# Tier texts of drake_equation()$interpretation, from lowest to highest N. # The tier boundaries are N = 0.001, 1, 10, 1000 and 10000. tier_text <- c( paste0( "Effectively zero. Under these parameters, the chance of even one ", "communicating civilisation existing in the Milky Way at any given ", "moment is vanishingly small. We are, in all likelihood, alone." ), paste0( "Less than one expected civilisation. Intelligent, communicating life ", "is exceedingly rare; any civilisation that does arise is probably ", "isolated by enormous distances or time." ), paste0( "Only a handful of civilisations may exist simultaneously across the ", "galaxy. Contact is theoretically possible but the vast distances make ", "it extraordinarily difficult." ), paste0( "A modest number of civilisations. The galaxy could harbour detectable ", "signals, but they remain rare enough that targeted searches would be ", "needed to find them." ), paste0( "Thousands of civilisations. The galaxy is reasonably well-populated ", "with intelligent life; persistent, wide-sky surveys have a realistic ", "chance of detecting a signal." ), paste0( "The galaxy is teeming with communicating civilisations. Under these ", "optimistic parameters, interstellar contact may be almost inevitable ", "given sufficient technology and patience." ) ) # Expected interpretation: "N ~