WEBVTT - Selects: Will We Find Evidence of Aliens by Their Engineering Projects? 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:03.000 M Hey everybody, it's your old pal Josh, and for 0:00:03.080 --> 0:00:05.760 this week's Select, I invite you to listen to our 0:00:05.920 --> 0:00:10.559 ridiculously interesting episode on Dyson's Fears. It's a really cool 0:00:10.640 --> 0:00:13.480 look at how we'll start harnessing energy in the solar 0:00:13.520 --> 0:00:16.880 system in the future and eventually from the universe as 0:00:16.920 --> 0:00:20.439 a whole. And when we do stand back. I hope 0:00:20.480 --> 0:00:22.680 you find this one as interesting as Chuck and I did, 0:00:23.079 --> 0:00:30.720 so getty up and enjoy. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, 0:00:31.080 --> 0:00:39.760 a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to 0:00:39.760 --> 0:00:43.239 the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles w Chuck Bryant, 0:00:44.000 --> 0:00:47.800 Jerry's over there. Their foot on the button, and that 0:00:47.880 --> 0:00:51.199 means this is stuff you should know the podcast. The 0:00:51.240 --> 0:00:55.800 foot on the button, just waiting to cut us off. Yeah, 0:00:55.840 --> 0:00:58.160 that's what no one knows. But Jerry has a kill 0:00:58.200 --> 0:01:03.520 switch at her foot for all of our profane tirades. Yeah, 0:01:03.560 --> 0:01:06.200 it would kill us if she ever pressed it. That's right, 0:01:06.840 --> 0:01:08.520 That's why they call it that. But she's not very 0:01:08.520 --> 0:01:13.240 good at it. I've noticed I've noticed some stuff slips by. Yeah. 0:01:13.319 --> 0:01:16.280 I told her she's like Keith Richards of podcast producers, 0:01:16.319 --> 0:01:20.560 because he can't use guitar pedals, So he's known for that. 0:01:20.720 --> 0:01:22.520 Is that a thing? Well, I mean I don't know 0:01:23.040 --> 0:01:26.319 how known he is maybe among guitar players, but he uh, 0:01:26.520 --> 0:01:30.200 he just plugs right into the amp. That's pretty great. Oh, 0:01:30.319 --> 0:01:33.840 I see. And his he was on Mark Maron's podcast. 0:01:33.840 --> 0:01:36.320 It was a great interview in maren he you know, 0:01:36.440 --> 0:01:39.000 it's pure Keith Richards and he was just basically like, 0:01:39.280 --> 0:01:41.400 you know, I have a hard time standing upright, like 0:01:41.440 --> 0:01:44.560 I can't mess with trying to press foot pedals. Right, 0:01:45.680 --> 0:01:50.640 that's Keith Man. Yep. Very pure. Yeah. And by pure, 0:01:50.680 --> 0:01:56.720 I mean pure heroine, pure China. He's clean now, But 0:01:57.040 --> 0:02:00.920 is he really? That's astounding? Well, I mean no, I 0:02:00.960 --> 0:02:04.600 mean he doesn't do like hard drugs anymore. I got you, 0:02:04.720 --> 0:02:07.200 And I think he drinks and smokes weed. I got you. 0:02:09.360 --> 0:02:13.160 Come on, yeah, like Christine. Actually, Maron smoked his first 0:02:13.160 --> 0:02:16.440 cigarette in a decade in that show with him. Oh 0:02:16.480 --> 0:02:19.680 that was smart, a good decision. He was like, I 0:02:19.720 --> 0:02:23.120 have to how can I not? Yeah, he easily could 0:02:23.120 --> 0:02:27.080 not have done that. I'm disappointed, did he really? Yeah? 0:02:27.240 --> 0:02:30.080 Keith Richards offered him a smoke and he's like sure, Yeah, 0:02:30.160 --> 0:02:31.880 I mean I see that, but at the same time 0:02:31.919 --> 0:02:36.240 I was assos to not smoking. Listen to you. I 0:02:36.320 --> 0:02:40.919 know I'm being judge wagging your finger, so Chuck, Yes, 0:02:42.040 --> 0:02:48.240 have you ever used energy? Yes? Well, you know, when 0:02:48.280 --> 0:02:52.280 you're using energy, most likely you're using something like a 0:02:52.320 --> 0:02:56.240 fossil fuel, right, yeah, right, like gasoline or natural gas 0:02:56.320 --> 0:03:01.400 or something like that, stuff that comes from decomposing dinosaurs. Yes, Okay. 0:03:01.840 --> 0:03:05.400 The problem with using decomposing dinosaurs, as most people know, 0:03:05.880 --> 0:03:08.880 is that it's essentially a non renewable resource. There's no 