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Astronomers Search For Dyson Spheres of Alien Civilizations
Hugh Pickens writes "An article by Ross Andersen makes note of Freeman Dyson's prediction in 1960 that every civilization in the Universe eventually runs out of energy on its home planet, a major hurdle in a civilization's evolution. Dyson argued that all those who leap over it do so in precisely the same way: they build a massive collector of starlight, a shell of solar panels to surround their home star. Last month astronomers began a two-year search for Dyson Spheres, a search that will span the Milky Way, along with millions of other galaxies. The search is funded by a sizable grant from the Templeton Foundation, a philanthropic organization that funds research on the 'big questions' that face humanity, questions relating to 'human purpose and ultimate reality.' Compared with SETI, a search for Dyson Spheres assumes that the larger the civilization, the more energy it uses and the more heat it re-radiates. If Dyson Spheres exist, they promise to give off a very particular kind of heat signature, a signature that we should be able to see through our infrared telescopes. 'A Dyson Sphere would appear very bright in the mid-infrared,' says project leader Jason Wright. 'Just like your body, which is invisible in the dark, but shines brightly in mid-infrared goggles.' A civilization that built a Dyson Sphere would have to go to great lengths to avoid detection, building massive radiators that give off heat so cool it would be undetectable, a solution that would involve building a sphere that was a hundred times larger than necessary. 'If a civilization wants to hide, it's certainly possible to hide,' says Wright, 'but it requires massive amounts of deliberate engineering across an entire civilization.'"
Don't they mean Matrioshka brain?
If it is natural to die, then to hell with nature. --FM 2030
Dyson assumed that all alien civilizations are stupid enough to believe in infinite growth, much like humanity.
I don't believe this. I think the most advanced aliens have probably realized that there isn't much point of growth after a certain threshold.
A thought occurs to me that a civilisation capable of building a dyson sphere would only try to hide if there is something to hide from. Maybe there is a von-neumann machine swarm out there eating everything, and everyone is hiding rather than be transformed in to more of the swarm?
i'm sure an advanced civilization will master Star Trek type fusion tech before doing something ridiculous like building a starlight collector.
the earth compared to the sun is like a grain of sand to a beachball. where would you get enough matter to build something around a star if the same or similar size ratio will exist in other star systems?
They'll find nothing.
> Astrologers Search For Dyson Spheres of Alien Civilizations
Wouldn't planet-based solar be far more affordable and efficient, and produce more than enough energy for a planet with population controlled at a reasonable level, which should be expected from any advanced civilization? Seems like it would be unlikely for an advanced civilization to build one of these given the other options (including fusion power)...
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
This is the first time in a very long while that I've read a /. story that's gotten me excited. The idea that we could find evidence of a Dyson sphere is quite crotch-tingling for a fan of science fiction like myself!
Of course there's the problem of how we can be sure any evidence we see is actually a constructed sphere and not a freak natural occurrence, or something that we simply don't understand or haven't envisaged at this point. Still, any data that showed a "should-be-visible" star radiating heat but not light is something of note. Hell, it would give us something to start beaming signals at like mad in the hope of a return at the very least. Lets just hope it's within X light years, where X is less than half my remaining lifespan so I can catch the "Hello? Who the fuck are you!?" signal from the big blue people on Pandora.
You can advertise in this sig from as little as £99.99 a month!
I thought energy couldn't be created or destroyed, so the energy on this planet is pretty much constant?
Summation 2
I suspect at this point humanity, as a collective whole, is still too small-minded to consider such an endeavor. Our politicians are narcissistic/sociopathic, and private industry would want it to be profitable.
*sigh*
Sanity.html - Error 404 not found
You mean, similar to what would be required to build a Dyson sphere?
What would you get from a massive amount of accidental engineering?
Wouldn't a civilization advanced enough to pull off an engineering feat like a Dyson Sphere also have advanced their engineering sufficiently to find more efficient power sources?
The Dyson sphere is a massive engineering project. It would take a very very advanced civilization to complete it, using a lot of energy just to build it, taking a long time to do such work. Chances are they will kill each other off before they did such a project.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
'If a civilization wants to hide, it's certainly possible to hide,' says Wright, 'but it requires massive amounts of deliberate engineering across an entire civilization.'
It's unlikely that a civilization intentionally would hide unless they were familiar with reasons to hide. That means that an intentionally hidden Dyson Sphere would be an indication of a highly technologically advanced civilization that is socially unadvanced. While possible it seems unlikely.
On the other hand we are talking about a civilization that have gone through a major energy crisis. It may not think that it can afford to let all that mid-infrared energy go to waste.
Any sufficiently advanced civilization is indistinguishable from cosmic microwave background radiation.
moreover, the earth is a collector of solar and lunar energy. We call it wind and sunshine and tides, there's even solar "wind" if one goes a bit outside the atmosphere. Together these have more than enough energy to power all of the earths needs. Harvesting these may not be simple, but it would be a lot simpler than a dyson sphere. ergo, no dyson spheres will ever be built unless the planet is too far from the sun to collect enough solar energy on its crossection.
What the earth lacks is a perpertual supply of transportation fuels or a means to adequately replace them. But replacing them is forseable and we don't absolutely need them--we just over exploit them now because we can.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
'If a civilization wants to hide, it's certainly possible to hide,' says Wright, 'but it requires massive amounts of deliberate engineering across an entire civilization.'"
