Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert lamp and I'm Julie Douglas. Julie,
Speaker 1: where are the aliens? Where are they are hiding? In
Speaker 1: plain sight? Like like where like you like in this room? Um, well, no,
Speaker 1: not this room, but somewhere out there in the universe
Speaker 1: because they were in here, they could be I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess they could be in the recording booth there,
Speaker 1: which is the I mean, we're in the sort of
Speaker 1: the podcast chamber, and then there's like this soundproof booth
Speaker 1: at the end that kind of looks like a like
Speaker 1: a phone booth, and I can't really see inside it,
Speaker 1: So there could be an alien in there. Well, it
Speaker 1: could be like nano sized aliens like enmeshed in this
Speaker 1: and the foam batting, but around us. But could they
Speaker 1: be out there? You're saying they could be out there,
Speaker 1: like their whole planets could be hidden, their whole civilizations
Speaker 1: could be in their press in in the the universe,
Speaker 1: could be hidden from us. And so the whole reason
Speaker 1: that we haven't found aliens could be because we just
Speaker 1: cannot see them. That's right, it's a possibility, Steady. Have
Speaker 1: you looked into this, Yes, they have. I don't think
Speaker 1: they've found anything yet. I don't know if they're doing
Speaker 1: much looking at the moment without the funding at all.
Speaker 1: But but yeah, so what does this have to do
Speaker 1: with the Dyson sphere? Uh, it's nothing to do with
Speaker 1: vacuums not. Yeah, that's every time I mentioned this podcast
Speaker 1: and my wife she was like, oh, you're doing what
Speaker 1: I'm back, I mean, she was, well, that's what an
Speaker 1: intriguing product that is, and the adventure that that everybody
Speaker 1: thinks about this Dyson dude. Yes, but it's not about that, No,
Speaker 1: not about that at all. The dycen s fear is
Speaker 1: one of those things that imagine a lot of you
Speaker 1: do not need any explanation at all. You're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: totally diycens fear. I know what the concept is, but
Speaker 1: it is, Uh. It has shown up in various sci
Speaker 1: fi works, so like like anyone has ever watched like
Speaker 1: Star Treking next generation probably has seen one, or you've
Speaker 1: read enough sci fi books. But for the rest of you,
Speaker 1: it is basically the concept of all right, we have
Speaker 1: the sun, and the sun is just this giant generator
Speaker 1: of energy, like our entire solar system is powered by
Speaker 1: the sun. So how would one harness the energy of
Speaker 1: the sun if you wanted to greedily take all of
Speaker 1: it up, if you wanted to be like my sister
Speaker 1: when my family used to go out to have Mexican
Speaker 1: food for my one sister would order the cheese dip
Speaker 1: and then we would try and eat the cheese dip
Speaker 1: and she would say, no, no, this is my cheese
Speaker 1: dip because I ordered this cheese dip as my meal,
Speaker 1: and so only I get to eat it. So if
Speaker 1: you were gonna have that, take that attitude and and
Speaker 1: use it on the sun, how would you collect all
Speaker 1: of it and make sure that you greedily um uh
Speaker 1: dipped all of the solar energy up on your chips
Speaker 1: for yourself. And I was an alien and you were
Speaker 1: an alien, I would laugh, so it you weren't okay
Speaker 1: if you were an alien, and take it with me,
Speaker 1: or I would construct a giant shell around it. Exactly
Speaker 1: there you go, giant shell around it that were the
Speaker 1: interior of the shell absorbs the energy and doesn't let
Speaker 1: anything escape so that nobody else gets to enjoy the sun.
Speaker 1: And uh and all it's been. She's dipped for all
Speaker 1: aliens and only aliens, right, Yeah, So yeah, this is
Speaker 1: this idea of this Dyson sphere, ye sort of. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: this whole podcast is gonna be getting a little deeper
Speaker 1: into the idea what it means. But first, why don't
Speaker 1: we call it a Dycen sphere. What's the Dyson part?
