Could We Build a Dyson Sphere?

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[@scienceunbound460]

Thank you to Wondrium for sponsoring today's video! Signup for your FREE trial to Wondrium here: ow.ly/U2kv50L1iBf

[@nottsork]

i woudl love to see simon do a story on how many of elons satalikes have become shooting stars since he started

[@slcpunk2740]

Loving this new channel, just the right mix of business blaze and megaprojects.

[@andyharris3084]

Simon has completely misunderstood the point of a Dyson sphere. You wouldn't have the Earth anymore as you wouldn't need it. The entire inside surface of the sphere would be the biosphere as depicted in the very Next Generation episode he speaks of. Talking about blocking the heat and light to Earth is therefore nonsense. That is of course assuming a solid sphere rather than a swarm of essentially solar collectors.

[@thetruthwillout9094]

I absolutely love the content of these videos but HATE the way Simon presents them compared to his other channels (Megaprojects, side projects etc). It is almost unwatchable at times.

[@nottsork]

@@thetruthwillout9094 I like the light-hearted review although I wish she would go back to using a lapel mike can you set up the stupid show sure mics without a mixing desk because everything sounds way too bassy on them unless you’re listening to it on a shitty laptop or a tablet with average speakers if you have decent speakers all the bass frequencies coming through so much and it sounds like someone’s talking through a …….( can’t think of an actual analogy sound so bad) and while I’m on about it studio microphones are supposed to be used in a studio because they pick up everything that is why TV news casters are they use a boom or a lapel mike which is always attached to a sound guy with a soundboard monitoring the frequencies adjusting them live with a pair of headphones in my view if you’re going to do a video broadcas t at least use the right equipment although in this video I do think he used a lookalike not the latest one by sure they call these professionals because they are high quality and to be used by professionals who know how to use them properly

[@robertoclaux8654]

Building a Dyson swarm would be as doable as Simon unchaining his writers for some fresh air every now and then.

[@BenMaxson23]

With the work ethic that posts 1000 videos a week, anything can be accomplished!

[@nathanrood865]

Now thats just a paradox. By being in the basement at all, writers are by their very definition never allowed to venture outside ever again!

[@sandhilltucker]

Danny: "I thought I was writing for my freedom!" Simon: "No."

[@danielreuben1058]

I still think a writer, who writes an exceptional video should get one extra link added to the chain. They would certainly work harder.

[@zinic53000]

They get fresh air.... when he opens the door to add another member.

[@danielreuben1058]

I do wonder if these are Simon's favorite videos to record. He just always seems to be having a great time doing them. I mean he doesn't have to talk about Ancient Rome, conspiracy theories, genocides, or horrific diseases. It's interesting and light hearted stuff. I hope he enjoys this channel as much as I do.

[@TheNaldiin]

There is no Pedro Lopez in sci fi technology.

[@ThatWriterKevin]

@@TheNaldiin CHALLENGE ACCEPTED

[@TheNaldiin]

@@ThatWriterKevin cool, although it feels like Heinlein already got there.

[@Amethyst_Dragon_]

And No 👻 ghost

[@redpandamaniacal]

Brain Blaze and Decoding the Unknown feel like 2 other channels Simon has a fun time doing, if you've not seen them yet. Brain Blaze probably being my favorite of his channels personally since it feels like he's the most relaxed on there, with Decoding the Unknown being probably his 2nd least on script channel.

[@aliahope-wilson4449]

In the Ringworld books they literally had a plant which made people hyper-intelligent, extremely long-lived and obsessive. That's how they were able to develop such complex and advanced technology. Like, even though the humans in the story are far more advanced than we are they were still in awe of the scale of the thing. We're not even remotely close with our current technology. So what we really need to do is bioengineer a plant to make us into superhuman space monsters first 😅

[@paulherman5822]

To quote Malcolm Reynolds, "Terrifyin' space monkeys" then. 🤣

[@aliahope-wilson4449]

@@paulherman5822 Seems like the easier option to me 😅

[@Battle_Beard]

I’m a fan of The Hyperion Cantos’ version of a Dyson sphere.