0:03:08.919 --> 0:03:11.760 more dinosaurs decomposed any longer, and even if there were, 0:03:12.240 --> 0:03:15.320 it would take tens of millions of years for them 0:03:15.320 --> 0:03:18.799 to decompose into fossil fuels for us, right, right, even 0:03:18.840 --> 0:03:21.320 if we could, even if we had dino d n 0:03:21.320 --> 0:03:25.880 A and we could make new dinosaurs just to kill 0:03:25.919 --> 0:03:28.960 them and watch them decompose, which is something we would 0:03:28.960 --> 0:03:32.960 do if we had the capability, I guarantee you, right, Um, 0:03:33.000 --> 0:03:35.440 But we don't have that capability as far as I know, Like, 0:03:35.520 --> 0:03:38.600 no one's working on that track right now. I don't 0:03:38.600 --> 0:03:47.680 think just uh Steven Spielberg, right, maybe someone at Rutgers. So, um, 0:03:48.080 --> 0:03:51.240 we we have to come up with energy sources that 0:03:51.320 --> 0:03:53.600 we won't eventually run out of. And obviously there's like 0:03:53.680 --> 0:03:56.600 wind and solar and as far as solar power goes, 0:03:56.640 --> 0:03:59.360 from what I understand, we're actually doing pretty well right now. 0:03:59.400 --> 0:04:02.240 Like right now, we use something like point zero one 0:04:02.360 --> 0:04:06.520 percent of the sunlight that reaches Earth to to power 0:04:07.200 --> 0:04:10.080 our our world, So there's a lot of room for 0:04:10.080 --> 0:04:14.200 growth potential. The thing is is, I also saw that 0:04:14.280 --> 0:04:17.680 if we keep growing and our energy consumption keeps growing 0:04:18.200 --> 0:04:20.919 uh at something like one percent a year, within a 0:04:20.960 --> 0:04:25.479 thousand years will be using more than the entire amount 0:04:25.520 --> 0:04:29.400 of sunlight that hits the Earth UM can provide. So 0:04:29.480 --> 0:04:31.960 we really need to come up with something else. Yes, 0:04:32.480 --> 0:04:35.919 The problem is is even if we harnessed all of 0:04:35.920 --> 0:04:39.880 the energy here on Earth, we would very quickly outgrow 0:04:40.200 --> 0:04:43.600 whatever energy it provided. So some people have said, well, 0:04:43.600 --> 0:04:45.280 why don't we just go straight to the source. If 0:04:45.320 --> 0:04:47.680 the Sun is such a great source of energy, but 0:04:47.760 --> 0:04:52.559 it's shooting that energy out in directions other than the Earth, UM, 0:04:52.800 --> 0:04:55.520 the stuff that is starting towards the Earth doesn't make 0:04:55.560 --> 0:04:58.520 it very frequently. Well, let's just go to the sun 0:04:59.040 --> 0:05:01.839 and and basically strangle the life out of it to 0:05:01.920 --> 0:05:05.800 get energy from it right, great idea and one of 0:05:05.800 --> 0:05:09.360 the first proposals of it. I don't want to say 0:05:09.360 --> 0:05:13.159 a serious proposal, because although it's been taken seriously over 0:05:13.200 --> 0:05:18.280 the years and almost been interpreted like scripture. Um, it 0:05:18.360 --> 0:05:21.240 was a thought experiment to begin with. It's something called 0:05:21.240 --> 0:05:26.960 the Dyson's fear. Yes, um, well, I guess we should 0:05:26.960 --> 0:05:30.160 introduce the man. Not that we have him here, that'd 0:05:30.160 --> 0:05:33.320 be awesome. He's he's still around. Yeah, I know, he's 0:05:33.320 --> 0:05:37.200 an old dude. But we're talking about Freeman Dyson, not 0:05:37.320 --> 0:05:42.560 to the maker of the vacuum cleaner or the bladeless 0:05:42.680 --> 0:05:47.800 fan or the bladeless hair dryer. Is that really a thing? 