Speaker 1: We're of course talking about a man by the name
Speaker 1: of Freeman Dyson, who is a pretty amazing guy. He's
Speaker 1: still he's still with us. He's eighty seven years old,
Speaker 1: and um, he was something of a mathematics prodigy. Um
Speaker 1: he uh you know, a British extract, came here at
Speaker 1: the age of like twenty three and was like immediately
Speaker 1: contributing like in major ways to our understanding of physics,
Speaker 1: unifying quantum and electrodynamic theory. And he he really, I
Speaker 1: mean he's been there through some through through the development
Speaker 1: of modern physics. Really, I mean some very exciting development,
Speaker 1: hanging out with Einstein, um Fineman bore Firmy, um up Oppenheimer.
Speaker 1: I mean, the list goes on. And he's and and
Speaker 1: he's still just the sharp incredible mind. Yeah, he's an
Speaker 1: incredible thinker, and Oliver Sacks is a good friend of
Speaker 1: his and says like his plasticity of mind is amazing
Speaker 1: and the fact that he can still think so vitally
Speaker 1: at this age and have so many interesting ideas is
Speaker 1: pretty incredible when most twenty holds are walking around with
Speaker 1: probably less less imagination. And um, and not just imagination,
Speaker 1: but I mean, this is someone who has made huge
Speaker 1: contributions to his field. Yeah, and uh, and was influenced
Speaker 1: by sci fi and uh, you know, grew up you know,
Speaker 1: reading about spaceships and he is a boy he sketched
Speaker 1: plans for a rocket ship that would you know, explore
Speaker 1: the universe. And then when he we got older, he
Speaker 1: actually worked on the the Ryan Project, which I've blogged
Speaker 1: about in the past. I can't remember if we've mentioned it.
Speaker 1: We may have mentioned it on a previous podcast. It
Speaker 1: was in passing. But the project to Ryan was was
Speaker 1: going to uh be powered by nuclear detonations. Like imagine
Speaker 1: a spaceship where every time instead of like having like
Speaker 1: a thruster blast coming out the back, imagine some dude
Speaker 1: standing in the back of it and just pitching an
Speaker 1: atomic bomb out every time they needed to blast forward.
Speaker 1: A little bit. No, imagine how awful that would be
Speaker 1: for us earthlings. Yeah, Like basically for the ship to
Speaker 1: leave the planet, you would have to have like multiple
Speaker 1: atomic detonations and then just steady atomic detonations to to
Speaker 1: fly this thing around. But at the time, but there
Speaker 1: was a time when this was like, well when before
Speaker 1: we realized how environmentally disastrous this concept was, it was like, well,
Speaker 1: this could work as an actual solution, is an actual
Speaker 1: solution and uh um, and Dyson was one of these
Speaker 1: guys that was like, yeah, we can we can totally
Speaker 1: do this, we can build this and we'll be exploring
Speaker 1: uh we'll be flying off the Saturn within like two decades.
Speaker 1: So he's he has a great futurist mind. Um, and
Speaker 1: when when he's handed a problem, he's great at tackling
Speaker 1: and figuring out, well, let me let me take a
Speaker 1: shot at it. So he took a shot at this
Speaker 1: question that we uh sort of fumbled with at the
Speaker 1: very beginning of this podcast, where are the aliens? If
Speaker 1: there is alien life elsewhere in the universe, why have
Speaker 1: we not seen it? And for him, it's it's because
Speaker 1: they're all hiding out in this sphere right right, but
Speaker 1: not in a sense of like, oh, there are humans
Speaker 1: out there, let's not let them see us, let's get
Speaker 1: behind the these. No, it comes down to two to energy,
Speaker 1: all right, And we should probably just mentioned briefly the
Speaker 1: Kardaschef scale, which is the is not the Kardashian scale
Speaker 1: that would entail, but I'm sure it would be it
Speaker 1: would entail something. Yeah, basically it comes into two. Uh.
