Astronomer Frank Drake, born in 1930, has died this week. Mr. Drake is most famous for his equation that mathematically tried to estimate the possible number of intelligent civilizations in our galaxy. Mr. Drake is also a founder of SETI (The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence).
His first experiment in the 1960s looking for ET Signals was called Project Ozma. It did not succeed in finding any intelligent signals but the branch of science to do so was formed!
Mr. Drake had a long and distinguished career with Cornell University, the University of California at Santa Cruz and the Arecibo Radio Telescope in Puerto Rico. Here is his famous equation:
