Astroboffins to search for mega-massive alien power plants

A team of alien-hunting astroboffins has been awarded a grant to search the sky for immense engineering feats that would reveal the existence of astral civilizations far, far more advanced than us puny humans. Lead by assistant professor Jason Wright of Penn State's Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics, the team will use …

[Anonymous Coward]

We are

We are alone, get used to it and spend the money on something more useful.

[LarsG]

If we are no alone

Should we be advertising to fact to the universe, to some alien life that would consider slurping a human brain as a delicacy, that we are here.

Maybe we should stay quiet and let them pass by?

[Phil O'Sophical]

Re: If we are no alone

No way. They won't be able to slurp us all, some of us will live to see the bigger universe.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: If we are no alone

"They won't be able to slurp us all, some of us will live to see the bigger universe"

That's what the dodos squawked to each other when they saw the first humans. I'm with LarsG on this - put the money into research on hiding from hungry aliens! Even if they're not hungry, there's no reason (based on Earth experience) to expect technological advancement to correlate with peaceful and benevolent behaviour.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: If we are no alone

"there's no reason to expect technological advancement to correlate with peaceful and benevolent behaviour"

Can I suggest you read "The better angels of our nature" by Steven Pinker? It is packed full of reasons and evidence why you could expect precisely that

[AlgernonFlowers4]

Re: If we are no alone

Or they could try getting hold Culturally Bounded Rationality by S Kaur (http://www.opengrey.eu/item/display/10068/457498) where applying Gödel's incompleteness theorems finds that "higher beings" are simultaneously both more rational and irrational than "lower beings." Much as say, chimpanzees would see human actions as being more rational and irrational at the same time.

[Destroy All Monsters]

Re: If we are no alone

> Culturally Bounded Rationality by S Kaur where applying Gödel's incompleteness theorems

Applying "Gödel's incompleteness theorems" to crappy cobbled-together, no-pretense-at-having-any-kind-of-consistency,-completeness,-or-mathematical-relevance-whatsoever automatons like the brain strikes me as a particularly retarded, childish and useless undertaking. We are not and never will be theorem provers or instantiations of a mathematical axiomatic structure.

Penrose falls into the same trap, which is a shame.

[Nuke]

@AC 06:19 - Re: If we are no alone

Wrote : "Can I suggest you read "The better angels of our nature" by Steven Pinker? It is packed full of reasons and evidence why you could expect [technological advancement to correlate with peaceful and benevolent behaviour]"

There is a paradox here. Without having heard of Steven Pinker, considering that humans DO exhibit aggressive and unkind behaviour, we are presumably of lesser intelligence and advancement than those aliens who do not. How therefore can we presume to know how these advanced aliens are thinking or will behave?

Of course human intelligence varies enormously, so perhaps Steven Pinker's is at the same level as these super-aliens, so he knows. However, what guarantee is there that we will not get the dumber and more aggressive aliens reach us first? In 15th-16th century Earth exploration it was not pale-faced philosophers and intellectuals who went on those ships, it was hairy-chested adventurers and swashbucklers looking for loot, sex, carnage and slaves.

I take it you have never destroyed an ant-hill or wasp nest in your garden. Because you intelligently listened to their point of view and spared them?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: If we are no alone

"Can I suggest you read "The better angels of our nature" by Steven Pinker? It is packed full of reasons and evidence why you could expect precisely that"

Yeah - so's Star Trek. Don't forget that the minute someone else says spend the money elsewhere, everyone always says "Like what? Guns and war and wah wah wah?" Oops - just reread and see you used "could" instead of "should." My carelessness. But to be brutal, that just makes your rebuttal totally pie in the sky ...

[Nuke]

@ Ledswinger - Re: If we are no alone

Wrote :- "That's what the dodos squawked to each other when they saw the first humans."

For the benefit of those who still think we will be taken to their leader, have a nice chat with him and end up with high fives, you should have told the rest of the story.

When the sailors started clubbing, the dodos, who knew a bit about world affairs, sqawked to each other: "It's OK, we will write a letter to the King. He is a kind man and he will come here and stop it." So they wrote a letter to the King and the sailors naturally promised to deliver it, which they did (but carried on clubbing meanwhile). When the King saw the letter (he could read dodo writing of course) it deeply affected him - he nearly died laughing. Then he wiped his arse with it.

[AceRimmer1980]

Re: If we are no alone

The research has already been done.

We have Macbooks that can upload a virus to the mothership.

[Thorne]

Re: If we are no alone

"We have Macbooks that can upload a virus to the mothership."

It wasn't the virus. Steve Jobs realized the aliens had stolen his "technology" and went all thermonuclear on them. The motherships got over run with lawyers and the aliens lost the will to live. Apparently living several million light years away doesn't protect you from American patent laws.

[Anonymous John]

Re: If we are no alone

True. Flying Saucers don't just have rounded corners. They are circular.

[Thorne]

Re: If we are no alone

"True. Flying Saucers don't just have rounded corners. They are circular."

Circular is nothing more than a rectangle with really rounded corners

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: If we are no alone

"Even if they're not hungry, there's no reason (based on Earth experience) to expect technological advancement to correlate with peaceful and benevolent behaviour.".

Actually, there are lots of reasons to expect just that. The most obvious is that technologically advanced civilisations of the sort that might, for instance, be able to build a Dyson sphere have access to and the ability to control huge amounts of energy. The ones that are not peaceful wipe themselves out in wars pretty quickly.

[Johan Bastiaansen]

Re: If we are no alone

Looking around for IR is hardly advertising our presence, is it?

[tkioz]

Re: We are

It is a statistical improbability that we are alone in our galaxy, let alone the entire universe.

Disbelievers people say that the conditions for life are mind boggling rare, and intelligent life even rarer still... I'll accept that, but working for that, there are there are 300 Billion stars in our galaxy alone... and ours isn't even a very big galaxy...

The raise of intelligent life could be one in a trillion trillion to one... and there would still be literally countless other intelligent life forms out there in the Universe somewhere...