If a civilization with a Dyson sphere has any reason to hide, it's probably for a civilization with interstellar flight and then I'd think you'd quite easily find the black spot. Unless you assume they got a system to route or absorb/emit starlight from one side of the sphere to the other. But since we're far into science fiction land already, why not...
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I was watching that Riddick movie with the Necromongers the other day and I realized that the concept was actually very realistic. What kind of society would get into space first? The ones that put a high priority on space exploration. And what kind of civilization would do that just for the heck of it before any others? The ones that have some irrational reason to do it driven by some kind of religious fervor. While the "Star Trek like" science-driven societies pace themselves in a sensible manner, the religious nutjobs would throw every single resource their entire civilization could at getting into space to please their space deity or whatever. If there's an advanced space-faring race out there you probably want to steer clear of them.
See also: The Irkens from Invader Zim
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
If the civilization has achieved 100% energy efficiency, there would be no radiated heat, as that is simply wasteful.
If we find a string of completed dyson spheres with some partial ones being closer to us than the completed ones.....
What if an alien rouge AI is multiplying itself and building dysone spheres in it's wake by busting up planets for raw materials.....
Our only hope would be that they would start with either mercury or jupiter first giving us enough time to get of earth before the planet gets dismanteled by so many robotic drones....
On a cosmological scale, there aren't power sources that are more efficient than a star. Maybe a different type of star, if so.
It may not be politically "popular" for a given civilization to limit population growth. Imagine what the Republicans and Tea Party would do and say if somebody proposed government-enforced limits in the USA. And incentive programs are criticized as "poverty eugenics" by some on the left and "socialistic engineering" by some on the right.
Thus, expansion via space colonies may be more palatable to such civilizations.
Table-ized A.I.
Dyson doesn't have spheres, Dyson has balls !
But nothing sucks like an Elecrolux.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
If Dyson Spheres exist, they promise to give off a very particular kind of heat signature, a signature that we should be able to see through our infrared telescopes. 'A Dyson Sphere would appear very bright in the mid-infrared,' says project leader Jason Wright.
Right, because there's no way a civilization advanced enough to build 282743338860000000 square kilometers of solar panels is going to be able to build solar panels capable of absorbing and using mid-infrared light (heat). If the supposition is that they inevitably build Dyson spheres to capture all of the available energy coming off their star, why would they let a whole bunch of it escape as heat?
Seems like a giant waste of time and money, but I suppose they will be generating useful data while they look. Still, their chances of finding one are likely ludicrously close to zero even if one does exist. I also find the whole premise to be rather poorly thought out, I have to admit; even if a civilization is capable of building a Dyson sphere, I'm not sure it makes any sense to actually do it.
Dyson Spheres are practically an impossible thing to build. First off, you'd need the energy to build such a system around the star. Secondly, you would need the MATERIALS (and even with Energy-Matter conversion tech, the issue again is energy.) Thirdly, you'd need the TIME.
These three things have been against us for pretty much any project our species has ever attempted, and I would readily assume the same constraints would apply to other civilizations attempting a Dyson Sphere. Given the sheer scale of the project, I would have to say it is nigh impossible.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Obligatory, of of course
If a civilization has the ability to construct a Dyson's Sphere they are probably so advanced they wouldn't need to construct it in the first place. (From Star Trek TNG, not a direct quote)
'but it requires massive amounts of deliberate engineering across an entire civilization.'
And a Dyson Sphere doesn't?
I'm not saying that this invalidates the research, but it does cast some doubt on it and the reasons it is being done.
Our Sun puts out 386,000,000,000,000 Terawatts and has another 4.4 billion years to go in its main cycle. Our sun is tiny too. It's a speck of dust compared to VY Canis Majoris.
How would one get more power than that?
On a cosmological scale, there aren't power sources that are more efficient than a star. Maybe a different type of star, if so.
OTOH many things are pretty inefficient on a cosmological scale. The suns energy outbut per cubic meter (Or cubic feet.) is on the same level as a compost. It's just so much larger. We can already build power sources way more efficient than the sun. We just can't do it on the same scale.
Why wrap your world around a giant fusion reactor that requires a massive clearance space if you can make smaller more portable more mobile units?
Against Stupidity, even the gods themselves labor in vain.
lets see how many mods perceive the relevance to the reference
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Never thought he could top that fan with no moving blades, but harnessing all of a star's energy output? Very cool.
Dyson spheres are an interesting thought experiment but fairly stupid when you think about the logistics (as mentioned in previous comments, so I won't get into it). At least on our scale. Just as elctrons orbit the nucleus, moons orbit planets, planets order stars, stars orbit the galaxy center, galaxies orbit the giant turtle and form supergalxy clusters... There's no reason to say intelligent life composed of cells composed of molecules and atoms couldn't also exist at a larger scale. (Ask the symbiotic bacteria in your gut sometime). And intelligent life at a larger scale certainly could biuld a dyson sphere. Hell, maybe we are part of the dyson sphere.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Ok so somehow you get enough materials and energy to shape it into a sphere. That's an impossible task, but then it's somehow even more impossible that they use radiators to disperse the heat? I mean when you're talking about impossibility, it doesn't matter if it's squared or cubed. Then once you have this shell of solar collectors, how do you get the energy inside of it? You basically have a Faraday cage.