[@aliahope-wilson4449]

@@Battle_Beard I was thinking of that one too, I love the biotech they use.

[@curiodyssey3867]

Wow that sounds really similar to spice from dune... Kind of disappointing to find that out

[@Battle_Beard]

I’m a fan of the Dyson sphere modeled in The Hyperion Cantos (book 4). In this, multiple races (human and alien) have worked together to grow multiple rings of engineered organic material and slowly fill in the space between each. In this story they have access to alien life forms that can manipulate force fields and others that are absolutely enormous (10km+ long creatures) to aid in the building and functionality. The use millions of comets on controlled orbits to water the plants and are able to collect the sun’s energy by manipulating neighborhood sized leaves with reflective undersides through force fields to focus and collect solar energy. The incomplete sphere has a radius slightly smaller than 1 AU and a comment is made that, when all of the empty spaces are filled, there will be more livable area on the sphere than the total living area of every habitable planet in the galaxy. Obviously it’s very sci-if and I’m not doing it justice, but the series is well worth a read.

[@MaxHeep]

I gave you a thumbs up even though I stopped reading your comment after "In this".... I am almost done Hyperion and can't wait for more! I will come back after Cantos and read your full comment because you obviously have great tastes! ;)

[@gordol66]

The intro... the point of a Dyson Sphere isn't to block out the sun from the inhabited planet(s) orbiting it, but to replace the planet(s). The inhabitants would be living on the inner surface of the sphere, basking in the non-stop glow of the star in the center.

[@malcolm_in_the_middle]

No. You can live on the inside of a ring world, as envisioned by Larry Niven, but you cannot live on the inside of a sphere. There is no centrifugal force at the axis of rotation, so you will not experience 'gravity'. Besides which, as mentioned in the video, a sphere is not considered a viable proposal by any serious scientists. More likely, the satellites in your Dyson Swarm would actually be space habitats housing about 100,000 people each.

[@gordol66]

@@malcolm_in_the_middle I never said a Dyson SPHERE was practical. However, in all iterations I've seen of one in SF, it's always the habitat itself, with a radius of about 1AU / 8 light-minutes. IOW, a size about the orbit of Earth. As for gravity... if such a thing can be built at all, I'm willing to accept artificial gravity exists in that universe.

[@vic5015]

Larry Niven has proposed a massive structure he calls a Ringworld as an intermediate step. And written a series of novels featuring one.

[@robertgolding]

Don't forget *_Halo_*

[@MNewton]

Loved those books! Sadly, ringworld requires scrith which was basically a magic materiel far stronger than carbon nanotubes or anything else we could imagine in reality sooooooo... probably not.

[@JFrazer4303]

A silly fantasy. The material had a structural strength like the strong nuclear force, and was by an alien species that didn't need it for living space.

[@ignitionfrn2223]

3:50 - Chapter 1 - The kardashev scale 6:10 - Chapter 2 - The dyson swarm 14:15 - Wrap up

[@InquisMalleus]

I'm sure cannibalizing an entire planet won't have any negative effect on orbital mechanics

[@Thraeryn]

Can you blow up Mercury in Kerbal Space Program? 🤣

[@bigjerome-wz4uo]

Fuck mercury!!!

[@hiigara1]

I would seriously love to see Simon do a collaboration with Isaac Arthur at this point with some.of the stuff he is putting out on this channel recently

[@dansands8140]

But these takes from Simon ('s writer) are terrible and dumb.

[@johnforce8057]

@@dansands8140 yeah these takes are like Isaac Arthur for dummies mixed with drunk history....

[@OneBentMonkey]

@@johnforce8057 Yeah but they are slightly less sci-fi and not 3 days long, so they’ve got that going for them

[@geroffmilan3328]

@@OneBentMonkey so staying stupid is ok cos attention span too short? And if 40mins is three days, then... what planet are you on?

[@geroffmilan3328]

Nah, Simon can't let minutiae like actual facts get in the way of his infotainment.