As for spending money on something better... like what? better bombs? reality TV? pills to make dicks harder? Please enlighten me.

[Naughtyhorse]

Re: We are

intelligent life even rarer still..

pretty fucking rare on this god forsaken rock, and it's teeming with life

[Brandon 2]

Re: We are

how is it a statistical improbability that we are alone? last time I checked, you needed a sample size larger than 1 to determine anything from statistics... we know of 1 planet that has life on it... not 15, not 300, not 10,000... just one. p-value gonna make your master's thesis explode on that one sample size...

furthermore, why is it so hard for people to just say the words, "I don't know." You don't know, and may never know if there is any other life on other planets, and any statement to the contrary, given our current data is simply speculation.

[itzman]

Re: We are

well obviously the dark matter is loads of almost perfectly insulating spheres surrounding and hiding the stars

[solidsoup]

Re: We are

I'm not sure why all the down votes for OP. Consider von Neumann probes. It's logical to assume that once a civilization has advanced anywhere close to Kardashev II scale, it would send out self-replicating probes throughout the universe. Game theory dictates that it be done, lest it fall pray to another civilization who do so beforehand. It takes less than 1 day of energy output of our sun to send a small probe to every single star in our galaxy! And another day to every galaxy in the universe! This means that the entire universe should already be colonized and divided into territories. We don't see any evidence of that. One of three things follow:

1) We are effectively alone in the universe as the original poster stated (at least as far as advanced space faring civilizations go). -OR-

2) Some of the things we take to be natural cosmology are actually artificial constructs and Sol happened to be outside of any areas of influence. -OR-

3) We're under some sort of protection. Other civilizations are aware of our existence, have a policy to not intervene and would likely prevent us from making any contact.

Occam's razor makes #1 significantly more likely. Other choices involve more entities to explain observations. Hence, I tend to side with OP. At any rate, no matter which of those 3 things is correct, this search won't find anything.

[Paul McClure]

Re: We are

I like your analysis as far as it goes. I think a different culture might be harder to recognize then we give credit. If we were ants, puffed up on our ability to bring down larger insects/animals, engineer, and farm, would we recognize creatures who use sound instead of chemicals to communicate. Would we recognize land use zones and their land ownership.

It's not wrong to look and search, but much that we take for granted today would be missed entirely by someone from a few hundred years ago. Just saying we might be looking in the wrong places for the wrong things.

[Ken Hagan]

@solidsoup

Or 4) You've got the game theory wrong.

[Dropper]

Re: We are

"Occam's razor makes #1 significantly more likely."

No it doesn't, but that doesn't particularly matter as it's complete bullshit anyway. "Occam's razor" is a a very simple principle stating that among competing hypotheses, the one which makes the fewest assumptions should be selected. It's about chosing the least risky guess - when you have to make a guess. As guessing is not generally accepted as valid scientific method, it has no relevance to the pursuit of knowledge.

Sorry it just gets on my nerves when people start quoting this bullshit principle as if it was the be all and end all. Oh well.. too many people were educated-by-movie these days for it to matter I suppose.

[solidsoup]

@Dropper

I'm not sure what you're trying to say overall, but your post suggests that I've actually used the razor correctly by selecting from several hypothesis the least risky (more likely) one based on its simplicity. There's empirical evidence of use of Occam's razor resulting in more accurate scientific theories. Regardless, of how you think it works or doesn't, its a useful tool. As to people educated by movies, I completely agree. It's happened to the point that overwhelming majority assumes the existence of aliens with zero evidence to suggest it.

@Ken Hagan

4) My assumptions are wrong - is always a caveat emptor. However, mentioning it on the forum would result in people automatically selecting it without having to do any work to argue against those assumptions. Come to think of it, exactly as you just did.

[TheOtherHobbes]

Re: We are

"It's logical to assume that once a civilization has advanced anywhere close to Kardashev II scale, it would send out self-replicating probes throughout the universe."

No, it isn't. There's nothing logical about it at all. It might - perhaps - be what the human race would choose to do. But there are good political reasons why it might not happen, good practical ones why it might not work or might not use science or technology we're familiar with or would even recognise as such, and good physical ones why we might not have encountered such probes even if a civilisation did choose to use them.

The only *logical* assumption on the topic is that we have insufficient data to even begin to speculate usefully about what might be going on out there, if anything is at all.

[WorkingFromHome]

Re: We are

Alternatively consider these options:

1.) None of the other civilizations are advanced enough to create these von Neumann probes, just as we aren't.

2.) None of the other civilizations feel the need.

The problem with all these theories is that they assume the all other life thinks the same way we do. I can't see why that should be the case.

[solidsoup]

@TheOtherHobbes

Yes, there could be reasons that you curiously avoid mentioning. However, all it takes is 1 civilization close to Type II to colonize the universe and that hasn't happened. So either all of them are subject to the same reasons you don't mention or they don't exist.

@WorkingFromHome

I have. The universe is 13.75 billion years old. First galaxies are ~13 billion y.o. All it takes is 1 and it hasn't happened. Moreover, if we go by your suggestion that other civs aren't advanced enough, then searching for Dyson spheres certainly wouldn't be fruitful.

[Naughtyhorse]

Re: We are

Game theory...

That assumes these other civilizations routinely employ paranoid schizophrenics in their military industrial complexes, and have a pressing need to justify the unjustifiable. yet still maintain the capacity to prevent this train of though infecting their political & financial systems and turning everyone's 401k into shit.

could happen i s'pose :-)

[Bluenose]

Re: We are

I think your first option falls down, the probability of life on other planets is probably likely since the factors required for life in the universe are very common and as you say the premise is based on a lack of space faring nations.

The fourth option is also probably the most likely in that if other life is based on an evolutionary basis (which is highly probable) then like ourselves it has found it impossible to break out from within its own solar system with manned ships and therefore is setting there having the same stupid arguments and wars as the people of earth.

[Peter Mc Aulay]

Re: We are

Maybe the Von Neumann machines do not use the same criteria for selecting target systems as we would. Perhaps they avoid systems with short-lived yellow stars, cold gas giants and life-bearing worlds and instead go for long-lived red dwarf stars with hot Jovians and/or lots of asteroids, and no pesky natives.

