Frank Drake Has Died...

[Sir Rhosis]

Who? Drake wrote the equation estimating how many active extraterrestrial civilizations there may be in the Milky Way Galaxy that could communicate with humans which Gene Roddenberry used in his Trek pitch in 1964. If memory serves, GR didn't use the full (or correct?) equation.

From reading about it, it seems that many think the equation is faulty...

Frank Drake - Wikipedia

Drake equation - Wikipedia

Sir Rhosis

 

[Esteban]

Nice find. Well done.

 

[scotpens]

According to Wiki, Drake's equation is:

According to The Making of Star Trek, the "equation" G.R. used in his Star Trek pitch was:

Roddenberry just made up a technical-looking formula. Hell, TV network executives aren't scientists!

Anyway, R.I.P. Frank Drake. 92 is a pretty good run.

 

[Tango]

The value of N in the Star Trek Universe must be fairly high - anyone recall any on-screen statements concerning the value? There seemed to be quite a few interstellar space-faring civilizations in the vicinity of Earth. Earth's first contact was famously by direct encounter (following a monitoring program by the Vulcans going back at least as far as the mid-20th century IIRC), but I wonder if that was the norm, or did most civilizations make first contact by remote communication? Drake's equation did not take into account subspace radio or warp drive!

Roddenberry's odd equation is on page 23 of my paperback edition of TMOST, with a footnote referring to an "interesting story" about it later in the book. Anyone know what page that story appears on? On page 23, Roddenberry's estimate of about 3,000,000 planets with a "good possibility of intelligent life and social evolution similar to our own" is not quite the same as N as defined by the Drake Equation, and I'm sure N(Drake) < N(Roddenberry).

 

[BK613]

Maybe this is the source for that since BoT predates TMoST.
Balance of Terror

MCCOY: But I've got one. Something I seldom say to a customer, Jim. In this galaxy, there's a mathematical probability of three million Earth-type planets. And in all of the universe, three million million galaxies like this. And in all of that, and perhaps more, only one of each of us. Don't destroy the one named Kirk.​

 

[scotpens]

The value of N in the Star Trek Universe must be fairly high - anyone recall any on-screen statements concerning the value?

In "Metamorphosis," Kirk makes the rather vague statement: "We estimate there are millions of planets with intelligent life. We haven't begun to map them."

 

[Tango]

Sorry, I should have said that Roddenberry's equation and value of N(Roddenberry) quoted in TMOST were taken from his series format/outline, predating the first pilot. McCoy's later 3,000,000 perhaps may have come from there, although again the definition of N(McCoy) is not the same as that of N(Roddenberry) or of N(Drake) for that matter, with clearly N(Drake) < N(Roddenberry) < N(McCoy).

Current estimates of the number of galaxies in the observable universe are uncertain, but McCoy's 3 million million may be a bit high, say by about a factor of ten (the number implied by Roddenberry in TMOST seems wildly inflated, so I'm glad they didn't use that on-screen). But hey, McCoy has 23rd century science and we don't.

 

[Neopeius]

From reading about it, it seems that many think the equation is faulty...

It's not a meaningful equation. It's a list of known unknowns. It can be fudged to say anything one wants to say. Usually prefaced or succeeded by the phrase, "Isn't it ARROGANT to assume there's no intelligent life besides us in the universe?!"

We've actually covered Frank Drake at the Journey. I'm sorry to hear of his passing, but he did have a good run of it.

 

[Tango]

The Drake equation and its limitations and elaborations and related ideas are still a subject of discussion in the professional literature. Here's a link to a more popular account (PDF format):

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2105.03984.pdf

Note the above paper has not been peer-reviewed, but after a quick read and checking of some of the references, it seems reasonable to me and I think the topics covered may be of interest to Star Trek fans.

An interesting aside: the author of that paper apparently is the rights holder for the "Zorro" character!

 

[Maurice]

I always thought of the Drake equation as more a though experiment than anything scientific.

 

[Phaser Two]

RIP to Mr. Drake. That's sad.

Maybe the Preservers messed up the numbers in the Trek universe?

Maybe this is the source for that since BoT predates TMoST.
Balance of Terror

MCCOY: But I've got one. Something I seldom say to a customer, Jim. In this galaxy, there's a mathematical probability of three million Earth-type planets. And in all of the universe, three million million galaxies like this. And in all of that, and perhaps more, only one of each of us. Don't destroy the one named Kirk.​

I was always glad McCoy seldom said that to a customer. It was going fine until "Don't destroy the one named Kirk." Sort of a weird line. I prefer the somewhat similar exchange in "The Ultimate Computer."

 

[ZapBrannigan]

I always thought of the Drake equation as more a though experiment than anything scientific.