0:05:49.080 --> 0:05:51.880 They have a dice in hair dryer? Yeah, you know 0:05:51.920 --> 0:05:54.160 what that. I was so disappointed when I found out 0:05:54.200 --> 0:05:59.159 what the bladeless fan was. Why have you seen those? Yeah, 0:05:59.240 --> 0:06:01.240 you can stick your and through it. It's amazing. Well 0:06:01.279 --> 0:06:03.359 I know, and I was like it is it magic? Like, 0:06:03.400 --> 0:06:06.560 how in the world isn't doing this? But it's got 0:06:06.560 --> 0:06:10.400 a stupid blade. It's just housed in a in a casing. Yeah, 0:06:10.440 --> 0:06:12.080 so that's a terrible name for it. And then it 0:06:12.120 --> 0:06:15.000 just channels it up and you know, squirts it out 0:06:15.040 --> 0:06:19.200 the front that they're The Dyson invention that always got 0:06:19.240 --> 0:06:22.160 me was the air blade hand dryer. I think we've 0:06:22.200 --> 0:06:24.800 talked about this before, where you stick your hand down 0:06:24.839 --> 0:06:29.080 in there. Those Yeah, but they're so filled with germs 0:06:29.839 --> 0:06:31.920 that Actually I was in a bathroom the other day 0:06:31.960 --> 0:06:34.640 and they have an air blade now that just blows 0:06:34.680 --> 0:06:38.200 downward onto your hands, and it's actually I'm like, Okay, 0:06:38.240 --> 0:06:40.640 now I'm satisfied with this invention. Well, you know, you're 0:06:40.640 --> 0:06:43.279 not supposed to rub your hand on the air blade itself, no, 0:06:43.440 --> 0:06:45.640 but it's so close. It's like you're playing operation like 0:06:45.680 --> 0:06:47.760 I'm trying to remove a funny bone or something like that. 0:06:47.839 --> 0:06:50.640 It's almost impossible not to hit the sides of the thing, 0:06:50.720 --> 0:06:52.680 you know, your big meat hooks or just rubbing all 0:06:52.680 --> 0:06:56.880 over every gross. Yeah, it is gross, believe me, because 0:06:56.880 --> 0:06:59.040 I walk out is crying with my hands held in 0:06:59.080 --> 0:07:01.360 the air every time I'm to go to the bathroom. Well, 0:07:01.400 --> 0:07:05.480 you and I have a very big thing about airport bathrooms. Um, 0:07:05.520 --> 0:07:08.440 and I think I had the worst one of my 0:07:08.520 --> 0:07:12.000 life at a Boston Logan on our last tour. Oh yeah, 0:07:12.040 --> 0:07:15.280 what happened? It was just not up to snuff, Like 0:07:15.400 --> 0:07:18.480 the first of all the door and this might have 0:07:18.520 --> 0:07:21.080 been just this one bathroom, but the doors to the 0:07:21.120 --> 0:07:26.240 stalls none of them secured, they've been ripped clean off. 0:07:26.480 --> 0:07:28.360 Well they were there, but you couldn't you know, the 0:07:28.400 --> 0:07:30.360 locks didn't work. It was just yeah, basically had to 0:07:30.400 --> 0:07:32.720 push my hand against it, which grossed me out. Yeah, 0:07:32.760 --> 0:07:35.440 that's not okay. And then the gap when the door 0:07:35.520 --> 0:07:38.920 was shut was like two or three inches big, like 0:07:39.000 --> 0:07:41.400 you could fully just look in and say, how you doing, 0:07:41.440 --> 0:07:45.880 how's your poop? Yeah, that's the Mr. Peeper's model. It's 0:07:45.920 --> 0:07:48.920 just not acceptable, you know, in this day and age, 0:07:48.960 --> 0:07:52.440 to not have complete privacy in there. I mean, I 0:07:52.520 --> 0:07:55.040 agree with you. I again, I'm going to reiterate. I 0:07:55.040 --> 0:07:58.120 think there should be one stall for an entire bathroom 0:07:58.160 --> 0:08:00.120 so that no one could possibly sit down next you. 0:08:00.240 --> 0:08:04.920 But barring that, them all exactly. But barring that, though, 0:08:04.960 --> 0:08:08.520 like the place, like what we have in our office 0:08:08.600 --> 0:08:12.720 is acceptable. It's a good second. There's like a complete 0:08:12.720 --> 0:08:15.239 wall in between you. There's a complete wall in front 0:08:15.240 --> 0:08:18.160 of you and a door. It's a securely shut it's 0:08:18.160 --> 0:08:21.120 a water closet. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I guess I 0:08:21.120 --> 0:08:25.920 guess it is. The man I knew we were going 0:08:25.960 --> 0:08:29.240 to get distracted by poop. Yeah, this isn't even the 0:08:29.280 --> 0:08:32.400 porta potty I know, all right, So sorry. Back to 0:08:32.440 --> 0:08:37.480 Freeman Dyson. Uh, not the vacuum maker. He was born 0:08:37.520 --> 0:08:41.120 in England. He worked most of his career he's retired now, 0:08:41.600 --> 0:08:44.240 but work most of his career as a physics professor 0:08:44.720 --> 0:08:52.920 at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University, not Rutgers. Uh. 0:08:53.080 --> 0:08:55.360 He was a civilian scientist with the r EF and 