Or how about:

4) Civilisations generally don't do this because landscaping an entire galaxy is rude. But it only ever takes one, so perhaps:

4a) Species that engage in this sort of thinking tend to go extinct because they take the same approach towards their home system and hit Malthus's limit before they can spread too far. We may well kill ourselves off before we reach the necessary tech level, for instance.

Using fewer assumptions there are still a few other options:

6) It has in fact been done, but colonising civilisations are sparsely spread through space and time so that we simply missed them. If the last lot in the Milky Way disappeared a mere 50000 years ago, no trace of their works would remain visible from here (unless they left megastructures behind). In fact, we could go extinct again without ever being concurrent with a single other civilisation in the Local Group, even if generally speaking life is abundant in the universe.

7) Colonising the galaxy turns out to be really hard and its history is full of single-planet cultures wondering where all the aliens are. Most go extinct without ever seeing any.

[John Deeb]

Re: We are

Yes! Perhaps a better working hypothesis would be to assume the universe is overcrowded with intelligent life and we are just the blind beggar in the gutter of mainstreet celebrating our idiot cosmos.

[Steve Knox]

Re: We are

Obvious troll is obvious.

One point for actually getting responses/downvotes. Minus one for shooting fish in a barrel.

[Bill Neal]

Re: We are

something more useful like a dyson ball vacuum cleaner?

[TheUglyAmerican]

I'm not sure why it would be radiating anything in the infrared. If they are advanced enough to build the darn thing you'd think they could harvest the energy with enough efficiency to not radiate anything.

Then again I could be missing something.

[Gary Heard]

Because "Ya canna break the laws of physics", the black body radiation would be what comes off the outside of the sphere, as a result, trying to harvest that would be interesting

[Michael Dunn]

Trying to harvest that....

Hey, just build anotther sphere round it!

[Notas Badoff]

Boom

So... you're going to 'contain' the entire output of a star...

"No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There’s always a boom tomorrow. … Boom, sooner or later. BOOM!"

Oh dear, B5 is 18 years old this year...

[Nuke]

@ TheUglyAmerican

TheUglyAmerican wrote :-

"they could harvest the energy with enough efficiency to not radiate anything. Then again I could be missing something."

Yes, you are missing the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

Heat Death of the Universe icon (for those who understand the implications of the Second Law)

[Werner McGoole]

Ah, but...

A civilisation advanced enough to build such a sphere might also be smart enough to adjust its infrared output to look like something innocuous, like a star surrounded by dust.

[Thorne]

Re: Ah, but...

Stars are nothing but a reaction turning matter into energy. I cannot see aliens going to the bother of surrounding a star to capture the output. By the time they reach that level of technology, they will just turn matter to energy themselves and the only way to not have energy is to have no matter.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Ah, but...

Indeed, they may have built a device for turning matter into energy. Perhaps a very large, gravitationally-bound fusion reactor which will burn for billions of years.

[Luther Blissett]

The Premise

Seems to be that somewhere sometime in the Universe, Malthus was actually correct. Lol.

I wonder who gets the research grant premised on Leibniz being correct somewhere sometime in the Universe. Lol.

It seems there is too much money sloshing around in research. Why not give some of it back to the taxpayer?

[Destroy All Monsters]

Re: The Premise

This is the Templeton Foundation, which funds admittedly bizarro stuff in multiverse theory but the taxpayer ain't involved.

Now, please pay the guy at the door, he needs money for the F-35.

[AndrueC]

It's a helluva leap from building bagless vacuum, cleaners to putting an entire sphere around a star. Way to go Mr Dyson!

:D

[TRT]

Yeah, but...

what about the customer service when it starts going wrong...

"Now, hold the receiver up to the universe, love, let me hear what kind of noise it's making..."

[LaeMing]

Re: when it starts going wrong

May be that is what we should be listening for - the sounds of faulty dyson-spheres.

Could the WOW signal have been a support call going out?

[Steve Knox]

Re: when it starts going wrong

Could the WOW signal have been a support call going out?

If so, the response was probably "A GM has received your request. We are currently experiencing unexpectedly high request times. Your wait time is approximately 20,000 galactic revolutions."

[Christoph]

Hope it's just a Dyson sphere

Hope that whatever they find doesn't turn out to be a Nicoll-Dyson Laser.

This is not a mere giant frikkin' laser, it outdoes Doc Smith's Sunbeam. It can take out a planet in a neighbouring galaxy.

[arrbee]

Re: Hope it's just a Dyson sphere

So a bit tricky to fit on a shark then ?

[Graham Dawson]

Re: Hope it's just a Dyson sphere

Depends on the size of the shark.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Hope it's just a Dyson sphere

Well, how do you lead the aim on a laser with hundreds and thousands of years time of travel?

[Simon_E]

Re: Hope it's just a Dyson sphere

You aim the thing very carefully.

if the other lot are managing to move their planet out of the way of your (precisely calculated) beam path, you might need a bigger gun...

Black helicopter because it's the closest to the LASER warning sign.

[Anonymous Coward]

I question the leap of logic for Dyson Spheres

I question the leap of logic for Dyson Spheres, at least in terms of the justification of them for energy harvesting.

Consider our situation: were we to develop cheap, easy fusion power, would we continue with solar panels? If you had a water heater sized fusion plant that produced a steady 100kW of power, with no neutron emission (and thus no neutron activation), would you want solar panels on your house too?

By the time a civilization reaches the technology to be a Level 1, are they going to worry about solar power, or say "screw that, we are using our own fusion power - it's easier!"

Likewise, by the time you reach level 2, are you going to want to screw around with a star, or are you going to have something better (total conversion, say)?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I question the leap of logic for Dyson Spheres

Yep. I would have thought it much easier to 1) harvest fuel off a large planet then 2) fly to another system and repeat. Space has so much "fuel" in it to that extent, no one would need or want to restrict themselves to the building project of a Dyson Sphere. Unless it was publicly funded of cause.

