Lecture 39: The Drake Equation

Is anybody out there? This lecture reviews the ideas behind SETI, the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence, an effort to find other intelligent communicating civilizations by tuning in on their radio or other electromagnetic communications. I will discuss the basic approache ...  عرض المزيد

If we ever detect life elsewhere, how will we go visit? This lecture considers the challenges of interstellar travel and colonization. The problem is one of basic physics (the enormous energy requirements of star flight) coupled with the vast, irreducible distances between the st ...  عرض المزيد

How can we search for extraterrestrial intelligence, and what are we looking for? This second part of a 2-part lecture picks up where we left off yesterday by examining SETI, the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence, and reviews what we might look for and how. We will use thi ...  عرض المزيد

What is Astronomy? What is Science? What is the course all about? Brief introductory remarks after going over course mechanics on the first day of Astronomy 161 for Autumn Quarter 2007. Recorded 2007 Sep 19 in 1000 McPherson Lab on the Columbus campus of The Ohio State University ...  عرض المزيد

Are we alone in the Universe? This lecture explores the question of how we might go about finding life on planets around other stars. Rather than talking about speculative ideas, like the Drake Equation or SETI, I am instead taking the approach of posing it as a problem of what t ...  عرض المزيد