Also, why the fuck? Any significantly advanced civilization would use gravitational engines. That is either under direct or natural control, they would set up a oscillation system between multiple orbiting bodies where they can harvest energy without needing fusion. Instead of lighting up the solar system, they'd go invisible, detectible only via gravity waves which to date, are impossible to detect. At a minimum, significantly harder to detect.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
First off a dyson sphere does not take into account the MASSIVE amount of praticle energy that is coming off the star. the Stellar wind on that scale would be immense. Secondly, Orbits are not magical. a dyson sphere is unstable and will either wobble and start to collapse into the star, or rip apart due to the uneven gravity well. Just the technology to even be able to have the ability to think of building a Ringworld, something far, far, FAR easier than a Dyson sphere is so mind bogglingly compex that it collapses in upon it's self.
Sorry but it's a waste of time we might as well look for civilizations that are harvesting black holes to power their space ships.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Quick! Let's build a giant IR emitter w/ some filters to produce the same spectral curve as a Dyson sphere. All those not-quite-advanced societies out there will detect it and run screaming from our perceived galactic-overlordishness.
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
...and determine that the energy requirement for building and maintaining even a partial Dyson Sphere was so astronomically high that even assuming 100% energy collection from the star, it would never be feasible to build?
"If a civilization wants to hide, it's certainly possible to hide,' says Wright, 'but it requires massive amounts of deliberate engineering across an entire civilization."
Or technology we don't know about. In fact, that really blows apart this entire project. On Stargate Atlantis, aliens invented ZPM - zero point module that creates a sort of mini-singularity with no gravity that generates energy. The way humans right now would harvest energy from a star would be a lot different than a million year old civilization so this is a gigantic waste of time and money.
If we can assume that such a civilisation would still want sunlight to hit their planet, then any Dyson "sphere" would need to have a 'gap' around the plane of the inhabited planet. This wouldn't be perfect, and there would still be a bleed that would at distance be observable from any angle.
Wouldn't this money be better served feeding starving kids in Africa? (Just sayin'...)
I don't understand this nonsense of astronomers searching the galaxy for Dyson Spheres. I had no trouble finding and buying one off Amazon. The design is revolutionary, and it's very powerful. It gets pet hairs out of my carpet with ease. Highly recommended!
They won't go flying by into empty space. They won't bounce off your magnetic field and give you a nice light show.
You have to sit there and take it in the face.
And it will probably push the sphere off-center, too.
Yes there are. Local fusion, because you collect it close to source, and at a controlled rate. You can't slow your star, and you're setting up the collectors a quarter of a light hour away.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Maybe. But maybe it takes so much energy to bring the other power sources to fruition that you need a massive source of energy to begin with; and, it's only worth the effort to power things like ships that need more compact energy sources.
Taking a cue from science fiction: If I remember right, in Star Trek lore, the Federation gets it's supply of anti-matter from a particle accelerator built on a platform in close orbit of Sol. It extracts the energy necessary to run the process from the star. It's not efficient; so, the only place it's worth using is to power starships. They use more mundane methods to generate power for use on the planet surface.
IF what we already know about universe, in particular about speed limit, is true, they should not need to hide. The danger from inside their own solar system is far greater than the danger of invasion from outside it, in practice forever, unless you are talking about natural processes (i.e. a big asteroid/rogue star/whatever in collision course or a supernova close enough)
IF there is one out there, then instead of hiding they probably will make it very evident, at the very least to tell us all "we did it, bitches"
Small black holes are basically 100% efficient at turning mass into energy via Hawking Radiation, which is nearly two orders of magnitude more efficient than Stars powered by fusion.
There are some serious suggestions as to how to go about making them (ultra powerful converging gamma ray lasers, as photons aren't subject to Pauli Exclusion Principle). While it probably requires a moon-sized machine to do it, it is probably feasible for a civilisation capable of building a Dyson sphere, and once you have that technology you don't need stars or the gravitational hassles that they create anymore.
So, let me get this straight. Said civilization is technologically advanced enough to build a Dyson sphere, but not to avoid energy leakage in heat form ? Sorry, I don't buy it. If they are starving for energy and have that kind of technology, why not convert that heat "exhaust" into thermal energy ?
morcego
Solar fusion is the simplest process. Take billions of cubic meters of hydrogen gas, cool it down to absolute zero, until it forms a solid ball of liquid. Allow gravitational energy to compress this hydrogen until it starts to undergo fusion, giving off infra-red radiation, light and other wavelengths of energy. Plus that lasts for billions of years.
Maybe having fusion reactors would be better. Then you don't need to worry about orbital mechanics, solar arrays and ring worlds.
Once you have self-replicating, "intelligent" machines to do the job?
Assuming you could keep them interested in building your sphere, of course!
You just create your first self-replicating solar-powered Dyson-sphere builder, and then sit back and watch it and its scions build for the next hundred million years or whatever. Or maybe nowhere near that long, assuming exponential growth (to some limit) of the builder-bots.
Another example of the power of the Singularity?
--PM
What if at a certain point in evolution and understanding the world around you and the universe you discover that instead of manipulating matter, which consumes vast amounts of energy, that it's possible to manipulate energy itself which (theoretically) would require no more energy than what is already present around us. Instead of building vast energy gathering complexes you can for all intents and purposes manipulate what's already in abundance for civilizations advantage. All of a sudden faster than light travel isn't an impossibility but likely and taken for granted in as much as we take hoping on an airplane.
If they have that technology then they should find us first. Assuming they are not so far away that they only are seeing the light of millions of years in the past.
On a different note, is it conceivable that the energy could be simply deflected (instead of harnessed into electricity) and be useful?