[dssf]

Re: I question the leap of logic for Dyson Spheres or cosmic PBR?

What about keeping the population near the harvested energy? Sounds a littlr like "V" to me, sans "Blue Energy".... But, if the population deemed travel elegible numbers beyond a few hundreds of thousands, you are talking about one cosmic ragtag fugitive fleet, a caravan of refugees that may eventually be seen as space vermin.... Roaming space and stripping planets of energy could become tiring for some who might just decide to stay behind.

Hey, space refugees tired of packing up and just wanting mortality coul be an alternate explanation of our own lineage, not that it is a novel idea....

PBR = Pebble Bed Reactor, for those wondering...

[Mephistro]

Re: I question the leap of logic for Dyson Spheres

Good luck trying to harvest enough fuel to equal the energy output of a sun.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I question the leap of logic for Dyson Spheres

Also, being so close to the star, wouldn't solar flares and such just obliterate the thing every now and then?

As has been said, if the civilisation is that much more advanced than we are, they've probably figured a much better way to generate/capture energy.

There's also the fact that the light from anything we do see is millions if not billions of years old so the civilisation is probably long since dead, if not their entire solar system too.

[MadChemist]

Re: I question the leap of logic for Dyson Spheres

...hang on... are you saying there are NO stars within millions of light-years around us? You might want to check on that.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I question the leap of logic for Dyson Spheres

"I question the leap of logic for Dyson Spheres, at least in terms of the justification of them for energy harvesting."

It's a Dyson sphere at the bottom of the DC40, right? If it's good enough for Sir James, I say it['s good enough for aliens.

[Anonymous Coward]

@David

Well, I think there's a lot to be questioned here in my opinion. The theory of a Dyson sphere isn't that illogical, but the amount of resources you'd need to get there are enormous..

Which brings me to another idea... Why do we assume that these Alien species harvest energy in the way we would? Why couldn't they have totally different means of collecting and using energy instead?

Its a bit far fetched, and probably stupid, but a few months ago scientists discovered a huge cloud of gas surrounding our galaxy. The gas is said to be of high temperature thus it contains lots of energy. How certain are we that this was a natural phenomenon? To my knowledge (but I don't keep up with these developments) such clouds weren't discovered before, not even when observing other galaxies.

Now, I'm not insinuating that such a cloud was actually created by Aliens. But why couldn't such a cloud be used by such a species as a source of energy?

[Muscleguy]

Re: @David

Because the cloud is very, very diffuse. It's just that it covers a huge volume so constitutes a large mass and seems to be in the right place to be at least a significant chunk of dark matter. Also individual molecules being 'very hot' in intergalactic space do not a convenient energy source for galactic planet based civilisations. It would be a bit like me installing solar panels on a patch of Pluto instead of my roof and beaming the energy at the house with microwaves.

Into this calculation should be that space missions beyond Jupiter use radioactive energy generators instead of solar panels, the light from Sol being too puny for the purposes that far out. It's why the two Voyagers are still working for eg.

[MadChemist]

Re: I question the leap of logic for Dyson Spheres

Great questions... but given that we are quite a few million years away from clean portable and emission-free fusion power - assuming those are even possible, given the restrictions of physics - I have to wonder about the possibilities of energy capture, an effective concept proven by billions of years of evolution and responsible for all biomass on earth.

[Anonymous Coward]

Freeman Dyson

After inventing the neural-net processor which lead to the Rise of the Machines, he worked selflessly to overthrow the Combine as his penance.

Also, we already have proof that advanced alien civilisations have built Dyson Spheres. Where do you think all of the universe's missing energy is?

[Graeme Sutherland]

Reg Standard Units

El Reg is obviously slipping since the dimensions of a Dyson Sphere was not given in standard units.

Fortunately, I can reveal that it would be approximately 5000 YottaJubs, and (assuming a radius of 1 AU) would have a surface area of nearly 14 TeraWales and a volume of 5,600,000 Yotta Olympic Swimming Pools.

Unfortunately the SI scale breaks down at Yotta (10^24). Someone really needs to come up with a bigger prefix.

[Graeme Sutherland]

Re: Reg Standard Units

Apparently Hella has been proposed for 10^27, so a Dyson Sphere would be 5 HellaJubs in weight.

[Naughtyhorse]

Re: Reg Standard Units-Hella

proposed by Gwen Stephani by any chance?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Reg Standard Units

Dyson spheres are cool enough to be a unit of measurement themseleves. So in el-reg units the size of a dyson sphere would be 1 dyson - can't get simpler than that.

It may however cause confusion if we also use it as unit of suction (perhaps we should use the 'Paris' for that).

[jon 72]

Re: Reg Standard Units

I propose the MGK (Machine Gun Kelly), the volume of space theoretically occupied by the ego of minor celebrity should be sufficient when describing objects of this size.

[Michael Dunn]

Re: Reg Standard Units

How about "Lotta"

[Kamal Hashmi]

Re: Reg Standard Units

googol is 10^100 (googolplex is 10^10^100).

Is there anything inbetween googol and yotta?

[Destroy All Monsters]

What?

Harness the energy of multiple universes? How does that even make sense? Do you just lay a cable, then see energy in the Big Room appear from nowhere until the energy/mass content is locally so high that you big crunch this universe? WTF???

Anyway, we cite Stross...

“Hmm.” Sagan is busy with a mouthful of delicious tetrodotoxin-laced meatballs. “It’s clearly a Kardashev type-III civilization, harnessing the energy of an entire galaxy. What else?”

Gregor smiles. “Ah, those Russians, obsessed with coal and steel production! This is the information age, Dr. Sagan. What would the informational resources of a galaxy look like, if they were put to use? And to what use would an unimaginably advanced civilization put them?”

[stucs201]

Re: Harness the energy of multiple universes? How does that even make sense?

Not sure. However energy transfer across universes reminds me of Asimov's "The Gods Themselves".

[tath]

Larry Niven had it right...

