On Wednesday 2003-12-24 06:22, Alberto Monteiro wrote:
> Trent Shipley wrote:
> >> My estimate includes all five. Of course, as in Drake's equation,
> >> each factor has an error from 10% to 900% :-)
> >>
> >>>> * about 10 planets per race
> >>>> * about 200,000 races
> >
> > Alberto, as I recall Drake's Equation has no factor for
> > "Planets Fallow by order of the GIM."
>
> ???
>
> What I said is that the factors I get for Uplift have error bars
> similar to Drake's equation's terms: they can be 1/10 to 10 times
> the guesstimate.

Check.

> > Are you proposing there 2M habitable planets, some of
> > which are Fallow or that there are, perhaps, 6M habitable
> > planets 2M of which are *not* Fallow?
>
> No. I propose that there are 2M planets _with_ galactic
> civilization settled on them. But they could be 20M or 200k.

Good.  So 2M is a _reasonable_ statistical expectiation for planets that could 
support civilzation across 5 galaxies.

> > Have you made any allowance for an increase in the number
> > of habitable planets due to terraforming?  (Do you need to?)
>
> No, because I suppose that this is a small factor in the last,
> say, 500 My.
>
> Stars come and go, planets come and go. The terraforming of
> planets should probably just keep the number of planets in
> a stable number.

Lets come back to terraforming.  I think that it would be a major (and 
s-l-o-w-l-y increasing) factor in the total number of habitable planets.

> BTW, I also guess that there are about 10 fallow planets for
> each settled planet, based on the data that a planet is usually
> leased for 100ky, and it is let fallow for a minimum of 500ky
> [usually more].
>

I am going to assume that a factor of 1:10 is the high end for an inhabited to 
fallow ratio if planets are leased for an average 100ky and fallow for a 
minimum of 500ky.  What we need is a figure for mean fallow time.  Lets pick 
700ky.

If there are 2M inhabited planets then there are 14M fallow planets.  At any 
given time there must be a total of 16M habitable planets.
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