[@rachelwitherspoon4394]

Thanks Kevin! Glad I used my data on vacation to catch up!! Totally worth the overage!!! As usual, a+ script writing, and. Simon is his usual hilarious self I see!!

[@ThatWriterKevin]

Thanks as always!

[@timg2727]

I love that this channel is run by the Brain Blaze version of Simon. We need more of that guy.

[@Glitch_Online]

Ever since Staples invented the "That Was Easy" button, things have just gotten.. well... easy.

[@MhillPlays]

Forget a star like our sun, but a red dwarf or white dwarf is far more feasible for a Dyson sphere to be possible.

[@user-jz3ny9qm9z]

Im sorry but you don’t know what you’re talking about, a Red dwarf star would still be way too big for this to be feasible, the resources needed would still be unfathomable. An a white dwarf star is dead star resulting in the atoms to no longer fuse.

[@ECPower43]

The closed captions kept calling the Kardashev Scale the Kardashian scale. 😂 awesome episode! First thing I thought of when I saw Dyson sphere was the next gen episode. 👍🏻👍🏻

[@cozmothemagician7243]

All you need is anti-gravity, direct mass to energy conversion, and a magic wand. But hey, keep mind, efficient fusion power is STILL only 5 years away. And btw, I have a design for a hemp powered FLT drive, just send me a case of beer for the blueprints.

[@Khalid1_1Abdumajeed]

Have fun finding a planet that has half of the size of its star

[@Khalid1_1Abdumajeed]

So we can mine it

[@finnydot]

Best part of this channel is how Simon trolls the writers constantly. Lol

[@siyabongamnyoni1699]

The other complication is how to keep the robots, drills, and other machinery cooled when they’ll be literally NEXT TO THE SURFACE OF THE SUN!🔥

[@rolandg8164]

And cooling earth after beaming all that energy to it

[@EmilyJelassi]

I’ve been loving this channel and it seems like Simon really has fun doing it too 😊 It would be fantastic if we could build a Dyson swarm, but even if we started yesterday, it would take ages and most of the technology doesn’t even exist yet. Awesome video! Great job Simon and team 😊👏🏻💯🙌🏻

[@citizen_grub4171]

Automatic doors didn't exist before Star Trek envisioned them.

[@anothershellcialistturtle8568]

This whole idea is just a logistical nightmare and absolutely ludicrous it’s more feasible to build a fusion reactor in my opinion

[@Kevin_Kyle]

Your right, one of Star Treks TNG's best episodes

[@Idrizze]

How many channels does this brother got?🤣 He covers all topics and delivers it in such a fascinating way every time. Absolutely love it!!

[@xyzpdq1122]

I like how this series has quite a bit of Blaze in its DNA 😂

[@jp5000able]

I don't think a higher civilization would need so much energy. They would become much more energy efficient than us.

[@Jayjay-qe6um]

A second type of Dyson sphere is the "Dyson bubble". It would be similar to Dyson swarm, composed of many independent constructs and likewise could be constructed incrementally.

[@alexanderholm9278]

This is like imagining building the pyramids with only the knowledge and will for a sandcastle. I mean, for a project like this, you gotta be able to imagine the future having better technology than what we got to this date.

[@j.p.6932]

1:30 so always thought Dyson Sphere was attached to the vacuum guy. He has those fans and the blade hand dryer.

[@clayongunzelle9555]

I look at the Dyson sphere the same way I look at the alcubierre drive, if we get to a point where any of those are even possible then they will be obsolete because if we can harness enough energy to build them then obviously wet don't need to because we have unlimited energy already from somewhere else. The alcubierre drive needs a black hole or exotic matter to operate so if we can generate enough exotic materials or get to a black hole we don't need the drive.

[@jatticusfinch9015]

Reminds me of the wait calculation, where you have to figure out the optimal time to hold off setting off to Alpha Centauri and wait for technological progress to improve travel speeds, before planning the journey. Otherwise your resources are wasted, and your competitors overtake you.

[@clayongunzelle9555]

@@jatticusfinch9015 yes that's is a similar situation...