Sphere has many problems, a ring is a much likelier proposition, not least because it's significantly smaller and spun would have gravity (and a lot of tensile stress admittedly). Not full of Kzinti for preference.

[Boris the Cockroach]

Re: Larry Niven had it right...

Trouble is... as Niven admitted, the material you make your ringworld from would need to have a tensile strength approaching that of the strong nuclear force.... Although I guess you could spin it slower and reduce the load somewhat , if you dont mind having less than 1G of force holding you down.

Oh and dont forget the attitude thrusters either

[stucs201]

Re: Larry Niven had it right...

Not just ringworld. His 'Bigger Than Worlds' essay is worth a read too

[tath]

Re: Larry Niven had it right...

The tensile strength would be utterly insane at any speed that would keep an atmosphere in I imagine...

centripetal accel = v^2/r if memory serves, and earth orbital radius is 150 x10^9, so to get 10m/s^2 at that distance you'd need a v of root 150 x10^10, about 1224744m/s, or half the target gravity would only need root 75 x10^10, still a rather weighty number. Any less and the weather would be inclement and brief I would imagine.

So there probably isn't a velocity that would keep air in without coming apart, regardless of r and any material we could invent. I could have a go at working out more but it's friday night (see icon)

I've not read the Bigger Than Worlds essay but will have a look, thanks!

[Peter Murphy]

I think I prefer Iain M. Banks orbitals myself.

They're smaller (which means less tensile strength), and you don't need the sun in the middle with those bloody shadow squares. Orbitals rotate, but you tilt the axis at an angle to the sun, so you get night and day for the inhabitants. Orbitals sounds a lot more fun - more benevolent robots and less Slaver sunflowers.

[John Deeb]

Re: Larry Niven had it right...

But since the Ring only needs to be power collector at least in the context of the article, there's no need for gravity or atmosphere on it.

[Michael Dunn]

Re: Larry Niven had it right... "attitude thrusters"

I really must get my eyes tested - I read that as "attitude trousers" and the mental image of Wallace and Gromit getting involved in the construction of a ring world, with a subsidiary ring of Wensleydale, was mind-blowing.

[Destroy All Monsters]

For those interested

http://home.fnal.gov/~carrigan/infrared_astronomy/Other_searches.htm

[Will Godfrey]

I for one...

Welcome our Ringworld Engineer overlords

[Destroy All Monsters]

Re: I for one...

Very unfortunate of you to welcome them! As they are most likely Pak Protectors, they will regard us as horribly mutated children and will drop by briefly for some euthenizing of biblical proportions.

The rapture, Jim, but not as we know it.

[Destroy All Monsters]

Re: I for one...

A downvote? Are there God-botherers here tonight??

[BozNZ]

Kardashev Type II

We're currntly in a Kardashian Stage 1 society, a long way to go me thinks!

[tkioz]

Re: Kardashev Type II

I don't want to know what a Kardashian Level II civilisation would look like :p

But seriously, we're not even type I on the scale. A type I civilisation can produce the power output equal to an entire planet, we're no where near that. Maybe in a few centuries, unless we get a break somewhere in energy production.

[envmod]

Re: Kardashev Type II

no we're not - a type I society can harness the power of the entire planet in an efficient and non-polluting fashion. imagine being able to harness the power of all the world's oceans, winds and rotational forces - we would have massive amounts of energy at our disposal and the world would be a much much better place than it is now. we are only just starting to even investigate these possibilities - about the most generous level of civilisation i've seen attributed to the human race is type 0.5 but most knowledgable people would argue with that. we're perhaps a type 0.25.

[Vladimir Plouzhnikov]

Re: Kardashev Type II

"imagine being able to harness the power of all the world's oceans, winds and rotational forces"

Hmm, I've imagined all that for a second... then had to imagine all the dead fish and birds, the Earth rotation dramatically slowing and all the earthquakes and eruptions it caused.

I think we should stick to burning stuff, splitting atoms and/or fusing them back together...

[Anomalous Cowshed]

Stick to the day job

You will not like this comment, but really, Dyson, he should have stuck to the day job.

[tkioz]

While I applaud the research, I honestly doubt any civilisation would ever construct a Dyson construct... for the simple reason any civilisation capable of doing so would be so advanced they wouldn't need to build one.

Actually stretch that... I could see humans building one if we could... just so we can brag about it...

[Destroy All Monsters]

In "Orbitsville", there was one... seemingly abandoned and ready for use. But it was A HONEYPOT TRAP!

[MajorTom]

Best. Job. Ever.

That is all.

[Naughtyhorse]

Re: Best. Job. Ever.

what even better than retrieving lobsters...

[Nuke]

Some Big Assumptions

Why do these theories always assume that Aliens think like we do on earth? Or rather like the person thinking up the theory. I don't even think like Dyson, let alone aliens.

[John Smith 19]

Re: Some Big Assumptions

"Why do these theories always assume that Aliens think like we do on earth? Or rather like the person thinking up the theory. "

Because it's the only model we've got, perhaps?

[Anonymous Coward]

@John

More likely is that some boffins are totally incapable to think outside the box so to speak.

[tkioz]

Re: Some Big Assumptions

In engineering form follows function, but in technological evolution, function follows form.

Why would a sea-based life form discover fire? Gun-powered? Combustion? That rules out an entire tech tree that leads to space.

Would a species with a genetic memory develop writing? if not how would they work with complicated equations?

It all comes down to the idea that in order for a species to reach space they have to have SOME things in common with humans.

[h4rm0ny]

Re: Some Big Assumptions

"Why would a sea-based life form discover fire? Gun-powered? Combustion? That rules out an entire tech tree that leads to space."

Somewhere on another planet right now, a eight-limbed creature is posting: "why would a land-based species discover steam-power if they didn't originate or just water-wheels powered by hot-water currents, if they hadn't evolved around volcanic vents underwater?" All that is needed is an energy source and the means to harness it. Once you've crossed that particular Rubicon, you're on a path you can't go back from. Our underwater civilization might even get to Space first as they'd be used to a 3D environment (assuming they swam) and they'd be used to thinking in non-2D movement.