Silly astronomers look it in other galaxies...
Here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hd2G5sNSmSM !
That's a relief. At first I thought you meant they were searching for alien Dyson Balls.
Or maybe they all have Mr Fusions and are quite happy to scoop up hydrogen by splitting water, mineing other planets, asteroids... or sucking it out of the ISM.
With all this talk about energy what if instead of a sphere of solar collectors it were an array of gyro mirrors which could be controlled in such a way apparent luminocity changes slightly yet enough for a signal to be broadcasted over massive distances?
This seems like a more pluasable and exciting idea to me than having to deal with collection and distribution of energy. After all Mr Fusion may prove to be much more convinent than solar arrays especially if there is any significant interplanetary traffic between terraformed worlds.
Astronomers weren't lookin for large sources of energy?
It's huge but look at the difference in density (from Wikipedia):
Average density of the Sun: 1.408×10^3 kg/m^3
Average density of YV Canis Majoris: 0.000005 to 0.000010 kg/m^3, the star is a thousand times less dense than the atmosphere of the Earth (air) at sea level.
Or even if they are mamals they may not be organised around individuals. See if you have a colony with a central queen/king as reproducing organs and a lot of worker, then reproduction limitation are much much easier. A civilisation with such a central reproduction would not need to go for a dyson sphere, it could simply limit itself in population , redirect project in a much better way we individual do, and not need all the distraction we need.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
The energy investment for a dyson spehre is many order of magnitude above a fusion reactor, and you can make up as many reactor as you may need. How much energy do an individual need to live in comfort ? At some point you do not need much more. So the only factor really requiring a lot of energy is that they may not be able to stop reproduction. But at least our ci shows that when people go live in comfort they don't need to procreate that much.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Not only does their Dyson sphere manage to collect all of the energy of its parent star, it doesn't lose suction.
If you assume they actually need something like a Dyson sphere (which seems impropable to actually require), then a Niven Ring would be a much better alternative. Easier to build, easier to maintain, all the benifits.
Look , all the law we have found were refinement of previous law (example newton->relativity // basic chemie-> QM). They allowed for different tech, but on the first order of magnitude, they are not so much different. The only potential exception might be nuclear power, and even that is discutable. But basically all the law we found were *limitation* on previous laws. Newton did allow toaccelerate to the infinity. Relativity put an end to that with a max speed. Thermodynamic put an end to perpetual energy. And so forth. We haven't *expanded* the way we could get thigns done. We have *limited* them more.
The engineering challenges of a Ringworld are daunting but much easier than a Dyson Sphere. Ringworlds would be a more sensible thing to search for, but probably harder to detect.
There's some hope for my grant proposal then: Looking for Dyson Sphere fragments from supernovae. One of the primary signatures of this effect would be screaming little green men, clinging to large metallic fragments, whizzing by the earth. According to my modified Drake equation, if every intelligent civilization eventually builds a Dyson Sphere, this should happen once every few thousand years.
Where would all the material come from?
That's a lot of "stuff" to build a structure to basically encircle a star. I've venture to say it would take more physical material than comprises most habitable planets.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
Has anyone bothered to calculate + or - X the mass of a Dyson sphere? Even a ringworld would require the consumption (IMHO) of a solar system (or two).
The idea makes for fun scifi but it's just rediculous to think that anything like this could exist.
Very, very advanced civilizations may have FTL travel, but they also may live in log cabins and ride horse analogs.
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
The Templeton Foundation rewards answers that involve religion. I don't trust who funds this search, I don't trust the results.
Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
So later we find out that we missed finding an alien civilization next door because they were using a Dyson Cube instead. =P
I hope they also keep a look out for Rosettes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klemperer_rosette too.
To get more bang for the buck via a higher energy differential? We might not see any infrared at all. We might as well look for a circular area of complete absence or radiation of any sort.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
The first colonies of the first civilisation will develop at various rates, some faster and some slower. If those colonies eventually colonise another wave, it will be the fastest, most aggressive developers that get the prime destinations. And of the second wave, it will be the fastest most aggressive colonies that seed the third wave, with the slower developers falling further and further behind as the waves of colonisation expand.
After ten of so generations of colonies, the things will be expanding as fast as technology allows, burning through the galaxy like a wildfire.
[This is the plot that ID4 should have used to explain the "locusts". Both making a stupid story more logical (coz it also explains the weak security), and ending the movie on a more poignant note, as Goldblum's character pisses on their celebrations by explaining that this is just the first wave, in a decade or a century there will be another ship, and another after that, arriving faster and faster, and they will never stop coming.]
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
Pretty interesting stuff. The shear amount of work involved, both in gathering resources and manufacturing the needed materials and in the actual construction of a sphere is mind blowing. Though I don't know if a civ would necessarily need or want to hide itself.
Things I thought of though.
It would block all light, I'm guessing, from the "home planet" of the civ that needs to build the sphere, meaning a couple of things:
1. If they did this to be able to stay on their home planet, the sphere would have to encompass both the planet and its sun, but that would mean the entire orbit of that planet; so WAY WAY bigger and possibly defeats the purpose of energy collection, but would (maybe) dissipate heat like they mention, I think.
or
2. Everyone is leaving the home planet and moving to live inside the sphere.... but,
A civ capable of building such a thing would either have had a ridiculous amount of luck that their planet or solar system had enough raw materials to convert to the resources to build the sphere, or would have to travel out for it.... meaning interstellar travel. In which case, it seems better to just terraform or whatever a planet in another star system. That seems like it would be much easier than building a sphere. Though I suppose they could possibly somehow have converted the stars own energy into the matter needed to construct the sphere along with whatever they have in the system.