Yeah. It's a way to take your own guesses and biases, and shape them into an overall estimate. The formula only tells you what your beliefs would mean, if they are true.

 

[at Quark's]

I always thought of the Drake equation as more a though experiment than anything scientific.

I agree, I see the primary value of the formula mostly in breaking down a broad question like this into a set of smaller and more specific questions; not necessarily in whether all of the estimates for those steps are correct or provide a reasonable answer range -or even if the way the steps were split up, or if these are all relevant factors that should be taken into consideration are correct in themselves. You have to start somewhere, and I'm sure this equation did what it was intended for - stimulate scientific discussion about the topic rather than attempting to provide a (model for) serious estimation.

Anyway, sad news. Rest in peace.

 

[BK613]

I was always glad McCoy seldom said that to a customer. It was going fine until "Don't destroy the one named Kirk." Sort of a weird line. I prefer the somewhat similar exchange in "The Ultimate Computer."

I think I need to rewatch that episode. I've always heard that line as "Something I heard'em say to a customer" and I just cut-and-pasted it from the transcript site verbatim.

 

[Maurice]

I think I need to rewatch that episode. I've always heard that line as "Something I heard'em say to a customer" and I just cut-and-pasted it from the transcript site verbatim.

I think it's more like "Something I seldom say to a customer."

 

[Phaser Two]

I think I need to rewatch that episode. I've always heard that line as "Something I heard'em say to a customer" and I just cut-and-pasted it from the transcript site verbatim.

It's "Something I seldom say to a customer" unless I've been hearing it wrong for 50 years!
Chrissie transcribed it that way and the closed captions agree with her.

But Kelley does sort of mumble parts of it. It's a nice McCoy-Kirk moment. I just think use of "destroy" and "the one named Kirk" was a bit strange. "One named Kirk" sounds like something Nomad would say. And while McCoy was apparently trying to communicate that Kirk shouldn't beat himself up over his command decisions, all their lives were at risk, so he would have "destroyed" the "one named McCoy" too with a wrong move. I guess that was the point; giving Kirk a pep talk possibly saved them all. I just love Star Trek dialogue (and always found the Kirk-McCoy relationship more enjoyable than the Spock-McCoy dynamic in many ways), and those lines have never quite landed for me. The captain-doctor scenes in "The Enemy Below" don't have any similar language about customers or destroying ones named whoever (I just scanned that script to be sure - - but maybe I missed it), so we probably can't look there for the word choice inspiration.

Shatner's expression as he watches Kelley deliver the speech is awesome, though. Could be that it's "the one named Phaser Two" who needs to rewatch it.

 

[BK613]

It's "Something I seldom say to a customer" unless I've been hearing it wrong for 50 years!

One us has been hearing it wrong for 50 years. I won't be surprised if it turns out to be me.

I think "heard'em" works better in the context of the answer he's giving Kirk though. 'Seldom' seems like an odd word choice. At least to me.

 

[Phaser Two]

One us has been hearing it wrong for 50 years. I won't be surprised if it turns out to be me.

I think "heard'em" works better in the context of the answer he's giving Kirk though. 'Seldom' seems like an odd word choice. At least to me.

Hmm. Who's the "em," though? You're saying that you're hearing "something I heard him say to a customer," or "something I heard them say to a customer," right? Who do you think McCoy was talking about?

I think the line, in summary, means: "You're my customer, Jim, and I'm about to tell you something I rarely [seldom] say to a customer." I think this is supposed to be a callback to Boyce telling Pike that a man will tell his bartender things he'll never tell his doctor. I may also be forgetting an instance of McCoy bringing Kirk a drink in S1 before Balance of Terror ("BOT"); if there is such a scene and it aired or was produced earlier than BOT, this would also be a callback to that depiction.

I'm planning to get out the episodes this weekend anyway; perhaps I'll take a listen to the scene.

 

[BK613]

@Phaser Two I was thinking of a more generic 'them' in the vein of the 'they' in 'They used to say that if man could fly...'. We use them/they to refer to some undefined group of people all the time.

McCoy does make Kirk a drink in S2's The Ultimate Computer...

 

[Phaser Two]

@Phaser Two I was thinking of a more generic 'them' in the vein of the 'they' in 'They used to say that if man could fly...'. We use them/they to refer to some undefined group of people all the time.

McCoy does make Kirk a drink in S2's The Ultimate Computer...

Ah, I see. But I'm pretty sure that would have been written "Something I heard someone say to a customer once, Jim," etc. I don't think your construction would be a common use of the generic they/them. But interesting!

And yes, you're right - - I said (or meant to say) somewhere above that because the dialogue in this scene we're discussing is a bit off, I prefer the similar exchange in The Ultimate Computer.