"Would a species with a genetic memory develop writing? if not how would they work with complicated equations?"

A species with genetic memory would essentially be equivalent to a very long-lived organism. In either case, maybe that long-life would lead to a faster rate of technological learning (or slower). We don't know because it's one variable in isolation.

Not down-playing your points - we have no idea what we ourselves might have missed simply because we have our own limitations and assumptions. But equally, that blindness might lead us to arrogantly assume that our path to the stars is the only one.

[dssf]

Maybe Dyson WAS an “Otherworlder“

Here to observe, but stuck around for the exspheriance and smoked a few and the chemical interaction bried his frain, inducing him to surt specrets in incoferent hashion. Some enterstrising apronomer hicked up on the pints and and ran with a few clopped drues.

I wonder how big a Dyson Bong would be...

(Clisdaimer: i am not poking smot, and i don't drue dugs)

[Johnny Canuck]

A Dyson sphere

Would be at the radius of the originating planet (ours would have a radius of 93 million miles). It would allow 100% energy conversion. If our technology couldn't handle that much energy it could be radiated into space by heat sinks. My problem is that any civilization that could construct a Dyson sphere - why would they want to? If you control enough energy to construct a Dyson sphere, then you don't really need one. That would be the kind of thing that might happen in an entropic universe at the end of its life. To address one more of the previous points, there is a possibility that we are the first intelligent species to arise in our galaxy - note that I said first, not only. If we were the only, then maybe there is a ?deity. If we are the first, then we should set an example by not spewing the waste products that pass for entertainment, all over the galaxy. Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to make another rye and coke (and my buddy seems to be doing something with some cigarette papers).

[Zmodem]

any advanced civilization would use self powering dynamo's the size of house that generate 100,000kw every turn, and being tuned by a 5kw motor

[Zmodem]

they could be on the market in 8 months and powering 90% of earth in 10 years and 99% green energy

[Zmodem]

the power of 100 windfarm dynamo's generating constant power and selling for £60-100m is better then £3bn for a wind farm and hydro dams, in 150 years they could produce 1m kw each, who care for a 1000 years

[Zmodem]

etc etc http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/engineer/facts/03-047.htm

use a 500w motor instead of wind on 10kw domestic wind turbine, and you can still power your house, a wind farm turbine generates 1000kw at full power, its all the same technology, just upscaled

[Zmodem]

they are the future and cuts global co2 emissions by 99%, you can put them in old mines, in custom silo`s, in power plant carparks, anywhere at anytime and get power for the national grid without enviromentalist complaining, and power companies saying green electric costs too much and so on and so on

no advanced civilization would make a sphere, having a fustion reactor in orbit of a sun is more practical, or just magifying a beam into a laser

[Zmodem]

off shore http://www.repower.de/wind-power-solutions/wind-turbines/6m/ = 6.15mw

6mw = 6000kw http://www.aqua-calc.com/one-to-all/power/preset/megawatt/6

a 500w motor can doo 1000rpm, not 20 offshore turbines need for max output, generated electric goes to a AC and loops back to the motor, you just need a external power source to start them up, when they are able to power themselves, you cut the external power source

[Anonymous Coward]

Congratulations

A perpetual motion machine - you must be the first one to have thought of this !

[Zmodem]

Re: Congratulations

probaly or they would already exist...

wind farms only produce 2% of green energy for the national grid, if the world wants to cut co2 levels for 40% in 10 years, then the only way todo so is to have self powering dynamo`s,

if you put a motor on a current wind farm turbine that generate 6mw every minute with constant generation using a motor instead of wind, then wind farms would being giving the national grid 16% green enerage to the national grid

if you have a domestic wind turbine that generates 10kw, and put a 500watt motor on, then you can power you house and have a bit spare to give to the national grid and get paid for the extra electric you generate

its all just a simple bit of math, and the power of motor and torque to need to mimic wind and make a turbine generate maximum output at optimal speed for the RPM

electric motors are the only way you can turn massive axles, as soon as the dynamo starts to turn its generating power which 2% loops back to powering the motor, and the rest goes to the national grid, when the turbine is generating maximum output, then they can power themselves and you diconnect from the external power source which would be the national grid or a solar battery cell

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b215/Luckyjoe_/Miniatures/15%20mm/FuelTower1.jpg

is better looking then a wind farm turbine, in power plant carparks, with the electric motor bolted on top

[Zmodem]

Re: Congratulations

give me the credits and submit it to the mythbusters http://community.discovery.com/eve/forums/a/cfrm/f/2991937776

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Congratulations

Having read your posts I assume you are mad or deluded

[Zmodem]

Re: Congratulations

i assume you post on dnba and just trying to be posh

a wind turbine is just a dynamo being turned by the wind, like dynohubs powering lights on bike in the 80s from the turn of the wheel

wind turns the axle with turns the dynamo, a electric motor can turn the axle which turns the dynamo, a electric motor with the power and torque to mimic wind will not use 6mw of electric to power it

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Congratulations

IF you REALLY, REALLY believe the rubbish you spout then you need to do Physics or Electrical Engineering 101

(or better still put up your own money and build one )

[Zmodem]

Re: Congratulations

its stuff for monkeys

dynamo http://www.reuk.co.uk/OtherImages/schmidt.jpg

electric motor http://www.rc-area.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/Two-New-LRP-Vector-X-12-Motors1.jpg

small amount of generated power -> AC -> motor

[Zmodem]

Re: Congratulations

take the blade off a 10kw wind domestic turbine, and clamp the axle in a 12v power drill

12v = 0.012kw, with alot of extra RPM and you will be able to power the drill and your tv and kettle

http://www.unitconversion.org/power/kilowatts-to-volt-amperes-conversion.html

[Chemist]

Re: Congratulations

12v does NOT = 0.012kw and the rest of your absurd ramblings make even less sense.