I guess they could also just put a "window" on the sphere to let light through on the plane the planets on, as a few I think mentioned in other comments, but that seems like it also would defeat the purpose of the sphere. If you needed energy and could build a sphere then you would probably need even that energy lost through that "window"....
You know, thinking on that, if they lived on the inside and needed all of that energy, wouldn't the sphere actually have to be a double sphere? One around the star to collect energy with them living on top of that with another sphere around them? If they lived on the inside they would block energy from hitting the energy collectors I would think.
Or they do use #1 and just build around the entire planet orbit or the solar system.... which seems much much harder and resource intensive than the alternatives.
OR they have a way to get power we haven't even thought of yet ... ahh my head hurts.
A dyson sphere is going to have to absorb at shorter wavelengths and emit in the infrared, which is going to be difficult or impossible to detect at this distance: it will, for all intents and purposes, appear that the mass enclosed is dark. And how , pray tell, are we ever going to be able to detect dark matter?
A ringworld is a lot easier to build than a Dyson Sphere, you could do it with the material from one solar system. And you can spin it for gravity.
For a dydson sphere you need to invent some sort of artificial gravity (even a sphere made of a thin layer of neutronium isnt going to work
Books to read:
Orbitsville , Orbitsville Deoarture by Bob Shaw
Ringworkd , Ringworld Engineers, Ringworld Throne by Larry Niven
Anyway a Dyson Sphere is an example of a type 2 civilization (one that utilizes the entire resources of its star
A type 1 civilization utilizes the entire resources of its planet and we have only scratched the surface of this one - just think how many zigawatt millenia of energy lies in the molten rock just a hundred km below your feet and all the way to the core
The materials required to build such a sphere is based on the gravity at the diameter of the sphere. A civilization would require FTL propulsion and so why hang around when you can use antimatter as a source of energy to explore!!!
Vacuum energy? Apparently about 3/4 of the energy of the universe is vacuum energy. If you could consume space itself to produce energy, you might even be able to delay the heat death of the expanding universe.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Are they only searching for a Dyson Sphere because it would be easier to spot than other configurations? I would suspect that the existence of other configurations, such as a Dyson Ring or Bubble, would be much more plausible... but I guess if they are going to waste their time trying to find a civilization that can do one of these configurations, they might as well go all out and look for a sphere.
-My $0.02
We build taller and taller skyscrapers. Why? There are more efficient structures, and it's not like they are there to harvest resources unavailable at ground level. Besides, some peasant can build a mountainside hut that is at a higher altitude than the highest skyscraper. So, maybe it's not about the energy. Maybe it's a statement of prowess, or art.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Ya know, we just may have one in our back yard. Barnard's star could easily be a Matrioshka brain.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnard's_Star
We cannot (given current understanding and resource consumption patters) maintain the current population of the planet indefinitely.
Yes! This is definitely the most ludicrous thing I've read this week!
How much of whose money is being spent on this?
I've seen a Dyson Sphere on TV.
So one has been found.
A Dyson Sphere is a largely ludicrous concept, and it did not anticipate virtual reality. By the time a civilization has the wide array of capabilities required to create anything approaching a Dyson Sphere, such a construct would long since be superfluous. I won’t go into all the reasons a Dyson Sphere is logistically unrealistic, other have already done this.
The most realistic trajectory for any species is to eventual stop expanding into real space and transition to virtual space. Most advanced species will eventually evolve from biological organisms into technological organisms. Computational capability does require a high power density, but the power efficiency gains realized by the transition from real space to virtual space are staggering. In other words, the amount of raw power needed to sustain a highly advanced virtual civilization, with relatively limitless ‘space’ to expand is minuscule compared to the raw power needs of a civilization that needs lots of physical space, atmosphere, food, clothing, houses, leisure space, large scale transportation, etc, etc., etc. etc.
Any truly advanced civ will have a very limited physical footprint because they will be largely virtual. Even if a virtual civ wishes to continue exploring the 'real' world, the amount of power needed to move a computational system and some robotic or android 'physical avatars' around and sustain them is, again, minuscule compared to sustaining biological bodies and moving them around. Power needs will still be high, due to the power density of computation, but it will be very manageable. Couple these lower power needs with advances in efficacy (which have generally followed Moore’s Law) and you simply do not need to expend the tremendous effort required to construct a monstrosity like a Dyson Sphere.
Sure, there may be something that prevents civs from going virtual (like the soul), but as yet there is no empirical reason to believe this is the case.
I wish people would stop debating speculative statements like "If someone knows a thousand times what I know, and is a billion times more advanced, having technology I could not imagine, then ..." The premise of the statement prevents any possible conclusion.
The best we can do is say "Given the limitations that we believe apply to the universe, what would we do?"
WE are the first ones, sad but true - now stop wasting money looking at the stars and build a ship instead.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
There is no reason to believe that the second law of thermodynamics can be violated, and overwhelming evidence that it cannot.
True but within what we already know it is entirely possible to imagine that you could dump your low grade heat "invisibly" without violating thermodynamics. For example suppose you dump it into neutrinos or perhaps Dark Matter or Dark Energy if you want to be more exotic. I don't see any reason why this would be forbidden but equally I see no way that we could achieve it because the neutrino coupling to matter is incredibly small unless you go to extremely high energy. So I would rate it as highly improbable (given our current understanding) but by no means impossible.
