"Ian R. Macleod - New Light On The Drake Equation" - читать интересную книгу автора (Macleod Ian R)

back in the middle of the last century, had beset SETI-had tried to narrow the whole question down to a
logical series of parameters, which could then be brought together in an equation which, if calculated
accurately, would neatly reveal a figure N which would represent a good estimate for the number of
intelligent and communicating species currently in our galaxy. If the figure was found to be high, then
space would be aswarm with the signals of sentient species anxious to talk to each other. If the figure was
found to be 1, then we were, to all intents and purposes, alone in the universe. Drake's equation involved
the number of stars in our galaxy, and chances of those stars having habitable planets, and then those
planets actually bearing life, and of that life evolving into intelligence, and of that intelligence wanting to
communicate with other intelligences, and of that communication happening in an era in human history
when we humans were capable of listening-which amounted to a microscopic now.

And they had listened, at least those who believed, those who wanted that number N at the end of the
Drake Equation to be up in the tens or hundreds or thousands. They skived spare radiotelescopy and
mainframe processing time and nagged their college principals and senators and fellow dreamers for
SETI funding. Some, like a project at Arecibo, had even beamed out messages, although the message
was going out in any case, the whole babble of radio communications had been spreading out into space
from Earth at the speed of light since Marconi's first transmission тАж We are here. Earth is alive. And
they listened. They listened for a reply. Back then, when he had met Terr, Tom had still believed in the
Drake Equation with a near-religious vehemence, even if many others were beginning to doubt it and
funding was getting harder to maintain. As he walked with her beneath the clocktower through the foggy
lights of Birmingham's other campus, his PC at his college digs in Erdington was chewing through the data
he'd downloaded from a SETI website while his landlord's cat slept on it. Tom was sure that, what with
the processing technology that was becoming available, and then the wide-array radio satellites, it was
only a matter of time and persistence before that first wonderful spike of First Contact came through.
And it had stood him in good stead, now he came to think of it, had the Drake Equation, as he walked
with Terr on that misty English autumn afternoon. One of the most convoluted chat-up lines in history.
But, at least that once, it had worked.

They took the train back to the city and emerged onto New Street as the lights and the traffic fogged the
evening and at some point on their return back past the big shops and the law courts to the campus Terr
had leaned against him and he had put his arm around her. First contact, and the tension between them
grew sweet and electric and a wonderful ache had swelled in his throat and belly until they stopped and
kissed in the dank quietude of one of the old subways while the traffic swept overhead like a distant sea.
Terr. The taste of her mouth, and at last he got to touch that space between her jaw and throat that he
had been longing to touch all afternoon. Terr, who was dark and alive in his arms and womanly and
English and alien. Terr, who closed her stormy eyes as he kissed her and then opened them again and
looked at him with a thrilling candor. After that, everything was different.



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Terr had a zest for life, an enthusiasm for everything. And she had an old car, a nondescript Japanese
thing with leaky sills, a corrupted GPS and a badly botched hydrogen conversion. Tom often fiddled
under the bonnet to get the thing started before they set out on one of their ambitious weekend trips
across the cool and misty country of love and life called England he suddenly found himself in. South to
the biscuit-colored villages of the Cotswolds, north to the grey hills of the Peak District, and then further,
further up the map as autumn-he could no longer think of it as fall-rattled her leaves and curled up her