Human Universe by Professor Brian Cox Page B

$30 million to fund the construction of the project, consists of 42 radio antennae able to scan large areas of the sky at multiple radio frequencies, including the 21cm hydrogen line. If there are any civilisations making a serious attempt to contact us with technology at least as advanced as our own within a thousand light years, the Allen Array will hear them.
    In the early 1960s, the scientific community was sceptical about such endeavours and Frank Drake was perceived as a maverick. It’s important to be sceptical in science, but as Fermi understood, a back-of-the-envelope calculation with some plausible assumptions suggests that the search for ET may not be futile. Indeed, the alternative view that our civilisation is unique or extremely rare in a galaxy of a hundred billion suns appears outrageously solipsistic, and the sceptical finger might as easily be pointed at the cynics. There was, however, a handful of scientists who understood the importance of asking big questions, and together with Peter Pearman, a senior scientist at America’s prestigious National Academy of Sciences, Drake organised the first SETI conference in November 1961. The Green Bank meeting was small, but the list of attendees, who named themselves The Order of the Dolphin, was impressive.

 
     
     
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    FIRST SETI CONFERENCE ATTENDEES
    PETER PEARMAN
    conference organiser
    FRANK DRAKE
    PHILIP MORRISON
    DANA ATCHLEY
    businessman and radio amateur
    MELVIN CALVIN
    chemist
    SU-SHU HUANG
    astronomer
    JOHN C. LILLY
    neuroscientist
    BARNEY OLIVER
    inventor
    CARL SAGAN
    astronomer
    OTTO STRUVE
    radio astronomer
    GIUSEPPE COCCONI
    particle physicist
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    Philip Morrison was there, as was his co-author of the seminal 1959
Nature
paper, Giuseppe Cocconi. I have a professional connection with Cocconi, who was a noted particle physicist and director of the Proton Synchrotron accelerator at CERN in Geneva. Cocconi was instrumental in discovering early experimental evidence for the pomeron, an object in particle physics known as a Regge trajectory that I have spent most of my career studying. The eminent, highly respected astronomer Otto Struve also attended. Struve publicly stated his belief in the existence of intelligent extraterrestrial life, perhaps because he had recently suggested a method for detecting alien planets outside our solar system (see here ). Nobel Laureate Melvin Calvin, most famous for his work on photosynthesis, was present, along with future Hewlett Packard vice president for R&D Barney Oliver, astronomer Su-Shu Huang, communications specialist Dana Atchley and the colourful neuroscientist and dolphin researcher John Lilly. The most junior attendee was a 27-year-old postdoc. called Carl Sagan. I would love to have been there, although I’d have spent the whole time chatting with Cocconi about pomerons.
    In preparation for the meeting, Drake drew up an agenda designed to stimulate a structured conversation amongst the group. If the search for intelligent extraterrestrial life was to be taken seriously, it was clear in Drake’s mind that the discussion should be rigorous and provide a framework for future research. The way to do that is to address the problem quantitatively rather than qualitatively; to break it down into a series of probabilities that can be estimated, at least in principle, using observational data.
    Drake focused on a well-defined question – the one we discussed above: how many intelligent civilisations exist in the Milky Way galaxy that we could in principle communicate with? Drake’s brilliant insight was to express this in terms of a simple equation containing a series of probabilities. What is the fraction of stars in the galaxy that have planets? What is the average number of planets around a star that could support life? What is the fraction of those planets on which life begins? What is the probability that, given the emergence of simple life, intelligent life evolves? Given