However, a ribbon ( or a ring, if you like ) would be.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Who's laws? Ours? Theirs? Some humanoid caveman? A dolphin?
To think we know all of reality is absurd. We only know a small part of what is going on in the universe. Not only that we could easily be running on a false assumption/observation that would completely break down every law of physics we think we know.
We have not been around all that long, we are NOT experts.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
They'll find nothing.
I'd rather not be exterminated just yet.
It occurs to me that a Dyson Sphere around a star similar to our own would be extremely costly and difficult (assuming a diminishing resource supply). Adding to the fact that F, G, and K class stars are typically variables (Increasing and decreasing in luminosity over a period of time, as well as having more active sunspot and flares periodically) and are prone to large solar flares which would place inhabitants of any sort of Dyson Sphere, be it a solid sphere of solar sailing habitats suspended by the solar wind, in a great deal of danger.
On the other hand, using a smaller star, perhaps an M class or maybe even a Brown Dwarf, not only reduces to overall size and engineering challenges, but provides for a MUCH more stable star. It might require special reflectors only reflecting the wavelength of light to the hanging habitats, that the population of this mini Dyson Sphere require, but those other wavelengths would likely be the main source of power for the habitats anyway.
As I understand it, Brown Dwarfs are fairly common and should there be one near an inhabited starsystem similar to our own, then using the Oort cloud and the Keiper Belt for raw materials for the habitats should be adequate.
However; If this is the case, a mini Dyson Sphere would be MUCH harder to find as its' infrared signature would be even further reduced by the smaller size and lowere basic output of an M class or Brown Dwarf star.
JasonAW3
First thing I thought of: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECLvFLkvY7Y
The problem with such a dense energy generation station is how to convert it into usable power and disperse waste heat. We can conceptualize with known technology how to build a Dyson Sphere. We wouldn't know what to do with that much power.
With a D-D plant that size, we couldn't hope to capture the energy and convert it into a conceptually understood usable form... or figure out how to deal with the waste heat.
Time will hopefully answer one or both questions.
"It's strange to write a serious research proposal and have half of your bibliography be science fiction."
The second law involves a mathematical structure that also appears in the limits of data compression [N log 2N] the speed of fourier computation, and other non-statistical mathematical operations. I assure you, the 2nd law is hard-wired into reality.
Didn't these folks watch that ST:OS episode about the planet where nobody has died for eons? (forgot the name... I'll google it later).
I'm very hopeful Earth will return to a more pristine state once we learn to deal with pollution -- and the deniers' stupidity.
If they had the technology to build Dyson Sphere they would also know that their parent star won't last forever making the build a complete waste of time and resources. As someone else stated if they follow Darwinian evolution and wanted to grow and spread out then they would simple leave their system for another one. Again if they had the tech to build it they could leave way easier and cheaper. (Time and resource wise)
At its heart, thermodynamics is nothing more than the assumption that certain processes are fundamentally random and unpredictable, an assumption about symmetry. These symmetries may well turn out to be broken by processes that we haven't observed yet, for example on a cosmic scale.
Even with existing physics, there are lots of things they could potentially do that would look like a violation of thermodynamics to us (even though it isn't): use a black hole, use a wormhole, radiate the heat in a tight beam, use neutrino cooling, or maybe even cool with dark matter.
Dyson ran the numbers:
Such a "Dyson sphere" would grow naturally and incrementally, and it doesn't require any unusual materials.
A civilization advanced enough to capture the energy of a star should be capable of capture zero-point energy, so I see no need for a Dyson sphere.
You build a box and try to fit God inside it. When he doesn't fit, you conclude he doesn't exist. The irony is that God created the one who created the box in which God does not fit. I find that you are not even aware of your own presuppositions, therefore you cannot reach a reasonable conclusion. You have been so heavily influenced by atheists and scientism (which is practically worshipped as a religion unto itself) that you have confined your own thinking to a box which you are unwilling to exit, and perhaps even unaware of.
1. You presuppose that if God acts on a prayer, it indicates that he was previously unaware of something.
2. You presuppose that if God is all-knowing and good that he must necessarily enforce what is best for people.
3. You presuppose that, as a finite, relatively insignificant human being, you could possibly know whether and when God intercedes in our world and to what ends.
4. You presuppose that you could even know what is "good" or "best" from the perspective of an all-knowing, all-powerful, universe-creating, life-breathing entity beyond our comprehension.
Your conclusion ("Therefore we find that an all-knowing and good god cannot be influenced by prayers...") is a non sequitur. It's not even a logical conclusion from your assertions. And your assertions are unsubstantiated, anyway.
The very nature of an omnipotent, omniscient entity who exists outside of our plane of existence means that we cannot completely comprehend him; we may only do so to the extent he chooses to reveal himself to us. What you have done is set forth arbitrary specifications for God, and if it seems to you that he does not meet your criteria, you conclude that he must not exist. This is nothing short of absurd. If God exists outside of or above our universe, if he created you and the universe and the very nature of our existence, how could you possibly define the means by which he may exist?
N.B. I am not even arguing that God does exist--I'm simply arguing that your logic is fundamentally flawed because of your presuppositions. Either God is an all-powerful, all-knowing entity--and therefore beyond our comprehension--or he is finite, like us, but with advanced technology--and therefore, presumably, ultimately understandable--or he does not exist at all. If you are arguing based on the presupposition that he is all-powerful and all-knowing, then you must argue that he is far beyond any of your reasoning or standards, and therefore you cannot logically define criteria for proving his existence.