Speaker 1: It comes immediately to this idea of let's look for
Speaker 1: alien life else elsewhere in the universe. What would it
Speaker 1: look like, how would we tell that it's there? And uh,
Speaker 1: there's the theory is that it would come down to
Speaker 1: energy consumption. So the scale divides civilizations into three basic types.
Speaker 1: There's a type one civilization, and I should point out
Speaker 1: that we are not yet a type one civilization, right.
Speaker 1: You have to master this level of energy consumption and harnessing,
Speaker 1: right in order to be a type one. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: like dungeons and dragons. You know, it's like you're you're
Speaker 1: leveling up, you know, to your right. Now you're a
Speaker 1: level zero, um, haffling thief. Right. If you get enough
Speaker 1: experience points, then you get to level one, and that
Speaker 1: comes with new benefits and this would be your your
Speaker 1: own planet, right Type one. So if if master masters
Speaker 1: of planetary Internet means they can harness the some energy
Speaker 1: of an entire world. So we're not there yet. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of energy that we can't master, uh, that
Speaker 1: we can't that we haven't figured out how to how
Speaker 1: to use and uh, and so we're not there yet.
Speaker 1: Then there's a type too civilization, and they can summon
Speaker 1: the power of an entire star system. So basically they
Speaker 1: can enslave a star. They can take a star and
Speaker 1: claim it as their own cheese dip. And then a
Speaker 1: type three civilization uh commands the energy on a galactic scale,
Speaker 1: all right, so they can they control a lot of
Speaker 1: cheese dip, an enormous amount of cheese dip, and and
Speaker 1: are using a kind of technology that we can barely fathom,
Speaker 1: like it's beyond our real understanding of how it might
Speaker 1: even work. So a lot of what we're talking about
Speaker 1: is type we're gonna be talking about in this podcast
Speaker 1: is type two technology. But but some of it is
Speaker 1: is conceivably Type one as well, So it would make
Speaker 1: sense those type to civilization Likenalian civilization, which is a
Speaker 1: bit more complexness, a lot more complex would be able
Speaker 1: to construct this sphere. Right, yeah, yeah. The idea that
Speaker 1: that the Dyson hat was all right, if there are
Speaker 1: type too civilizations out there, what should we look for? Alright, well,
Speaker 1: all right, there harn sing all this energy. They have
Speaker 1: to use all this energy to to power their civilization,
Speaker 1: to power their um, their interstellar transportation. How are they
Speaker 1: going to harness the energy of a star? And this
Speaker 1: was a scheme that he came up with. It basically
Speaker 1: comes down to to the to the idea of of
Speaker 1: just completely surrounding a son with energy collectors. All right, now,
Speaker 1: don't think of Uh. I've sort of avoided talking about
Speaker 1: the sci fi stuff, but I should probably mention it now.
Speaker 1: Most people, I think have encountered the Dycen sphere on
Speaker 1: one episode of Star Trek the Next Generation called I
Speaker 1: think the Relic, and it had like the dude who
Speaker 1: played Scottie was in it. That's I mean, it's been
Speaker 1: like a decade since I've seen it. I remember that
Speaker 1: there was a Dicen sphere. It was awesome because it
Speaker 1: was like this giant metal thing and you flew through
Speaker 1: an The Enterprise flights through a door in it, and
Speaker 1: on the inside there is a son and they're like
Speaker 1: continents and cities all on the interior of this giant's
Speaker 1: this giant sphere. Well, okay, see this is where it
Speaker 1: gets murky because, as you said, Dyson is someone who
Speaker 1: can actually create real um solutions to problems. And so
Speaker 1: here's the stycen sphere that he actually is trying to
Speaker 1: create to not only explain aliens, but also saying, how
Speaker 1: can we actually harness the star here and all the
Speaker 1: energy we put these collectors around it? So there there
Speaker 1: are some actual real applications and and something that might
Speaker 1: be able to be done a version of it. Right. Um,
Speaker 1: But then it's also butting up against sci fi right,
Speaker 1: and um it one is begetted by the other because
Speaker 1: if you look at Dyson's vision here, it's based on
Speaker 1: a sci fi model. Yeah, it's very confusing that Dyson
Speaker 1: himself says, oh, you should really call it like a
Speaker 1: stapledon um of sphere because he was inspired by a
Speaker 1: book called Book by the Name of Starmaker by Olaf
Speaker 1: Staples Stapledon, which was written in so a lot of
Speaker 1: people encounter thet our trek thing, which is need in
Speaker 1: its own in its own way or they have encountered
Speaker 1: it and in various other books. Uh. But but the
Speaker 1: original idea was was basically the idea of a lot
Speaker 1: of independent solo collectors um in orbit around a sun
Speaker 1: to the point where it almost blocked out right, like
Speaker 1: a hundred thousand of these collectors in orbit. Right if
Speaker 1: you see, like if you seen the movie Wally and
Speaker 1: when Wally leaves the planet and the spaceship, that the
Speaker 1: Earth is just choked by satellites, Like, imagine that kind
Speaker 1: of situation, except multiplied and in surrounding a start. Well.
