carnahan Jackson Fund. “Dunham worked with Evans, and so he did all the arrangements with him,” she said.
According to Smith, the talk was very informative.
“As an amateur cosmos enthusiast, I loved his talk,” she said. “I even liked the Drake equation worksheet and had 200 possibilities for intelligent life out there.”
Junior video production major Natalie Harden attended the talk and was intimidated at first when presented with all the information.
“Once I stopped trying to understand I started to get it,” she said. “I didn’t like how I left knowing only a little bit more about the mystery of space. I would definitely go to future talks because maybe the next one will give me better understandings on the subject.”