The argument boils down to whether anything can exist beyond our understanding or comprehension: if we can comprehend God, then nothing is ultimately beyond our understanding, and--eventually, perhaps far beyond our lifetimes--we can "find" him, understand him, and even possess similar powers (note that this implies being able to create an entire universe of our own, from nothing). In this case, it's simply a matter of time until he is "discovered"--until then, he either does not exist or we have yet to find him (a conclusion which does not answer the questions, "How?", "Why?", and "From what?"). But on the other hand, if things may exist beyond our understanding, then we can never expect to meet God on our terms, and trying to do so is naive and futile.
I like the fishbowl analogy. (It's not perfect, of course.) The fish's entire universe is inside his fishbowl. He knows nothing outside of it (perhaps it would be useful to declare the fishbowl to be opaque, or at least barely translucent). Now and then something from outside his universe seems to interact with his world--perhaps a hand reaches in, but he cannot discern the source of the hand. The fish cannot comprehend existence outside of his bowl, or outside of water, the very fabric of his existence. Therefore, to him, nothing must exist outside of his world, and nothing must exist outside of water--which, to him, isn't even water, just reality as he knows it. But to the human, clearly the fish is limited
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
The emotional feeling is one thing. But what about this kind of love?
"For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous personâ"though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to dieâ"but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."
"By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers."
That kind of love doesn't propagate any genes. It makes no sense from a Darwinian perspective.
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
This deserves to be modded up.
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
Its rather saddening to see, having read through nearly all 500 comments, that almost no one has corrected the assumption that a Dyson Sphere is a literal sphere (or a Ringworld). It is NOT!
The idea is essentially to have a massive array of solar collecting satellites around a star, which would then transfer the energy for whatever usage including space stations/labs and the "home" planet. This doesn't require a physics defying level of technology. It essentially only requires the ability to launch a vast number of satellites and have an efficient method of transferring the energy. It can obviously become more exotic with the idea of matter transferrence or orbiting nano-robotic factories to build the satellites, but the basic idea is NOT some impossible feat of engineering to encase a star.
but, alas
I would also take a hard look at those "Rogue" stars as well. Nothing smoothes out the ride like a star!
The searcher seem to be looking for a solid Dyson sphere or a Dyson swarm blocking the whole of a star. While that certainly may be possible, I would suspect that a wide line of collectors in a circular orbit very close to star would provide quite a lot of energy before you would need to deal with the enormous amounts of mass and unrealistic strength of a solid sphere or the complex multilevel intersecting orbits of a complete Dyson swarm.
If a civilization's energy needs grew to require that output of the whole star, why would they use the Dyson sphere approach when there is a far more controlled and efficient way to harvest a star's energy content. Stars are messy, burn at variable rates, flare, random atoms combine often in forms that waste energy in hard the form of hard to collect rays or particles, they form shells of debris around their cores which cause the star to shrink then have massive expansions and outflows of gas, and in the end eject most their atmospheres into space and leave a huge amount of material unused.
The better way once a civilization realize they are going to need even more massive amounts of energy than a sun line can capture is to use the circum-stellar array's power to generate huge magnetic fields to squeeze the star to the point that it starts to eject plasma at its poles. You would magnetically capture, sort, store and freeze this material for future use. The sorting would provide massive amounts of heavier elements which for the star were impurities but are valuable building materials to the civilization doing this. In the end the star would be reduced to an ember. The stored gas would then be used to power fusions plants that can produce far more power in a controlled and useful ranges than the star ever would have. It would extend the life of the civilization from billions to trillions of years. It would provide for the ability to move to another star without needing to escape a massive gravity well as the mass of the system would now be the civilization itself and it would be able to bring its power source along with it to the next star should its power needs grow even farther.
They should look for stars with a dark lines through the center, G type stars out gassing in an very odd fashion, massive diffuse gravity wells moving through empty space, and solar system sized area of space with a very slight thermal gradient above normal space. This last result being caused because fusion plants spread across a solar system which are making efficient use of waste heat would take what was a pinpoint heat source and spread it across habitats that might span the size of a solar system.
Why does this theory have much relevance? Are we assuming that said civilizations are unable to find new sources of energy? Are we supposed to believe that they could conceive and build something as fantastic as a Dyson's Sphere but are unable to mine other planets and asteroids? And remember, we only split the atom 70 years ago. What if the hypothetical civilizations managed to solve the problems with fusion?
'A Dyson Sphere would appear very bright in the mid-infrared,' says project leader Jason Wright.
Any engineer will tell you that waste heat is energy lost.
I can't imagine that a civilization with the technology to tear enough solar systems apart, move all the material to one location, and build a Dyson Sphere would find it impossible or inconvenient to capture that waste heat and turn it back into energy before it escapes into space. (Any sphere that does not capture all of the central sun's radiant energy is inefficient.)
As as we have found out, there is always something you can use more electricity on.
THINK! It's patriotic
Physicist Enrico Fermi once asked, "if aliens are out there, where are they?" It is quite an astute observation if you think about it. His point was, If there are alien civilizations out there, we should have indisputable proof by now (I don't mean UFO's, but real proof). This is especially true if you believe in the Kardashev civilization types (I, II, III). This is known as Fermi's paradox.