Speaker 1: And some people would even say that a satellite is
Speaker 1: sort of the first step to doing this anyway, um,
Speaker 1: and that there are multiple ways to try to play
Speaker 1: this out if we wanted too. Um. But so we
Speaker 1: should probably discuss the different types of spheres. Um. You
Speaker 1: know that the sci fi one that most people know,
Speaker 1: which is the type two, the one with a shell
Speaker 1: around it and talking about what is feasible and what's not. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so the swarm one is pretty the one we're talking
Speaker 1: abut where it's like a lot of um independent pieces,
Speaker 1: which is sometimes called a Dicen swarm one. Al So
Speaker 1: type one, and uh, and and the other thing about
Speaker 1: this is there's a lot of a lot of our
Speaker 1: dealings with the with the diycen sphere are kind of
Speaker 1: as a just imagineering, as a thought experiment is kind
Speaker 1: of a you see physicist online who are just kind of,
Speaker 1: I wonder how this would work, and they start crunching
Speaker 1: the numbers on it because it's you know, it's kind
Speaker 1: of amazing and it's a cool thing to do in
Speaker 1: your spare time. So there are a lot of different
Speaker 1: just you know, just d y I your own sphere, yeah,
Speaker 1: your own cosmic mega architecture. But but yeah, so if
Speaker 1: you're going for something rigid though, an actual like giant
Speaker 1: eggshell surrounding a sun like the star Trek one, like
Speaker 1: the star Trek one, um, Yeah, that's a slightly different
Speaker 1: thing because when you're doing like the gravitational effects of
Speaker 1: having all these little satellites around the Sun, it's just
Speaker 1: these independent little things that are affected, right, it's a swarm.
Speaker 1: But if you're talking about one giant structure, you're talking
Speaker 1: about one enormous structure. I mean it's gonna be um
Speaker 1: like one or two astronomical units wide. An astronomical unit
Speaker 1: is the distance between the Earth and the Sun, um
Speaker 1: well huge. Yeah, And it captures our imagination because there's
Speaker 1: this idea that you could create out of this shell
Speaker 1: land so to speak, or habitable areas that would greatly
Speaker 1: outnumber the amount of land that we have here on Earth,
Speaker 1: and that on the interior, like a hollow earth kind
Speaker 1: of a thing. Yes, yeah, And I actually had to
Speaker 1: draw several pictures of this to sort of cement it
Speaker 1: in my mind because you hadn't seen the Star Trek episodes,
Speaker 1: so he didn't have no no, but I still was
Speaker 1: thinking to myself what area is going to be habitable
Speaker 1: and what areas are going to have gravity and what
Speaker 1: aren't because if that sphere surrounding the Sun was not spinning, um,
Speaker 1: you know, there's not going to be any real I
Speaker 1: mean there's there might be depending on the mass of
Speaker 1: the of the actual structure, there might be some gravity,
Speaker 1: but but ultimately you would need either artificial gravity, which
Speaker 1: does not exist in some according to some cannot exist,
Speaker 1: or you're going to need that thing to spin, to
Speaker 1: create to rotate, to create a kind of forces necessary
Speaker 1: for people to live on the inside of it. Right,
Speaker 1: And the other cool parture of this too, is that
Speaker 1: it really could be hospitable in the sense that if
Speaker 1: you are to enclose a star, you would actually have
Speaker 1: the sort of temperatures that like room temperature that you enjoy. Now, um,
Speaker 1: you might not have gravity unless you're rotating, but you
Speaker 1: would have then, perhaps only at the equator. Yes, yes, exactly.
