Merideth Naomi is now 15 months old No new pictures posted. Yet.

- Fritz. (Aug. 6th, 1998)

FTL Notes

1. (1) Joseph F. Baugher, On Civilized Stars, Prentice-Hall (1985), pages 162-166.

2. (2) J.F. Baugher, ibid., page 160. A 56 million year colonization time frame works out to an expansion rate of approximately 3 light years every 2000 years.

3. (3) John McLoughlin, The Toolmaker Koan. This interesting novel deals with the "koan" or riddle/problem that our civilization has been confronting since we have developed the capacity to destroy ourselves.

4. (4) J.F. Baugher, ibid., pages 54-88. Most books about the existence of Extraterrestrial life use one form or another of this equation. It should be noted that this equation only considers life as we know it. There is no reason that life might not occur in other non-terrestrial environments. It can be argued that the most likely planet in our solar system for finding complex life forms (other than Earth) is Jupiter.

5. (5) Carl Sagan & I.S. Shklovskii, Intelligent Life in the Universe, Holden-Day (1966), pages 409-418. An alternative equation is:

   R(*) - Rate of star formation
   f(p) - fraction of stars with planetary systems
   n(e) - number of planets in star system with favorable environments
   f(l) - fraction of planets that life develops
   f(i) - fraction of life bearing planets that develop intelligent life
   f(c) - fraction of intelligent life that develops technological civilizations
   L - the life span of the civilization
   

   N = R(*)f(p)n(e)f(l)f(i)f(c)L

   Where N is the number of civilizations and is found to be the product of the above factors.

6. (6) Stuart Ross Taylor, Solar System Evolution: A New Perspective, Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge (1992), pages 45-50.

7. (7) S.R. Taylor, ibid., page 178.

8. (8) J.F. Baugher, ibid., pages 103-112.

   f(life) = 1.0
   f(int) = 1.0
   f(tech) = 0.5
   

   I agree with the value for f(life) and feel that f(int) is probably the right magnitude. There is a good body of evidence that we share our planet with other intelligences right now. The great apes and cetaceans being notable candidates. The fraction f(tech) is more problematic. Tool users of the type that humans are have a fairly specialized set of other physical capabilities that make use effective tool users (prehensile hands, an advanced form of communication) so it is not obvious that this value should be as high as Baugher sets it. None the less, even if we down the grade value an order or two of magnitude we are still left with very significant numbers of advanced civilizations.

9. (9) C. Sagan & I.S. Shklovskii, ibid., page 418. The dispersion for these civilizations would be 200 to 1000 light years, on average, separating them.

10. (10) J.F. Baugher, ibid., page 150.

11. (11) S.R. Taylor, ibid., pages 276-278.

12. (12) S.R. Taylor, ibid., page 53.

13. (13) J.F. Baugher, ibid., pages 119-120.

14. (14) J.F. Baugher, ibid., pages 138-142.

15. (15) J.F. Baugher, ibid., pages 147-149.

16. (16) Robert Forward, Rocheworld (originally Flight of the Dragonfly) presents an excellent vision of a near future manned probe to a nearby star.

17. (17) S.R. Taylor, ibid., pages 73-76.

18. (18) J.F. Baugher, ibid., pages 160-161.

19. (19) Stephen J. Gould presents many good examples of "evolutionary hacks", such as The Panda's Thumb.

20. (20) Elaine Morgan, The Scars Of Evolution, Souvenir Press (1990). This book is an excellent evolutionary survey of the human condition.

21. (21) Greg Bear, The Forge Of God and its sequel The Anvil Of The Stars present an interesting perspective of what it might be like to live a galaxy with "aggressive" colonizers.

22. (22) Fred Saberhagen's "Berserker" series gives a sinister view of a von Neumann type machine colonizer/anti-colonizer force, i.e. a machine intelligence that is self reproducing and which is hostile to life.

23. (23) Ian M. Banks' 'Culture' books (such as Consider Phlebas) give a view of how a deep space culture might be, albeit with FTL drive.

24. (24) Larry Niven's Ringworld is a good example of what a the resources of a whole star system can be converted into.

25. (25) The Hubble telescope is intended to discern large planets or dark companions orbiting nearby stars.

26. (26) James P. Hogan, Thrice Upon A Time presents such a disaster.

27. (27) John Brunner, The Sheep Look Up.

28. (28) John Brunner, Stand On Zanzibar.

29. (29) Vernor Vinge, Marooned In Realtime.

30. (30) There are a large number of novels dealing with various forms of cosmic or astronomical disasters. Ranging from Fred Hoyle's The Black Cloud (our solar system enters an interstellar dust cloud sufficiently opaque enough to reduce the sunlight reaching earth) to the various impact scenarios such as Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle's Lucifer's Hammer.

31. (31) John Burke's excellent Connections television series and companion book make point of this.

32. (32) C. Sagan, ibid., page 418.

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