If civilization progresses linearly until a certain level of sophistication is achieved, then the civilization would eventually be able to conquer its planet (Type I). (We are not there yet, thus we are Type 0). After that, it would conquer its solar system and harness energy from its star (Type II). And finally, it would conquer its galaxy and perhaps harness black holes and dark energy, etc (Type III). Some have even posited Type IV which would conquer the universe. And when I say "conquer" I mean that from a technological and colonization perspective, and not necessarily a military one.
So Fermi's point was, we should see definite proof of these civilizations yet we don't. We can say for sure there are no Type IV's, since that implies colonizing the universe. And we can be sure there are no Type III's, at least in our own galaxy. So, it seems likely that if there are civilizations out there, they are Type II and below. And if they are Type II or below, then they, by definition, have not been able to travel beyond their solar system to any great degree (we are Type 0 and have sent one probe beyond our solar system). This means we likely would not be able to detect Type II's and below, though this is what this project is trying to do. We have the telescopic power now to do this.
And one must remember, you don't have to have biological beings do the colonizing. Physicist/mathematician/computer scientist/super-genius John Von Neumann postulated something known as Von Neumann machines way back in the 40's or 50's. These are self-replicating machines that a civilization sends out to do its colonizing for it (sort of like an inter-galactic computer worm). These machines are programmed on how to replicate as long as the physical materials are in place. So one probe lands on a distant planet or moon, harvests elements and materials from that planet, and then builds clones of itself. From there the clones go out and do the same thing. This happens exponentially, so if you do the math, you will see it won't take all that long for them to conquer an entire galaxy.
So the mere fact we don't see obvious signs of this implies a few possibilities:
1) Civilizations wipe themselves out before Type III can be achieved, perhaps through nuclear technology and war.
2) Once a civilization gets to Type II, perhaps they become "enlightened" in some way and do not care for further colonization or technological progress.
3) There have been Type III civilizations but their time period of existence was long ago in a galaxy far, far away. After all, our existence is a blip on the galactic time scale.
4) There are type III civilizations now but for some reason they have chosen to remain hidden from us (this seems like a very hard thing to do technologically). But as Michio Kaku says, aliens that advanced would most likely look at us as we do an ant hill -- completely uninteresting.
5) We are the only intelligent beings to have existed in the universe.
But an even more intriguing possibility is something posited by Alan Guth (others have had similar ideas). What if our universe was created by alien intelligence? Guth outlined how it is theoretically possible, even with the physics we are aware of today (with our minuscule Type 0 minds). He goes into detail about how it would be possible to use exotic matter, create a singularity and have that singularity "explode" into a new universe *without* disturbing the parent universe. If a civilization reaches Type III, they have obviously mastered physics, so it would be technologically feasible for them to actually do what is only theory for
A star is a fusion reactor. In fact, if you need the kind of power that's given out by a Dyson sphere, then a Dyson sphere is by and large the most efficient method for generating it, especially for long periods of time.
The question should be whether any civilization would require so much power in such a static and concentrated way (as opposed to dispersed across hundreds of planets across thousands of lightyears), and where they'd find the materials required to build it (we're speaking about transforming entire planets from crust to core, or harvesting dozens more in a less destructive fashion).
The one thing neglected in all of this is that a Dyson sphere would be inherently unstable; that is, it would tend to drift off-center from the star that it surrounds, eventually crashing into it on one side. It is not a simple "two-body" problem in celestial mechanics; it is essentially an infinite-body problem. The only thing that could counter this would be thruster rockets, which would have to be burning non-stop to keep things in balance (therefore cost and fuel prohibitive), or some sort of inertial dampening field, which is well beyond any technology that we can envision; even well beyond the technology required to build a Dyson sphere in the first place.
For these reasons, I have serious doubts that any hyper-advanced civilization "out there" would ever attempt to construct a Dyson sphere. It is a fool's errand, just as any attempt to look for one is, too.
It is extremely difficult to imagine how it would look a civilization far more technologically advanced than our own. Such an advanced civilization could produce its own energy from nuclear fusion or might be able to extract energy from the vacuum, they would have total control of gravity (they could create artificial gravity), so they could build artificial worlds not related to a solar system, artificial worlds that would perfectly "work" in the vast space between galaxies where there is no danger of cosmic collisions, black holes, supernovae, etc.
When I was a physics student, we had a joke about this:
- How do recognise a Dyson Sphere?
- It has a star-sized hole on the side.
Red Leader Standing By!
Bu t then we would have proof we are no longer alone in the universe and all religions that base God to be centered around the earth and no where else, might have to perish, no?
The problem with the Dyson Sphere concept is that it assumes there is no other sufficient source of energy, largely because humans haven't invented one.
Barely over a hundred years ago, we hadn't invented the airplane or helicopter or nuclear power plants in Tsunami zones, or iPads. Yet these things exist now and humans invented them.
By assuming that we know best and there is no other possible better source of energy, we're basically saying it cannot be done. The problem is we have a really bad track record in that area of not know what the hell we are talking about, much less what aliens might do.
We invent. We should assume aliens will also invent.
Now, it will be interesting someday if humans and aliens finally do meet up and we find out they have invented something we also have. The iPad of that era, just for example. We don't have any room for such a thing in our IP laws so the standard lawsuits would fly. And it would be fun to watch the first human IP lawyer try to serve G'Gurat with a suit over bezel design and rows of icons. Especially if G'Gurat is hungry that cycle.
Sig for hire.
What about NY and LA?