0:08:55.360 --> 0:08:58.880 World War Two. I went to Cambridge, then Cornell for 0:08:58.920 --> 0:09:02.640 grad school. This guy's got some bona fides. Uh. And 0:09:02.679 --> 0:09:06.680 then he's been in news recently by being a big 0:09:07.440 --> 0:09:09.640 I mean, brilliant, brilliant man. But he's been in the 0:09:09.679 --> 0:09:12.840 news recently by being one of the more prominent scientists 0:09:12.880 --> 0:09:18.920 that on as a climate change skeptic. Oh is that right? Yeah, 0:09:18.960 --> 0:09:21.920 and not like a complete skeptic, like he does believe 0:09:21.960 --> 0:09:24.959 that it's I believe, Whereas what his stance is that 0:09:25.080 --> 0:09:27.760 he does believe that it's man made, but he doesn't 0:09:27.800 --> 0:09:32.120 think we have enough detail about all the variables for 0:09:32.160 --> 0:09:37.240 these computer generated models to be accurate. So he's he's 0:09:37.280 --> 0:09:40.000 basically saying like this is not the end of the world, 0:09:40.080 --> 0:09:42.960 and in fact, he thinks that increasing levels of CEO 0:09:43.040 --> 0:09:46.480 two can be a good thing for humanity. Ultimately, I 0:09:46.559 --> 0:09:49.680 don't know, I didn't get that far. He's like, it 0:09:49.679 --> 0:09:52.800 gives it gives you a pretty good buzz. Maybe, I 0:09:52.800 --> 0:09:55.240 don't know. It's pretty interesting though. He's like, I think 0:09:55.679 --> 0:09:58.920 starting about, you know, six to ten years ago, really 0:09:58.960 --> 0:10:03.559 started making the news with his somewhat controversial because he's 0:10:03.559 --> 0:10:05.760 a brilliant man, and all these other scientists are like, wow, 0:10:05.760 --> 0:10:07.520 he's such a smart guy, but he's so wrong on this. 0:10:08.480 --> 0:10:10.520 But then other people are like, no, he's totally right. 0:10:11.440 --> 0:10:15.240 That's pretty interesting anyway. Um, so that's who he is. 0:10:15.320 --> 0:10:19.000 And he in nineteen thirty seven, well not n seven. 0:10:19.520 --> 0:10:21.640 He in the nineteen sixties was reading a book from 0:10:21.720 --> 0:10:26.120 nineteen thirty seven called Starmaker from uh, science fiction author 0:10:26.120 --> 0:10:29.719 Olaf Stapledon, and uh, he saw this thing called a 0:10:29.840 --> 0:10:33.840 light trap from this book. Uh. And this book also 0:10:33.920 --> 0:10:37.080 had predicted things like virtual reality, and it's kind of 0:10:37.120 --> 0:10:42.800 a pretty much a landmark sci fi science book. And um, 0:10:42.880 --> 0:10:45.080 he said, hey, this light trap sounds like a good idea. 0:10:45.080 --> 0:10:48.400 I'm going to rip it off. Yeah he did, And 0:10:48.400 --> 0:10:50.720 he actually It was I think a paper that was 0:10:50.760 --> 0:10:53.800 published in Science and the General Science in nineteen sixty 0:10:53.840 --> 0:10:56.840 and it's really short. Did you read it? Yeah, yeah, 0:10:56.840 --> 0:11:00.840 it's like I think it took up two pages in Science, um, 0:11:00.880 --> 0:11:02.760 out of like a thousand or something like that in 0:11:02.800 --> 0:11:07.760 that volume. But um, he basically said, this would be 0:11:07.800 --> 0:11:10.880 a great thing, as you say, to rip off, for 0:11:10.920 --> 0:11:13.760 a thought experiment I'm working on. Right, because just very 0:11:13.760 --> 0:11:17.040 recently something called Project OSMA had been created, and that 0:11:17.120 --> 0:11:21.199 was they started to search the sky for extraterrestrial intelligence. 0:11:21.240 --> 0:11:23.679 It was the first cit um and they were looking 0:11:23.720 --> 0:11:27.160 for radio signals still are. But Dyson was saying, well, 0:11:27.160 --> 0:11:29.120 hold on a second, if you're gonna start looking for 0:11:29.200 --> 0:11:33.880 extraterrestrial beings like signs of intelligent civilizations, you should maybe 0:11:33.880 --> 0:11:36.120 start looking for these and and they came to be 0:11:36.200 --> 0:11:39.480 called Dyson's fears because he was the first one to 0:11:39.559 --> 0:11:43.240 popularize it, even though he got the idea from old Off. Yeah, 0:11:43.240 --> 0:11:46.440 he actually