Troll or fool - it's hard to say

[Zmodem]

Re: Congratulations

12volt motor with a 13 amp fuse is still only 156 watts using http://www.jobsite-generators.com/power_calculators.html and the same on http://www.rapidtables.com/calc/electric/Volt_to_Watt_Calculator.htm

which still gives you 9844 watts to go else where, with a constant source of 10kw being generated using a electric motor, with a power drill would just be wasting extra power having to much RPM and torque

if 10kw is generated from 20 turns of the dynamo, then 500watt is generated every rotation which can still power the motor and have 344 watts spare,

[John Smith 19]

Dyson spheres have *other* benefits

As Bob Shaw note they have *huge* surface area, so you'd have to work very hard to run out of living space.

And all structures make statements about their builders. A Dyson sphere (like the one in Orbitsville) says

Know our power.

Although as others have noted the structural stresses of a *true* sphere, rather than a (large) number of panels would be immense. While it's quite likely any such builders would have more compact power sources available having a growing population might be a more pressing issue *assuming* you have an expansionist culture. The amount of solar energy captured by the part of a single planet facing a sun at any given point in its orbit is *tiny". Run the calculation for our Sun and just the amount *wasted* by radiation out of the ecliptic hitting *no* planets in the Solar system is immense.

[DF118]

Danger

As long as nobody lets the Primes out we should be ok

[carrera4life]

Re: Danger

Too late! I am Morninglight Mountain

[Anonymous Coward]

Building a huge structure around a sun seems like an insurmountable task. I would argue that it would be much easier to just create a smaller, artificial sun within a container harvesting it's energy. This could then be placed safely outside of your home planet, so that if things go wrong, nobody gets hurt.

Besides this, enclosing your sun in a structure would put your planet in a bit of a sticky situation: less solar energy reaching it, temperature will decline, among other problems.

[tkioz]

That's one of the main criticisms of Dysons' ideas (one he himself brought up IIRC), the idea that any race that had the knowledge and capacity to build one, would be so staggeringly advanced they wouldn't have the need to build one (beside bragging rights).

But on the subject of harming your planet... not so. If you build one in our solar system, you'd do it out near Jupiter's orbit, the Earth, Mars, Venus, Mercury, would be INSIDE the sphere and it wouldn't have much impact on them at all.

The shear amount of living space of a Dyson construct is really hard to get your mind around, you'd have land equal to billions of Earths, capable of housing hundreds of trillions of people without any crowding at all... Hell it would be like Earth with only a few million people living on it... It's brain hurting.

Though you'd need a lot of people outside bringing you raw materials to keep the civilisation going... that's stripping mining on a stellar scale kind of stuff... Hell you could dismantle every planet in our solar system and still not have enough raw materials for even a small percentage of it...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not that difficult or far fetched

A Dyson sphere wouldn't even be particularly difficult once we (or anybody else) develop self-replicating machines. Send a single machine to e.g. jupiter to start converting its moons into more machines that launch themselves toward the sun and form a giant swarm of (super efficient) solar panels. They would need to get much closer than, say, Venus orbit. The machines in the swarm could be close to each other in the order of meters and they could beam power toward Jupiter to feed the machines being made there (machines beam power to each other and relay it to a central point on the sphere where it is then beamed toward Jupiter or whereever).

Thus progress on the sphere would be exponential and therefore done in a jiffy. Once complete they would beam the power where ever we want it.

I say there's a good chance we can do that in a century or so (remember, we 'just' need self-replicating tech to do this).

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Not that difficult or far fetched

"Once complete they would beam the power where ever we want it."

Which we would' cos we'd be in the DARK !

[Anonymous Coward]

@AC

Good idea, the only risk we'd take is when they ever become self aware we'd have created our own worst enemies (according to Stargate SG-1 that is).

[Terry 6]

Scientists?

It's wonderful to think that after all those years of apparent dedication to the ideals of science, coupled with perseverance, endless scientific study, exams,MScs, PhD research etc. etc these guys are happy to sit back and slurp up a big grant for a load of old cobblers.

It just makes me proud to be human.

[Destroy All Monsters]

So what about the runaway Greenfly?

Maybe we should be looking for evidence of stars shrouded in green instead.

[Anonymous Coward]

Way too much assumptions

"No matter what form they might take, they'd undoubtedly give off infrared radiation that could be detected by such sensitive sensors such as those aboard WISE – and that's where Wright and his team come in."

So we're assuming that such an Alien nation actually has the means and skills to build a Dyson sphere, but immediately conclude that they can't be advanced enough with chemistry to have invented an alloy capable of complete absorption (or at least one which doesn't waste any energy at all) ?

Sounds like a very flakey assumption to me.

[Nuke]

@ ShelLuser - Re: Way too much assumptions

ShelLuser wrote :-

"So we're assuming that such an Alien nation actually has the means and skills to build a Dyson sphere, but .. can't be advanced enough .. to have invented an alloy capable of complete absorption (or at least one which doesn't waste any energy at all) ?"

Yes, we are assuming that. Unless they have found a way to suspend the Laws of Thermodynamics. Energy cannot be destroyed and eventually all of its forms degrade into low grade heat that you cannot do anything more with. That low grade heat being dumped outside the sphere is the infra-red radiation being talked about.

[Anonymous Coward]

@Nuke

Even more assumptions.

-We- can't do anything with "low grade heat" but how does that proof that 'they' can't either?

Which is all I'm saying; its foolish to start with assuming that we know how things work for them.

[Richard 12]

Re: @Nuke

Thermodynamics is the one theory we can be most certain of.

Namely that you can't get something for nothing - you can only get usable power by letting heat flow between a heat source and a heat sink, and the smaller the temperature difference between them the less useful work you can make it do.

As far as we can tell the only way this can change is if you can use another universe as your heat source and/or heat sink.

[Eguro]

Re: @Nuke

While I have the utmost respect for the laws of thermodynamics, there is one thing that I would point to, that might make it at least slightly plausible that a sufficiently advanced civilization could find a way to circumvent that law.

I would point to the universe itself. Whenever someone debates this topic, someone usually mentions the oddity of something coming from nothing - be it the universe coming from nothing, or some deity [who created the universe] coming from nothing.

