IF you’re single in the run up to Valentine’s Day you might be wondering how likely it is you’ll find love.
Astrophysicist Steven Wooding has been working on an online tool that can supposedly tell you if you’re more likely to find true love or meet aliens in your lifetime.
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He told The Sun: “Given the universe is probably infinite (for practical purposes), there are probably more alien worlds in the universe than love partners here on Earth.
“Although then you have to consider the aliens loving each other. So maybe love does win in the end.”
However, Wooding thinks our chances of making contact with this alien life are relatively low at the moment.
He explained: “Aliens should be out there somewhere though, given that we now find nearly every star has at least one planet.
“The main issue I think is that we currently rely on the technology of the alien civilization being compatible with ours, which we might be overestimating.
“Our sensors are now getting to the point where we can detect what is in the atmosphere of exoplanets, so that might be another way to detect life at least.
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“This could be soon if we are fortunate, but maybe never.”
Wooding, a physicist from Southampton in the UK, recently created an online ‘love finding’ calculator tool with data scientist Rijk de Wet.
They applied the famous Drake equation, usually used with alien hunting in mind, to the dating world.
Wooding explained: “The original Drake equation (as formulated by the British astronomer Dr Frank Drake in 1961) uses Bayesian probability to calculate the number of alien civilisations in our galaxy with whom we could communicate.”
He added: “I based my tool on Peter Backus’ (an economist from the University of Manchester) adaptation of the drake equation to the dating world.
“Using the mathematical principles behind the Drake equation, Backus estimated the size of his dating pool and published his findings.
“As a fun factor, I added a feature to compare your chances with the existence of an alien civilisation within 1000 light-years of Earth.”
Wooding’s online probability calculator can be found on the Omni Calculator website but it currently only lets you set your location as a UK city.
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