said, um, he thought a staple in sphere 0:11:46.480 --> 0:11:49.160 was a better name, but I guess not good enough 0:11:49.200 --> 0:11:52.480 to actually use it, right, right, Yeah, he said it 0:11:52.600 --> 0:11:57.840 once very quietly. Yeah, But so this dysons he it 0:11:57.920 --> 0:12:01.120 was originally created as a again a thought experiment. He 0:12:01.600 --> 0:12:05.320 wasn't He didn't talk about how to construct it necessarily 0:12:05.559 --> 0:12:08.280 or anything like that, although there were some follow up 0:12:08.640 --> 0:12:13.960 correspondence UM after the letter first came out, but almost 0:12:14.000 --> 0:12:18.200 immediately people started thinking about how you would create one 0:12:18.280 --> 0:12:21.960 of these things, this this Dicen sphere, and the whole point, 0:12:22.040 --> 0:12:25.760 we should say, basically, at its at its basis, a 0:12:25.840 --> 0:12:31.400 Dicen sphere is UM an engineering project, a megastructure that 0:12:32.880 --> 0:12:36.520 initially was thought to be basically a hollow sphere that 0:12:36.600 --> 0:12:39.920 you built around a star, for example, we would build 0:12:39.920 --> 0:12:42.840 it around our sun. And the whole point of this 0:12:42.960 --> 0:12:47.680 thing is on the inside of this sphere are solar arrays, 0:12:47.800 --> 0:12:50.200 so that all of that sunlight, like we were talking 0:12:50.200 --> 0:12:53.679 about earlier, that gets wasted as far as we're concerned, 0:12:54.559 --> 0:12:59.480 is captured and converted into usable energy for us. And 0:12:59.480 --> 0:13:03.520 and in Freeman Dyson's point was, if you build one 0:13:03.559 --> 0:13:08.040 of these things, you're going to capture light. Light won't 0:13:08.040 --> 0:13:12.800 get out, but infrared radiation heat, thermal heat will escape. 0:13:13.000 --> 0:13:15.240 And so if you're looking around the skies for aliens, 0:13:15.400 --> 0:13:18.040 look for something that has a tremendous amount of like 0:13:18.080 --> 0:13:21.080 the infrared radiation of a star, but isn't putting any 0:13:21.160 --> 0:13:23.719 light out? And maybe you just found an alien civilization. 0:13:23.960 --> 0:13:26.240 That's how it began. But people started trying to figure 0:13:26.240 --> 0:13:28.319 out how to make one of these things almost as 0:13:28.320 --> 0:13:31.480 soon as he published that letter. So the one thing 0:13:31.520 --> 0:13:33.640 I don't get was he saying that look for this 0:13:34.200 --> 0:13:38.280 because other civilizations out there are using a dycen spear. 0:13:38.440 --> 0:13:41.360 He he said that it would be likely that they 0:13:41.400 --> 0:13:45.520 that this would be an invention they came up. Got you, Yeah, 0:13:45.600 --> 0:13:48.280 all right, well, um let's go should we go to 0:13:48.480 --> 0:13:53.400 uh this U Nikolai kardas Chef question. I think we 0:13:53.440 --> 0:13:55.760 can't put it off any longer. It's pretty interesting. In 0:13:55.760 --> 0:13:59.480 the nineteen sixties there was an astrophysicist named Nikolai karda 0:13:59.559 --> 0:14:05.480 chef and um he was a Bond villain and actually 0:14:05.520 --> 0:14:07.760 he wasn't, but he should have been. Um. He had 0:14:07.960 --> 0:14:12.240 this idea that there were three classifications of civilization, uh 0:14:12.400 --> 0:14:16.280 type one, which is basically, we have learned how to 0:14:16.280 --> 0:14:21.000 harness all the energy on the home planet, like everything 0:14:21.200 --> 0:14:26.360 you can possibly harness here on Earth. And you would think, well, 0:14:26.400 --> 0:14:29.920 that's probably us. We're not quite there yet. Uh. Really 0:14:29.960 --> 0:14:33.720 smart dude name Michio Kaku um not a bond villain either. 