Essay Sample on Francis Drake

📌Category: Astronomy, Science, Scientist
📌Words: 951
📌Pages: 4
📌Published: 16 March 2022

Frank Donald Drake was born in Chicago, Illinois USA on May 28th, 1930. His father Richard Drake was a chemical engineer working for the city of Chicago. Frank's mother Winifred Thompson met his father while they were both students at the University of Illinois. From a very young age, Frank became very intertwined with religion due to both of his parents being Baptists. His relationship with his parents was very distant and strict. Richard and Winifred lived very austerely which caused young Frank to use laughter and joy to soothe the absence of his parents. Attending Sunday school gave Frank the chance to learn about different beliefs and religions. He decided that some religions had too narrow beliefs and thought that most of them were brought about due to where you were brought into this world and or wherever you started out. These thoughts led young Frank to dwell on if human civilization was brought about by chance too and how there may be other civilizations elsewhere in the universe we haven't discovered yet. After becoming very attuned to his constant thinking, Frank became very interested in science, specifically astronomy. Because of this, he would make consistent visits after school to Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry. He visited so often that he started to memorize certain exhibits by heart. For example, one talks about how the sun is one common of billions outside of our Milky Way Galaxy. At age 17 Frank was offered a Navy scholarship to go to Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. He was planning to become an airplane designer but his consistent interest in electronics led him to eventually major and graduate with a major in engineering physics. But before continuing his dream career he felt he had a debt to pay with the Navy. So he decided to join the Navy before continuing his studies due to the debt he has to pay to the Navy for funding his college and learning. Because of his engineering experience and intelligence he was appointed as a ship engineer and was responsible for electronics on board.

In the fall of 1955, Frank attended Harvard University. Many of the professors and staff working at the university were eager to test Frank's electronic expertise. Chairman Barton Bork was so eager to use his skills that he appointed him to work in radio astronomy. This was Frank's first job in an actual astronomy lab with other fellow scientists. Working as a Radio astronomer he was tasked with analyzing signals reaching the earth in the electromagnetic spectrum. After graduating from Harvard University he immediately looked for work and was hired at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory at Green Bank, West Virginia in April 1958. While working at Green Bank Frank accumulated an agreement between his co-workers to start a project called “Project Ozma” which was intended to hunt for aliens through radio transmissions. Due to the project being completely ridiculous for its time, it had to be kept secretive from the public due to the fear of ridicule. Project Ozma started observations on April 8th, 1960. And unfortunately, no aliens were detected. But nothing was accumulated through this experience. Frank acquired a new partner. A graduate from Cornell who went by Carl Sagan got in touch with Frank which led to a lifelong partnership between astronomers. 

While working at Green Bank Frank made many substantial discoveries, the first being the first person to ever be able to map out the center of the Milky Way galaxy. The reason nobody has ever been able to map out the Milky Way galaxy is because of the large amounts of dust in the center blocking any visual light making it almost impossible to pick up signals. But the dust doesn't block out radio waves so Frank was able to pick up waves coming from the center of the Milky Way. The second of Frank's discoveries he made with a man called Han Hvatum was that Jupiter has radiation belts like the ones similar to that of Earth's Van Allen belts. The third of Frank's substantial discoveries was how the high temperatures on Venus do not change from day to night unlike that on earth. He also deduced that the atmosphere on Venus is as thick as that of the ocean on earth and can trap substantial amounts of heat and energy. Finally, the last of his discoveries on Venus includes the ability to use radio waves to map out the geography of Venus's surface and being able to track the speed of wind on Venus (winds on Venus is 2-3 miles per hour according to Frank).

The most famous out of Frank's many discoveries has to be ẗhe ¨Drake Equation”. In the summer of 1961, Frank got a call that remade his life. The caller who contacted him was Peter Pearman who at the time was a biologist working at the Space Science Board in the Academy of Sciences. The main reason for his call was due to his consistent interest in the Ozma project and wanting Frank to arrange a meeting at Green Bank to discuss and motivate a search for life on other planets. When the meeting occurred one of the attendees Melvin Calvin was announced to have won the Nobel Prize in chemistry during the conference. As Frank was writing a list of negotiation topics, he noticed something captivating. All the topics he listed could be written and or expressed as numbers(Accidental). Because of them being able to be transitioned into numbers he realized they could be multiplied which gave birth to one of the most impactful and famous equations in science. 

The Drake Equation  

N is the number of detectable civilizations in space

R* is the rate at which new stars form

fp is the fraction of stars with planets

ne is the number of planets per star where conditions are suitable for life

fl is the fraction of planets where life actually emerges

fi is the fraction of life-containing planets where an intelligent civilization develops

fc is the fraction of intelligent civilizations that produce communications technology we can detect

L is the length of time the communicating civilization remains detectable.

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