[@5upl1an]

Don't worry, everything will be a piece of cake once scientists finally invented magic!

[@jevinday]

The Dyson Sphere was the first video you did on Megaprojects! I know, my memory is superhuman. Seriously though, such a fascinating topic

[@raystaar]

I don't care how great Wondrium is, they don't rate a one minute commercial prior to introducing the content.

[@olencone4005]

By the time we've found a way to get past all those little hurdles and obstacles we've hidden under the rug to build a Dyson Swarm, we'd probably have passed that "next 30 years" point for fusion power and not really need a Dyson Swarm anymore.

[@justwannabehappy6735]

You can never have too much energy.

[@olencone4005]

@@justwannabehappy6735 Once you have the tech, you can always just build more fusion power plants for that very reason. It's unlimited power without needing to strip half the solar system down into resources for a single project, which frees up those resources for all sorts of other things :)

[@josephkania642]

The idea is not to create a sphere just around the sun but around the whole solar system. There would be NO problem with getting sunlight on Earth. Whoever wrote this had a fundamental misunderstanding.

[@BongoFerno]

There is no need to "dismantle" any planet to make a Dyson Sphere. The materials can be taken right from the star.

[@KonradTheWizzard]

...and they are only slightly harder to get at inside a star. Possibly only a few orders of magnitude harder. At least if you solve the problems of extreme heat, radiation, pressure and escaping the star's gravity with a sh*t load of super compressed iron plasma in tow. Since stars are much bigger and heavier than planets, a Dyson swarm of enormous proportions should only be a hand wave away then. 😁

[@BongoFerno]

@@KonradTheWizzard Is much easier to take material from a star than from a giant planet, because the star is sending the material away, and the magnetosphere can be manipulated with chaos theory, so by introducing small perturbation on the magnetic fields possible to make a solar flare to expel matter as desired.

[@KonradTheWizzard]

@@BongoFerno Unless you found a way to make metallic hydrogen at zero pressure... flares and CMEs only contain trace amounts of heavier elements. The plasma is also quite thin and only marginally easier to catch than the sun's photonic energy. The total mass of plasma released over a decade is orders of magnitude lower than the mass of mercury, even when "enhanced". Also: a "small" perturbation in a star sized magnetic field still requires a planet sized magnet. Jupiter might be about the right size.

[@BongoFerno]

@@KonradTheWizzard It is obvious that mining a star using his electromagnetic field does not just exploits the flares as they are on his natural state. It is far more complex than that. Chaos theory does not impose a limit on how small a perturbation is. A small perturbation causes a larger perturbation, that causes a larger perturbation. Besides, any civilization capable of dismantling Jupiter can mine a star.

[@jflaugher]

Simon, please do an episode on the science of space stations. Science fiction has great space stations - examples: Deep Space 9, Babylon 5, and the Death Star (I know, Star Wars isn't science fiction)

[@nathanwanner..44]

The technical advancement needed to do that is beyond our scope

[@MrEnjoivolcom1]

Kudos on you for shouting out _Wondrium_ ‼️ Quite literally, I just finished watching two of their videos (one on Dark Matter & the other on 'What Came Before The Big Bang') prior to clicking on yourself, fact Boi! 😀

[@thejudgmentalcat]

"Swat those problems away!" 🤣

[@Grim_and_Proper]

The Dyson shell (the fully enclosed Dyson sphere) has an even more fundamental issue. It has net zero gravitational interaction with anything inside of it, including the star. Without constant correction by propulsion drives, it would inevitably become unstable and collide with the star.

[@Captaintrippz]

That's why you stop halfway, and just make the star a space ship engine. Shkadov Thruster away.

[@Grim_and_Proper]

​@@Captaintrippz There is an updated engine design that is meant to provide greater thrust than the Shkadov thrusters, the Captain thruster. The detailed study of the proposed design's feasibility was actually commissioned by Kurzgesagt. I'm pretty sure he proposed the general idea first but couldn't afford to spend the time conducting an in-depth analysis until they funded his research. Apparently it is difficult to obtain funding to study projects we probably won't build for another century at minimum (and yes that is an incredibly optimistic minimum).

