One of more popular futurist ideas about how an advanced civilization might go about harnessing all the radiation energy wasted by its local star(s) is the Dyson Sphere, a concept conceived by physicist Freeman Dyson. There have been a number of variants of the idea proposed, but the basic idea is that materials designed for the purpose of harnessing, storing and transferring solar energy would be placed so as to ensnare the entire star. Ive included a short video explaining Dyson Spheres, some of their possible permutations, and some of the more obvious strengths, limitations and technical challenges associated with them in the comments below. I will leave the more specific technical engineering considerations involving availability of materials, energy storage and transmission efficiency for another time. This idea is normally associated with Type II civilizations (Ive heard that some science fiction authors have placed it in with higher grade Type I technology, but I cant corroborate that claim). This is pertinent to a famous problem in the search for extraterrestrial civilizations known as The Fermi-Paradox (see link in the comments). In a nutshell, the Fermi Paradox simply derives from the question if highly technological civilizations are relatively common in our galaxy, then where is everybody? This page on the SETI website describes it in greater detail, and I will include a link in the comments to some of the more creative proposals for resolving the apparent paradox. seti.org/seti-institute/project/details/fermi-paradox However, all of this raises the question of why we dont detect anything resembling a Dyson Sphere, or technology designed to serve a similar purpose. The assumption is that Type I civilizations and above will continue to require gradually greater energy resources as the continually progress up the Kardashev scale, and would thus eventually end up embarking on an ambitious (and conspicuous) project analogous to Dyson Spheres, or some other method of harnessing maximal energy from its local star, and stars emit EM radiation in every direction, not just towards any one planet. Yet, despite active efforts to find anomalies consistent with what such a project would entail, we cant find anything of the sort in our neighborhood. There could be any number of reasons for this: It may be that were the only technological species in our neighborhood, or that were not very far behind the curve since nobody in our vicinity has made it to Type II. This is not so implausible considering how much more frequent Gamma Bursts were in our galaxy just couple billion years ago, and considering how much time it takes for complex (let alone intelligent) life to evolve. It may be that the technology is either impossible, or proves to be impractical once a civilization gets far enough along to really see the pros and cons more clearly. Alternatively, it could be that such civilizations have invented cloaking devices to conceal their presence, or maybe some civilizations stop caring about moving up the Kardashev Scale after a certain point. There are many possibilities. The fact remains, however, that we dont have any evidence for Dyson Spheres, and can only speculate on why that is, and what it means in terms of how we should allocate our own efforts and resources if we are serious about moving up the scale. blogs.discovermagazine/cosmicvariance/2008/12/02/no-dyson-spheres-found-yet/#.U72_OfldWSo
Posted on: Thu, 10 Jul 2014 05:08:49 +0000
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