0:14:33.920 --> 0:14:36.280 He said, uh, in the next hundred years or so, 0:14:36.560 --> 0:14:39.280 maybe two hundred years, we might actually be a Type 0:14:39.280 --> 0:14:43.160 one civilization. Yeah, And like you said, that's where every 0:14:43.240 --> 0:14:47.640 bit of Judeo thermal energy, every drop of sunlight, every 0:14:47.920 --> 0:14:53.840 um um, every bit of hydroelectric power, all that stuff, 0:14:53.880 --> 0:14:56.720 every potential bit of energy is being harnessed by us. 0:14:56.880 --> 0:15:00.040 That's right. Yeah, We're nowhere near that right now. I 0:15:00.040 --> 0:15:04.920 think Cocu's assessments a little rosie. Oh well, and I 0:15:04.960 --> 0:15:07.200 can say that because he was on our TV show 0:15:07.760 --> 0:15:11.360 sort of well he was he yes, he appeared on, 0:15:11.440 --> 0:15:14.240 but we didn't interact with us in a real way exactly. 0:15:14.560 --> 0:15:17.800 He has no idea who we are, no none. Uh 0:15:17.840 --> 0:15:20.040 So Type two is the next, of course, and they 0:15:21.120 --> 0:15:23.720 that kind of civilization would understand how to harness all 0:15:23.760 --> 0:15:26.840 of the energy not only on your own home planet, 0:15:27.240 --> 0:15:31.720 but the energy of a star in its own solar system. Right, 0:15:32.000 --> 0:15:34.240 that's where the that's where the Dyson's fear comes in, 0:15:35.040 --> 0:15:38.440 and that's what we aspire to do one day, right, 0:15:39.040 --> 0:15:42.520 maybe a million or so years from now. And then 0:15:42.800 --> 0:15:47.840 Type three is just kind of like following this logical progression, right, 0:15:47.880 --> 0:15:52.320 and that's harnessing all the energy of all the galaxies, 0:15:52.760 --> 0:15:56.120 or of entire galaxies, not necessarily all of them. Yeah. 0:15:56.320 --> 0:16:00.800 I think that the second, the second age, the type 0:16:00.800 --> 0:16:06.000 to civilization, would be um the either the hardest to 0:16:06.040 --> 0:16:09.600 get to or take the longest to get to. And 0:16:09.680 --> 0:16:12.800 that's because when you build that first dicense fear, your 0:16:13.560 --> 0:16:17.880 technology and your energy efficiency and your productivity is going 0:16:17.920 --> 0:16:22.840 to just shoot forward exponentially from that point on. So 0:16:23.000 --> 0:16:25.640 so once you build that first one, you can start 0:16:25.640 --> 0:16:28.000 building more and more and more much more quickly. So 0:16:28.080 --> 0:16:31.200 you jump from a Type two to a Type three 0:16:31.200 --> 0:16:35.280 civilization pretty pretty fast compared to how long it took 0:16:35.280 --> 0:16:37.560 you to go from a Type one to a Type 0:16:37.560 --> 0:16:41.320 to civilization. Yeah. I think it's like any any product, 0:16:41.360 --> 0:16:43.160 even that that first one is tough, and then you 0:16:43.200 --> 0:16:46.680 can scale it and uh, but well we'll get to 0:16:46.720 --> 0:16:49.600 the robots here. So okay, in fact, let's take a break. 0:16:50.080 --> 0:16:52.040 I'm getting a little psych chuck, and we'll talk a 0:16:52.040 --> 0:17:20.879 little bit more about the sun right after this. All right, 0:17:20.960 --> 0:17:25.280 So I went when I said the word sun, Yeah, 0:17:25.320 --> 0:17:27.600 I thought that was odd. No, it's not, you know, 0:17:27.680 --> 0:17:29.920 I honestly had no idea where you're going with this? 0:17:30.520 --> 0:17:34.960 Well you do, you're being coy. Uh. Most people out there, 0:17:35.000 --> 0:17:37.840 most long time listeners, know that our son podcast was 0:17:38.400 --> 0:17:42.239 one of our our biggest struggles and would have been 0:17:42.280 --> 0:17:46.000 our biggest achievements had we uh done it right. It's 0:17:46.520 --> 0:17:52.600 it's the biggest pity applause. We get yeah for this son, No, No, 0:17:52.760 --> 0:17:56.800 it was it was fine. Get you tried, Yeah, good 0:17:56.800 --> 0:17:59.919 for you for trying. But let's talk a little bit 0:17:59.920 --> 0:18:02.000 of about the sun. This stuff I can deal with, 0:18:02.040 --> 0:18:06.800 at least as far as its immense power and energy. Um, 0:18:06.840 --> 0:18:09.240 and I love that our own article has some of 0:18:09.240 --> 0:18:15.600 these comparisons. Um, the sun can generate five times one 0:18:15.720 --> 0:18:19.320 zero to three horsepower. I think that that is a TYPEO. 