[@Captaintrippz]

@@Grim_and_Proper Is it actually that optimistic? Not even 70 years from first heavier than air flight til the moon landing. Only thing truly stopping us from pursuing such feats of mega engineering is robotics (Oh, and our complete lack of any real orbital infrastructure). It's entirely feasible to be starting such things in 100 years. It's also entirely feasible we've wiped ourselves out by then so yeah, optimistic sounds about right.

[@kasparmorgengras]

Dude, it seems you had far too much fun making this!!! Fun to watch also!

[@nunyobidness2358]

We can build a scale model prototype around that shiny pate of yours and catch some rays.

[@quinn6464]

I have always wondered about the search for these Dyson spheres (and other variations) to identify advanced civilizations. Cold Fusion, is seeming like it's gaining traction again and could be a really good source of energy for the future, if it can be solved. What are the odds that a more advanced civilization would just have really advanced energy generation with cold fusion? which would kind of mean that harnessing the power from a stay would be not needed?

[@alberthill2753]

I wonder if a Dyson Sphere could survive being blasted by countless CMEs

[@mlee6050]

Epic to have Dyson sphere and Dyson vacuum cleaners named after you

[@728709jay]

The Sun bathes the Earth in energy WITHOUT a Dyson Swarm

[@lordrefrigeratorintercoole288]

Dyson sphere sounds like a terminal idea. All this work and matter to build something that will be destroyed in a billion of years when the star expands.

[@wastelander138]

That rap up moment from "all you need to do" as soon as he finished I thought of that moment in Dumb and Dumber "So you're saying there's a chance..."

[@Master_Yoda1990]

I like to say, nothing is impossible with science, what limits us is our current knowledge.

[@anyawillowfan]

I love that you just assume we'll be building robots that aren't affected by that much radiation, especially considering that's the reason we still don't know much about Mercury.

[@Hillbilly001]

Dyson Sphere? Great theory. Maybe in 500 years or so. Allegedly. Cheers.

[@andrewbogard2411]

I was going to say we could use relay space stations to transport the energy back to earth but the efficiency loss would make the energy transferred negligible lol

[@andrew1906]

Another thing... you’d be dramatically reducing the mass of Mercury, which would affect its orbit, as well as the orbits of the inner planets.

[@rodneyericjohnson]

Listening to this while playing Dyson Sphere Program.

[@MaxRideout]

First thing I thought when I saw the title of this video: "Is this just gonna be Simon saying, 'no', then going about his business for ~14 minutes?" 😂

[@Thraeryn]

If we're imagining fanciful collection mechanisms, we cooooould send some Space Whatsits to collect (and store?) Mercury's atmosphere first. Potentially solves three issues at once: we don't have to try collecting the oxygen to make hematite while our Whatsits are engaged in other stuff, we can use any "useless" gases to propel the second-gen Whatsats, and the real kicker - if our timeframe is long enough, solar ablation might take care of that pesky crust.

[@Payne_]

7:16 justice for mercury 😂😂😂😂😂

[@spamuel98]

If we could build a Dyson sphere, overpopulation would be solved just by building on its surface. And in regards to mining out Mercury's core, we're probably a lot closer than you think. There's already a company that's using modified microwave lasers for extra deep drilling, which is actually faster than conventional drilling after the first few kilometers because at that point most of the time spent is on hauling the drill back up to replace the drill bit when it breaks. The company is question uses a 1 mm wavelength laser that they just shoot down the hole to vaporize the rock at the bottom, and because the lasers wavelength is so long, it isn't inhibited by the dust floating up, and the heat melts the side walls to add structural stability.

[@bochica3562]

I like the idea of having millions of energy collecting satellites around the sun with millions of cables leading to earth... 😂

[@reddune6185]

Luckily, the sun agreed to never flare again if we built the swarm, for sure.

[@bierce716]

Even if we solved all the problems, we still wouldn't have free energy- corporations would figure out how to charge us for it.

