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Laurance Doyle | |
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| Education | M.S.San Diego State University (1982) Ph.D.University of Heidelberg (1986) |
| Occupation(s) | Astrophysicist SETI Institute NASA Ames Research Center |
Laurance R. Doyle (born 1953) is an American scientist who received his Ph.D. from theRuprecht Karl University of Heidelberg.
Doyle has worked at theSETI Institute since 1987 where he is aprincipal investigator and astrophysicist.[1] His main area of study has been the formation and detection ofextrasolar planets, but he has also worked on communications theory.[2] In particular he has written on how patterns in animal communication relate to humans with an emphasis oncetaceans.
Doyle grew up on adairy farm inCambria, California and therefore, didn't have much access to information aboutstars. But by reading books at the local library, Doyle was able to develop his knowledge inastronomy, and eventually obtain hisBachelor's andMaster's of Science degrees in astronomy fromSan Diego State University.
His first job was at theJet Propulsion Laboratory as an imaging engineer, where he was in charge of analyzing pictures ofJupiter andSaturn sent from the spacecraftVoyager. He moved toHeidelberg, Germany, to help analyze images ofHalley's Comet. He got his doctorate inAstrophysics at theUniversity of Heidelberg.
In 2011, Doyle led the team which discoveredKepler-16b, the first confirmedcircumbinary planet, nicknamed "Tatooine" after the fictional planet fromStar Wars.[3]
Doyle is currently seeking to comparedolphin whistles and babybabble in an attempt to make predictions aboutextraterrestrial communications. He believes that by measuring the complexity of communications for different species on Earth, we could get a good indication of how advanced an extraterrestrial signal is using an application ofZipf's law.[2][4][5] His study determined that babies babble over 800 different sounds with the same amount of frequency as dolphins. As they grow older, those sounds decrease to around 50 and become more repetitious. The study found that baby dolphins develop similarly in regards to their whistling.
Doyle is faculty atPrincipia College and the founding Director of Principia College's Institute for the Metaphysics of Physics, founded in 2014.
In May 2005, he appeared on aNational Geographic Channel special titledExtraterrestrial. In 2012, he appeared in the episode "Will We Survive First Contact," ofThe Science Channel seriesThrough the Wormhole narrated byMorgan Freeman.[6]
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