dyson sphere

3 Articles

The Alien Energy Crisis Solved

May 14, 2024 by 48 Comments

Since the dawn of the industrial revolution, humans have been searching for more energy. Especially lately, there has been a huge interest in wind, solar, geothermal, and other ways to capture and harness power. However, we have a huge power plant just eight light minutes away: our sun. Oh sure, we toy with solar power, but the amount of sunlight hitting the Earth or even Earth orbit is a tiny fraction of Sol’s total output. But what if you could capture nearly all of the sun’s output? Scientists think that maybe — just maybe — they’ve detected 60 new extraterrestrial civilizations doing just that. At least, that’s what it could be.

[Freeman Dyson] popularized the idea of a Dyson sphere, an artificial sphere surrounding a sun to capture the maximum amount of energy, back in 1960. However, the idea is older and usually credited to [Olaf Stapledon]’s 1937 novel Star Maker. While most people think the sphere would be solid, [Dyson] himself thought it would be a swarm of disjointed collectors owing to the difficulty in creating a solid shell of the required size.

Both SETI and Fermilab have searched for what is thought to be telltale infrared radiation that scientists think would emanate from a star surrounded by spheres or swarms. Several have been located, but there is no conclusive evidence.

The new 60 were identified by analyzing data from the Gaia satellite. Again, the evidence is not conclusive, but small and dim stars that are very bright in infrared can’t be explained by conventional explanations. One way to explain at least some of the stars would be if about 16% of the star was obscured by something like a swarm of Dyson sphere collectors.

There are, of course, more jejune explanations possible. For example, the star might happen to be in front of some more distant IR source. Still, it is tantalizing to think there may be more than 60 high-tech civilizations out there either waiting to meet us or, perhaps, waiting to eat us, depending on how paranoid you are.

The Cost Of Moving Atoms In Space; Unpacking The Dubious Claims Of A $10 Quintillion Space Asteroid

November 23, 2020 by 42 Comments

The rest of the media were reporting on an asteroid named 16 Psyche last month worth $10 quintillion. Oddly enough they reported in July 2019 and again in February 2018 that the same asteroid was worth $700 quintillion, so it seems the space rock market is similar to cryptocurrency in its wild speculation. Those numbers are ridiculous, but it had us thinking about the economies of space transportation, and what atoms are worth based on where they are. Let’s break down how gravity wells, distance, and arbitrage work to figure out how much of this $10-$700 quintillion we can leverage for ourselves.

The value assigned to everything has to do with where a thing is, AND how much someone needs that thing to be somewhere else. If they need it in a different place, someone must pay for the transportation of it.

In international (and interplanetary) trade, this is where Incoterms come in. These are the terms used to describe who pays for and has responsibility for the goods between where they are and where they need to be. In this case, all those materials are sitting on an asteroid, and someone has to pay for all the transport and insurance and duties. Note that on the asteroid these materials need to be mined and refined as well; they’re not just sitting in a box on some space dock. On the other end of the spectrum, order something from Amazon and it’s Amazon that takes care of everything until it’s dropped on your doorstep. The buyer is paying for shipping either way; it’s just a matter of whether that cost is built into the price or handled separately. Another important term is arbitrage, which is the practice of taking a thing from one market and selling it in a different market at a higher price. In this case the two markets are Earth and space.

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The Legacy Of One Of Science’s Brightest Stars: Freeman Dyson

March 9, 2020 by 8 Comments

Of the many well-known names in science, few have been as reluctant to stick to one particular field as Freeman John Dyson. Born in the UK in 1923, he showed a great interest in mathematics and related fields even as a child. By the time he was 15 he had won a scholarship at Trinity College, in Cambridge, where he studied mathematics. Though the war forced him to work at the Air Force’s Operational Research Section (ORS), afterwards he would return to Trinity to get his BA in mathematics.

His subsequent career saw him teaching at universities in the UK and US, before eventually ending up at Cornell University, where he joined the Institute for Advanced Study at the invitation of its head, J. Robert Oppenheimer. Here he would meet up with such people as Richard Feynman with whom he would work on quantum electrodynamics.

Beyond mathematics and physics, Dyson would also express great interest in space exploration — with Dyson spheres being well-known — and genetics, both in the context of the first formation of life and in genetic manipulation to improve plants to deal with issues today. He also worked on the famous Project Orion, which used nuclear bombs for propulsion.

In this article we’ll take a look at these and other parts of Mr. Dyson’s legacy, as well as the influence of his works today.

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