[@justwannabehappy6735]

Doesn't matter. What matters is getting out of fossil fuel technologies. They are limited, not durablee and harm our ecosystem.

[@Beanskiiii]

@@justwannabehappy6735not happening. The problem is an our post-industrial lifestyle that isn’t sustainable for any planet.

[@sophibeans]

I heard about this for the first time while reading the 'Bobiverse' book series. Such a cool concept!

[@tobarjaime]

Sadly the books are too short….

[@robertgolding]

The Dyson Sphere would *NOT* block out the sun as we would be on the inside surface. The sphere would only block it from outside the solar system, i.e. beings of other places wouldn't be able to see us.

[@bpdmf2798]

Criminally underrated channel.

[@tibiavram]

Thanks for preparing me for the weekend with your stand-up. Keep it up!

[@matheusmterra]

You forgot another big problem: even if you can beam the energy back to Earth, you have to deal with entropy and thermodynamics: all that energy won't just simply vanish once it's used up, a good part of it will be converted to heat, which will in turn cook the Earth if you can't find a way to dissipate it to keep entropy in check.

[@Mirality]

That just reduces the number of heaters you need for blocking out the sun in the first place.

[@Master_Yoda1990]

Well realistically by the time we have a Dyson sphere earth won't be the only one using that energy either. In theory the Dyson sphere would only be practical if we have exo planetary colonies, that's where your energy dispersion would come in.

[@malcolm_in_the_middle]

@@Mirality At that point in our future, it's more likely we will need to install radiators to remove heat, rather than generate it.

[@undertow2142]

We could build massive umbrella shaped solar sail structure. Once place in solar orbit you slow them down so they want to fall down toward the sun. But the solar wind and light pressure on the sail pushes them back out. Get the balance right and you’d be able to walk around on it with gravity from the sun.

[@nala3038]

As people, we love to grab onto these fantastic ideas, Dyson spheres are good fun to daydream about. In practice, it is about as practical as building the Titanic with toothpicks: 1. If you cover up the sun, all your geraniums will die. Your other flora-n-fauna will quickly follow. 2. The solar system doesn't contain enough of the necessary material to make one. 3. It would take too long. By the time we gained the technology, equipment and man hours, Dyson spheres would be a mute point. 4. Take a look at the surface of our moon. Constant bombardment doesn't fare well for tech projects you want to keep neat.

[@MeisterEMH]

Beaming energy back to earth... doesn't the sun already kinda do that? You know, sunshine and solar panels?

[@Caleb1874ya]

What would happen if you launched Dyson vacuum cleaners into the vacuum of space??? Because that’s what I thought we were answering here…

[@FoodNerds]

😂😂😂😂

[@donniewatson9120]

We would live on the inside of the Dyson Sphere, not on the outside.

[@futeramonfuturamet4830]

You wouldn't necessarily have to cannibalize a whole planet to build a dyson swarm. The asteroids collectively would probably have enough material.

[@user-jz3ny9qm9z]

Lol no not even close

[@robocook01]

A kid is having a problem writing a paper on the difference between theory and reality so he asks his dad for help. His dad tells him to ask his mom and sister separately, if they'd sleep with Brad Pitt for a million dollars but not to tell them why, then come back, give him their answer and he'd explain the difference. So, the kid asks his mom and sister the question and they both say very eagerly they would sleep with him in a heartbeat!! For free!! but not to tell dad!! The kid, confused, goes back to his dad and gives him their answers. The dad lowers his newspaper slightly, peers over the top, sighs long and loud and says: "I thought so. You see son, in theory, we're related to two millionaires. In reality though, we're living with a couple of whores".

[@808bigisland]

Yes, we can. I engineered the product and supply line. Its not even that expensive. K1 engineering is fun.

[@bonitafontenot7865]

O feel like we probably wouldn't be able to do it considering the fact that you would first have to figure out a way to get to space quickly to get to the star in a reasonable amount of time and get back in a also reasonable amount of time once that happens then maybe we could do something like this

[@UrielManX7]

Building a dyson swarm is easier that reaching her heart.

