h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I wonder if the goldilocks analogy can be applied to the age old conundrum of what it is a bear actually does in the woods. The answer of course being, if conditions are just right, of course it damn well will do whats expected.
Oh I tried the calculator and I got 1720 inhabited planets out there

I am a simple soul and easily confused. Just looking at that calculation thing tends to glaze the eyes and send me looking for the "don't panic" sign. I have one question and it has to do with the Goldilocks analogy. Why do we assume that "life" on other planets will have our requirements? There are any number of places on Earth where life exists, but where human life would perish; and why do we assume that our methods of communicating are the only ones possible? What would you or I know of radio waves if someone else had not invented the technology to use this property? It could be that some other advanced race have some method of instantaneous communication that we do not have the technology to receive. We can't even talk to whales or dolphins.

In that case, Kangelew, you'd presumably have higher proportions of planets that could support life and of proportions that suggest a civilisation that can 'communicate'.

As I say at the start of the entry, the point of the equation was not to come out with an absolute number, but simply to raise and focus attention on the difficult questions you mention in your post. As far as I'm aware, no-one has, or pretends to have, the answers

Now what are some values that end up giving you '42'?...

Now there's a challenge!

Here we go! My rather contrived statistics which result in 42 civilizations!

2 billion stars in the galaxy (lowest likely number)

1% have planets (er...all that evidence must be a fluke)

1 'earth' per solar system (hey, that's what we have!)

1% of which life develops on (on the other 99% it just...doesn't...)

2.1% of which life gets intelligent (hey, I like 2.1! And it just happens to be half of 4.2...)

.0001% of which technology develops with (because I realized my number was too big )

100 years of communication (call me a fatalist; expect collapse soon)


And you get....GASP!
$@!!!!
Er, I mean,
42!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
As I don't believe there's a 42 smiley, I'll have to go with

That, is so fundamentally cool it has to be true

Today, on the BBC:

"Early this morning a fleet of 41 spaceships were seen to accumulate in the solar system of our planet..."

Wot?? Not 42!!!

well, we're the 42nd civilization, see...

I like 1764 for an answer on the number of inhabited planets. It's 42 squared. lol.

well must there not be another value?that value would be that life devolops like earth's...they may be flying ultraviolet rays for all we know