718: The Flake Equation
| The Flake Equation |
 Title text: Statistics suggest that there should be tons of alien encounter stories, and in practice there are tons of alien encounter stories. This is known as Fermi's Lack-of-a-Paradox. |
Explanation
The Flake equation is a parody of the Drake equation, which estimates the number of detectable extraterrestrial civilizations in the galaxy.
The alt-text refers to Fermi's Lack-of-a-Paradox as a parody of the Fermi paradox: the contradiction between the high estimated probability of extraterrestrial civilization and humanity's lack of evidence for such civilizations.
Transcript
None available.
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Anybody notice that the real product of the numbers he gives is 6.3 (10), not 100,000? 02:32, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
No, it's not - you've multiplied Cr and Mx when you should have added them. The real product is 126,000 = 100,000. 162.158.69.51
There was a later comic about our capabilities' precluding of UFO sightings and such. I may find it at some point. --Quicksilver (talk) 02:51, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
Settled
googlesearch=site:explainxkcd.com ufo
http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1235:_Settled
Kevin McCready (talk) 13:25, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
Is there any significance to the word "flake"? Urban Dictionary says it stands for "unreliable person", but certainly not in context of alien sightings. --162.158.90.217 13:34, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
It's a portmanteau of "Drake" and "Fake". --172.68.10.94 10:58, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
- It's not actually a portmanteau, more like a play on words :) -- The Cat Lady (talk) 13:57, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
The transcript looks pretty complete to me? Why is it tagged incomplete? Mushrooms (talk) 07:50, 22 March 2022 (UTC)