There might be a perfectly good explanation to the universe - that doesn't involve something from nothing - but it is also plausible that there is some process or other that allows something to arise from nothing. If such a process is possible, then it is surely exploitable with sufficiently advanced tech.

So yes, in order to respond on a heavily debated topic with no chance of a sure answer, I am referring to another heavily debated topic with no chance of a sure answer [both being restrained only by our current tech development]

[Anonymous Coward]

SFN

Of course if you have the tech to get something from nothing, having a Dyson Sphere is a bit unnecessary!

One side effect of such tech being possible would be a universe with more and more civilisations discovering and using it growing at an exponentially increasing rate.

Hmmmm.

[h4rm0ny]

Re: @Nuke

"There might be a perfectly good explanation to the universe - that doesn't involve something from nothing - but it is also plausible that there is some process or other that allows something to arise from nothing. If such a process is possible, then it is surely exploitable with sufficiently advanced tech."

There is. Check out Hawking Radiation. As to the means of exploiting it, you need a handy supply of Black Holes.

[Anonymous Coward]

Mass

And where would the material come from to build a sphere, much less a ring? We're talking a ridiculously large amount of surface area which is made even more improble when factoring in a depth. That object would probably have as much mass as the sun that it enveloped.

[Destroy All Monsters]

Re: Mass

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere

"Also if assuming a radius of one AU, then there may not be sufficient building material in the Solar System to construct a Dyson shell. Anders Sandberg estimates that there is 1.82×1026 kg of easily usable building material in the Solar System, enough for a 1-AU shell with a mass of 600 kg/m²—about 8–20 cm thick, depending on the density of the material. This includes the hard-to-access cores of the gas giants; the inner planets alone provide only 11.79×1024 kg, enough for a 1-AU shell with a mass of just 42 kg/m²."

Well, we are talking Magical Tech here of a full, solid sphere, so you can go with anything. Maybe structured spacetime, who knows?

[lowwall]

Re: Mass

Even our puny civilization has built aerogels and metallic microlattice materials that have densities of under 1kg per cubic meter (excluding any trapped air). Use something like this for most of the bulk of the sphere and you have plenty of mass left for the support struts, PV panels, greenhouses and whatnot.

Regarding the tensile strength issue. Surely most of the surface area will be dedicated to harvesting energy in one form or another, which requires neither gravity nor general atmosphere. So you don't need to spin the whole sphere, just the bits that require gravity. An array of spinning earth-diameter mini rings (with lips on the inner edges to contain the atmosphere) orbiting just inside the sphere could handle any needed 1G real estate.

[wheel]

Re: Mass

Yes, but the point is that to build a Dyson Sphere all the matter in the solar system would have to be converted to this crazy supermaterial. The energy required to convert all that matter would require a really big power source.

Like a Dyson Sphere, perhaps?

[Elmer Phud]

Building

Start with a Death Star and work your way up?

[stucs201]

Re: Building

Not as daft as it sounds. You do need to take planets apart to build one of these things, so a deathstar might be handy.

[David Pollard]

The cosmic microwave background radiation ...

... might suggest that these Dyson spheres are already out there in very large numbers but at considerable distance.

[Best Before:]

Another theory...

I certainly commend the efforts to investigative and identify if there is anyone (anything?) out there capable of building a Dyson Sphere which would certainly be an awe inspiring moment if indeed we could identify one, (I too am of the belief that if they were advanced enough there would be ways of hiding the emissions, yes, yes laws of Thermodynamics and all but I have no doubt we as a species haven't plumbed all the secrets of the universe yet so don't discount there are other ways we have to discover that may break those laws.. but I digress), but here is another thought of mine.

What if we are not alone but in fact the one species that has managed to progress/advance quickly enough to this level, taking that one step further ,(and whilst we postulate that the universe is old do we really know how many billions of years are left, i know we can guess/calculate based on matter decay etc but I refer to my earlier point of not knowing everything yet.), perhaps we will become the first KI,KII & KII or KiV species! we could become that "ancient" species that develop all the cool toys ..

Anyway just a thought, would explain why we can't seem to find anything just yet.. Could also be because space, is really, really big.....

[lecprog]

intergalactic civilizations

It is extremely difficult to imagine how it would look a civilization far more technologically advanced than our own. Such an advanced civilization 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 "work" in the vast space between galaxies where there is no danger of cosmic collisions, black holes, supernovae, etc.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: intergalactic civilizations

"might", "would" "could" !!!

[Handle this!]

Re: intergalactic civilizations

ZPM's anyone?

[LaeMing]

Howard Taylor on Dyson Spheres

From: http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2001-07-02 :

The f'sherl-ganni have built several of these spheres, which they call 'buuthandi.' That word is the shortened form of an ancient f'sherl-ganni phrase... Literally: "This was expensive to build."

[Anonymous Coward]

Be prepared for unforeseen circumstances...

[amanfromMars 1]

Sublime IntelAIgent Steganography ........ <s>OHMSS</s>@urService

Be prepared for unforeseen circumstances... .... Anonymous Coward Posted Monday 8th October 2012 08:39 GMT

Events, dear boy, events, ...... by another name, is IT ever so sweet. Although if events and clearly foreseen circumstances have been freely shared, such as may be viewed and peer reviewed here, and are plotted for a much smarter reworking of a villainous Zorin type Bond movie, which may all too easily be able to be an actuality and current reality, as mused upon by the Register here ....... they cannot be heralded as being unforeseen whenever they have been rather more stupidly ignored by intelligence services which just don't come anywhere near being able to cut the mustard in these novel virtual times.

[amanfromMars 1]

Re: Sublime IntelAIgent Steganography ........ <s>OHMSS</s>@urService

Although that is not to say that there are not many who be trying to get to grips with intelligence explosions and information overloads which they would no controlling power or empowering control over, for IT is certainly a frenetic and some would even admit, quite supremely psychotic field of future great games play ........ as this lively little article would suggest ....... http://www.israeldefense.com/?CategoryID=483&ArticleID=1676