0:18:19.640 --> 0:18:22.360 I think that it's supposed to be five times ten 0:18:22.440 --> 0:18:25.320 to the twenty three power. You think that's the only 0:18:25.359 --> 0:18:27.680 explanation I have for that. That doesn't make sense. That's 0:18:27.680 --> 0:18:31.240 a really small number. Actually, yeah, I agree, it would 0:18:31.240 --> 0:18:38.639 be like about horse power. Yeah, that's five times tinted. 0:18:39.600 --> 0:18:42.680 It's got to be someone just got lazy there. Serious. 0:18:42.720 --> 0:18:44.120 They're like, I don't know how to do the little 0:18:44.119 --> 0:18:46.120 twenty three thing, right, I don't I don't know how 0:18:46.160 --> 0:18:49.080 to use superscript. What am I like a great editor? 0:18:49.800 --> 0:18:54.800 Superscript that's what it is, right, superscript and subscript. Uh so, 0:18:55.119 --> 0:18:56.879 let's put it this way, and this one is the 0:18:56.920 --> 0:18:59.560 one that cracks me up. Um, the sun has enough 0:18:59.640 --> 0:19:03.880 energy eat to melt an ice bridge two miles wide 0:19:03.960 --> 0:19:06.639 and a mile thick from Earth to the Sun in 0:19:06.680 --> 0:19:09.960 a single second. In a single second. That's pretty good. 0:19:10.440 --> 0:19:12.760 This is the only article I think I've ever seen 0:19:12.760 --> 0:19:15.440 an ellipse in like like the author was like, wait 0:19:15.480 --> 0:19:19.080 for it in a single second. Yeah, I don't even 0:19:19.119 --> 0:19:21.000 think they did the ellipse right. And the ellips supposed 0:19:21.000 --> 0:19:22.879 to be right after the letter or is it their space? 0:19:23.040 --> 0:19:25.040 I think there's supposed to be a space on either side. 0:19:25.280 --> 0:19:29.440 Really technically, yeah, I've been doing these wrong. Then, well, 0:19:29.480 --> 0:19:32.320 don't feel bad. This thing says five times one thousand 0:19:32.720 --> 0:19:37.080 three horsepowers. It's all good, all right? What else? One 0:19:37.320 --> 0:19:41.560 trillion one megatson bombs going off every second if your 0:19:41.600 --> 0:19:46.879 war like, and then finally, one single second of sun 0:19:47.600 --> 0:19:52.359 action whatever that is is enough to power our earth 0:19:52.720 --> 0:19:57.120 for half a million years. That drives it home. It does, 0:19:57.359 --> 0:20:01.040 but it also gives you an idea of just how 0:20:01.520 --> 0:20:06.080 primitive we are energy consumption wise, Like, it's it's it's 0:20:06.119 --> 0:20:09.280 it's crazy because you know, we're really worried about running 0:20:09.280 --> 0:20:12.520 out of our non renewable resources, but we use such 0:20:12.560 --> 0:20:17.399 a minute amount of energy that that the Sun could 0:20:17.480 --> 0:20:21.399 power the energy use we use currently for half a 0:20:21.400 --> 0:20:24.840 million years in one second. Yeah, that's nuts, right, So 0:20:25.119 --> 0:20:28.119 that also kind of takes your mind though too. Um, 0:20:28.200 --> 0:20:30.120 And this is I think one of the things one 0:20:30.119 --> 0:20:35.280 of the buttons that Freeman Dyson um pushed. It makes 0:20:35.280 --> 0:20:39.240 you realize, like, holy cow, we could do some really 0:20:39.320 --> 0:20:43.159 amazing stuff if we could capture a significant amount of 0:20:43.200 --> 0:20:48.400 that power that the Sun puts out, even an insignificant amount. Yeah, yeah, 0:20:48.600 --> 0:20:51.200 you'd keep Iggy Pop going for like another hundred years. 0:20:53.440 --> 0:20:57.119 Uh So, like you said, the idea behind the Dicen 0:20:57.160 --> 0:21:02.720 sphere is this structure originally proposed a hollow sphere and 0:21:03.280 --> 0:21:06.639 kind of referred to it as a shell. Um, but 0:21:06.760 --> 0:21:10.320 I think now or I think he went on to 0:21:10.320 --> 0:21:13.800 to make it a solid sphere. He so he actually 0:21:13.880 --> 0:21:21.840 said he was really, um, what's the opposite of clear? Yeah, 0:21:21.840 --> 0:21:24.480 I guess a little convoluted. He he didn't really go 0:21:24.560 --> 0:21:26.479 to the trouble of spelling it out, because again, remember 0:21:26.480 --> 0:21:29.000 this is a thought experiment that had to do with 0:21:29.080 --> 0:21:33.320 finding aliens, not an engineering schematic. So he used some 0:21:33.440 --> 0:21:35.119 very it was vague. That was the word I was 0:21:35.119 --> 0:21:37.760 looking for. He was using some vague words, and we're like, wait, 0:21:37.800 --> 0:21:40.960 what what what are you talking about? What is this sphere? 