[@NarwahlGaming]

Keeping the swarm from crashing into each other is easy! Just code: Input; - If going to crash, --Then; Don't

[@BabyMakR]

You totally can beam energy. We do it all the time. Your mobile phone is able to connect because it receives Electro-magnetic energy wirelessly from the mobile tower which causes a change in voltage in the antenna. Beaming energy is just this, but bigger. Much, much bigger. It also has the issue that anything that gets between the beamer and the receivers on the ground will be turned into atoms instantly, but that's future people's problem.

[@vic5015]

Is it possible? Sure. Maybe in a few dozen millennia. Arguably the better question is: Why would we want to?

[@bobfels5343]

Beaming energy to earth.... Thats what the sun already does for millions of years

[@johnbennett1465]

Actually we also need to expand the living space. If we send 1% of the Sun's energy to Earth, it would melt and then vaporize the entire planet in minutes. Remember when you "use" energy, you are just increasing it's entropy. It is not getting rid of the energy. Conservation of energy is the law! 😉

[@dreadfulmantis7452]

I’ve been talking about how easy it would be overall to develop a Dyson swarm. The main thing we lack at the moment is wireless energy transfer technology that works at that scale.

[@FlicknBean]

feels like we won’t even be sending humans to mars within the next generation…

[@QBCPerdition]

The thing is, we wouldn't need to start with Mercury. We could build solar collection satellites here on Earth and put them at the Earth/Sun Lagrange points, so they are never in shadow. We still need to come up with reliable energy transmission, but the distances are now much more doable. And as the video says, we don't need to harness much of the sun's output to greatly increase our global energy production. Start small and build up.

[@samuelmeasa9283]

Currently I'm reading Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. The plot of which is that the earth is cooling as an alien life form/space algae that act like a Dyson Swarm are found to be feeding off the energy from our sun. Its an interesting twist on the grey goo plot, I've read. Think of the remake of The day the Earth stood still or that one episode of Justice League United.

[@rolandg8164]

It always was my understanding that you live in the inside of a Dyson Sphere. Plenty of light there..

[@13minutestomidnight]

The Kardashev scale isn't that arbitrary. Every species' capacity for expansion and population growth is defined by the consumption of their resources and the resources available to them. When they exceed the resource limit (i.e their access to energy), they tend to go extinct - or at least a lot of creatures die off. Population itself has no correlation with technological expansion, knowledge or resource use: a hundred humans could run a civilisation of a billion robots, and we can already see that some humans can use enormous resources while others survive on the bare minimum, so population is an incredibly limited way to classify a civilisation. A solid dyson sphere sounds completely stupid and infeasible to us, but if you look at the example in the Star Trek TNG episode, the species that built the Dyson sphere was highly advanced in a context where the technology already existed to use energy to materialise any object. In that context, you could start with a Dyson swarm, and then use all the energy from that to keep adding to it, absorbing more energy that could be used to materialise more and more structures (which then absorb more energy). No planet cannibalism required. So if you had that kind of insane tech, this structure would make sense. Although you'd need to live inside the damn thing on the inner wall. On a tangent, in that episode, the sphere seemed like more of a fortress to protect the interior, so you can imagine a hyper-advanced civilisation building this to protect themselves from an invasion too (or to power some insane technology). Btw, using lasers to send the energy from a satellite near the sun to one orbiting the earth would be easy. Lasers can only travel a kilometre or so in atmosphere. Out in space it's easy - that's when lasers are just parallel light in a vacuum. The problem would not be that, but getting the energy from that near-earth satellite to the ground. Atmosphere is going to be a big limiting factor for something like lasers, and the earth is rotating, so the satellite would have to be in geosynchronous orbit. A bit of a problem with looking for an alien Dyson swarm... it's only going to look like dust in front of a star from a long way off.

[@haxi52]

We could complete a dyson swam around the sun faster than making fusion power on Earth... seems easy.

[@Swe-Griffin]

why build a dyson when we can get the same output from Fusion? takes less space and can be movable kind of like nuclear =/

[@donsandsii4642]

Lasers go to moon frequently for distances mesurement

[@adammckee3496]

Imagine being so convinced of your position on global warming that you think you know more than Freeman Dyson about it and he's wrong. Yes, there are others that are learned who also disagreed with Dyson, but unless you're smarter than Dyson, you're just guessing on who was/is right.

[@BabyMakR]

The light for the earth wouldn't be an issue. You could just add windows to the sphere that open to allow light through to the planet. This would also allow us to move Sol, opening these windows would make all the solar wind out through those windows, creating thrust, moving the star.

[@Thoughtful_Balance]

The tonal difference is interesting. I suppose if it's effective in reaching more minds towards science and logical thought. It could be beneficial. It's also important to remain genuine.

[@cornishcat11]

Fact Boi at his most sarcastic .... great video

[@Mirality]

If someone actually built a full Dyson shell then by current technology we wouldn't even know they were there. Unless they did it badly. Maybe that's the true answer to the Fermi Paradox. And to avoid blotting out the sun you'd "just" need to make it bigger. Put it out between Mars and Jupiter, there's a lot of space there. Perhaps even harvest Jupiter and the asteroids for materials, since we're assuming a silly level of construction technology as a precondition anyway. Of course you'd probably need the rest of the outer planets and perhaps some additional systems too, and find some way to keep it centered on the sun (since that's not motionless), but...

[@chriswilder9719]

All I can think of when he said use mercury was "well now we have 7 planets. Used to be 9"

[@forestwells5820]

It's still an idea for a sci-fi society, even our own. If we invent ships that can do space travel as easily as Star Trek (heck, even as easily as The Expanse), then I don't think it's so crazy that you could mine asteroids for materials to build something like this as a sort of energy plant. Especially if you have really good batteries, it could just be used as a battery charging/construction facility. Perhaps built on a fully in tact Mercury. It's actually one of many mix of ideas I plan to use with my own. Ships, vehicles, most machinery, even many starbases all use a crystalline battery similar to the ZPM from Stargate. But where/how are they made or charged? A system like this could be the answer. No need to transmit the energy at all. Just fill up batteries and ship em back home. Okay, that would mean a massive number of batteries just for Earth alone, but once you've sort of caught up with demand, it'll be easier to rotate as batteries lose their juice. It's why I love playing with sci-fi. Taking the theoretical or the woefully impractical and imagining what it might look like when theory becomes fact, and impractical becomes "eh, we can do that".

[@sirhammon]

Wouldn't 6 solar powered satellites orbiting the sun, be classed as a Dyson swarm? And um Free energy? Some company wouldn't want to become the richest monopolizing company in the world by selling free energy?

[@Bnguyen276]

I think humans just upgrade their solar pannel capabilities.

[@MartinRudat]

I think we should probably _start_ building a dyson swarm... in the sense of eventually deploying solar-powered robots capable of being used to build more robots. I don't think that there's any point in trying to _finish_ building a dyson swarm, in the sense of fully capturing the sun's output, but presumably, we could capture a significant fraction of it before the orbital mechanics becomes too tricky to be worth managing.

[@derekmorgan2130]

I don't see why we wouldn't start with baby steps and build a micro version around the Earth. It would still be able to grab solar radiation, be significantly less of a burden to build, and be a good initial feasibility study.

[@christiandietz6341]

Instead, we could plop a few kettles on Venus who would generate tons of steam, then connect them to steam turbines and pronto! Electricity! And Venus is big, as big as Earth. Lots of room for kettles 😂 Instead of terra-forming Mars, we are venus-forming Earth. Good job, us!😂😂

[@omegatired]

OK, probably a dumb worry, but if we remove Mercury from the system equation, how does that effect the equilibrium of the entire solar system ... 'cause removing one gravity thing in that system would seem to ... well, possibly unbalance the rest of the system. Pluto was only demoted, not removed. Great, now I have to go Google the probabilities ... Here I was happily making beanies for the grandkid due next year. Edit: OK, the consensus is that removing Mercury from the system would have negligible effect on the rest of the system. Although the answer to what would happen if it hit the Sun was confusing ...