0:21:41.280 --> 0:21:44.280 Is it? Is it cohesive? Is it like a solid body? 0:21:44.400 --> 0:21:46.760 Is it hollow in the middle? What's going on? And 0:21:46.840 --> 0:21:49.439 he came back and said in a letter a follow up, 0:21:49.480 --> 0:21:51.960 he said, no, no, no, like there's there's no way 0:21:52.000 --> 0:21:55.040 you could build something that would go around our sun 0:21:55.440 --> 0:21:58.760 that would be a solid body that was hollow in 0:21:58.760 --> 0:22:01.679 the middle, Like it couldn't be a cohesive whole because 0:22:01.720 --> 0:22:06.919 the rotational forces, the sheer forces, and the gravitational forces 0:22:06.960 --> 0:22:10.920 acting on it would just obliterate it immediately. Like it's 0:22:11.000 --> 0:22:13.159 it just be mechanically impossible to make it like that. 0:22:13.280 --> 0:22:15.879 So he said, so maybe you would make something like 0:22:15.920 --> 0:22:20.240 a bubble or a swarm or something like that. Yeah, 0:22:20.280 --> 0:22:22.399 And he said in the letter, I've been closed some 0:22:22.440 --> 0:22:26.720 blotter acid. Put it on your tongue. You're gonna love this. 0:22:26.760 --> 0:22:29.840 It's dynamite, and call me in an hour. Might make 0:22:29.840 --> 0:22:33.280 a little more sense. Uh yeah. Our own article points 0:22:33.280 --> 0:22:35.919 out that one of the first downsides, obviously, if you 0:22:36.160 --> 0:22:41.560 surround the Sun completely, is that sunlight has I mean, 0:22:41.600 --> 0:22:45.040 I know we'd be harnessing that energy, but sunlight provides 0:22:45.080 --> 0:22:49.399 a lot more than just energy. Oh yeah, like it 0:22:49.440 --> 0:22:52.479 makes us happy. Yeah, people write entire songs about how 0:22:52.520 --> 0:22:56.080 sunshine makes you happy, like John Denver, did you know? 0:22:56.880 --> 0:22:59.080 And that was just on the shoulders. It would be 0:22:59.119 --> 0:23:02.720 a global bummer if somebody enclosed the Sun. That's like 0:23:02.760 --> 0:23:06.800 super villain kind of stuff, right, Okay, so that's a problem. 0:23:06.880 --> 0:23:10.000 Another problem, though, is that if you're going to build 0:23:10.080 --> 0:23:12.879 something like this, and and Dyson even suggested the size 0:23:12.920 --> 0:23:14.760 of it. He was saying it would need to have 0:23:14.800 --> 0:23:18.000 a radius, so a radius not even a diameter half 0:23:18.040 --> 0:23:21.439 of the diameter, a radius that was two times the 0:23:21.520 --> 0:23:25.200 distance of the Earth to the Sun. So this thing 0:23:25.200 --> 0:23:28.920 would be massive, which means that it would also enclose 0:23:29.000 --> 0:23:32.280 the Earth too, right, Like he wasn't proposing you just 0:23:32.320 --> 0:23:36.560 go up and create this tight ball around the Sun, 0:23:36.880 --> 0:23:38.800 Like it would be much further spread out and it 0:23:38.800 --> 0:23:42.159 would actually encompass the Earth's orbit within it. Oh, so 0:23:42.240 --> 0:23:45.879 it would be like this, this is mine. It belongs. 0:23:45.960 --> 0:23:48.040 It belongs to the Earth and no one else and 0:23:48.480 --> 0:23:50.960 can get any sun. Yeah, it would. It would block 0:23:51.000 --> 0:23:54.919 off the stuff outside of two times the distance of 0:23:54.920 --> 0:23:56.919 the Earth's orbit. So there's a couple of planets out 0:23:56.920 --> 0:24:01.320 there that would would get the old screw job. But 0:24:01.320 --> 0:24:05.320 but but the ones inside twice the distance of Earth's 0:24:05.359 --> 0:24:09.359 orbit would really benefit from it. It's very selfish. Yeah. 0:24:09.400 --> 0:24:11.760 But the other problem is to chuck is I imagine 0:24:11.760 --> 0:24:16.200 it would. Things would get pretty hot pretty quickly inside 0:24:16.240 --> 0:24:21.000 this thing, So the Earth would be destroyed. Yes, he 0:24:21.200 --> 0:24:23.320 and to get around this, and a lot of people 0:24:23.359 --> 0:24:27.760