Speaker 1: So if you're going to enclose this thing, and um,
Speaker 1: you're gonna do it, right, then you're probably going to
Speaker 1: have a structure that's really heavy, right, and it's gonna
Speaker 1: you're also gonna want to rotate it, and it's going
Speaker 1: to have to withstand the force of the rotation. Right.
Speaker 1: So that's where a lot of the problems come into
Speaker 1: I mean, this is again it's very interesting thought experiment,
Speaker 1: but we don't currently have the materials that could actually
Speaker 1: do this, that could withstand the rotation. Yeah, and then
Speaker 1: what if an asteroid hits it right, Yeah, you get
Speaker 1: knocked off center all of a sudden, you're colliding with
Speaker 1: the with the sun itself and melting. Yeah, that's no good.
Speaker 1: That that does nobody any good. Yeah, but that would
Speaker 1: make a really great Bruce Willis film right there, I
Speaker 1: think where he has to save the dicensphere. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: just think if you're a civilization capable of building a dicensphere,
Speaker 1: Bruce Willis is probably not ranked too highly in your
Speaker 1: your backup plans if things go wrong. I mean, it
Speaker 1: seems like you probably have something more impressive to turn town.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Do you talk to Jerry Barckheimer. Um.
Speaker 1: The other thing is you would have no night right right,
Speaker 1: unless you had some sort of scheme in mind. Um
Speaker 1: and which which reminds me I believe you know we're
Speaker 1: talking about like only the this the slim center of
Speaker 1: it would be habitable, which kind of leads the idea
Speaker 1: of a ring world like the Larry Niven uh invented concept,
Speaker 1: which would be kind of like a dicensphere, but instead
Speaker 1: of being a giant circle that closes a star, it
Speaker 1: would be like a tire, like an artificial Rings of
Speaker 1: Saturn kind of situation, um, where you'd still have people
Speaker 1: on the inside, but it would just be like the
Speaker 1: inside of a wheel. Uh. Like Like imagine a spare
Speaker 1: tire and there's a sign in the middle, and then
Speaker 1: there are cities all up in the inside of the tire. Okay,
Speaker 1: like that I've also heard it explained sort of like
Speaker 1: a canister too, right, So you're capped off. And then yeah,
Speaker 1: again the center where it's habitable. And this again is
Speaker 1: because you've got the gravitational effects or optimal at this
Speaker 1: sort of equator line of this area at the polls,
Speaker 1: we would have virtually no gravity whatsoever. So yeah, and
Speaker 1: again there's the asteroid problem. Yeah, but this is the
Speaker 1: this is the sci fi configuration that we're talking about,
Speaker 1: this this other one that Dyson one would just go
Speaker 1: back to really quickly. Again, you've got these stationary or
Speaker 1: not stationary, but you've got these orbiting collectors of energy
Speaker 1: and that actually could be used in the future. You
Speaker 1: could store it the anti matter um there you know,
Speaker 1: they're there are things you could do with this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And the thing is you would you would collect all
Speaker 1: this energy with all these satellites and then in this scenario,
Speaker 1: you would being that to another uh, habitable space station
Speaker 1: or ship course or even a planet. Um. So that's
Speaker 1: how that system would work. It would not be people
Speaker 1: necessarily living in each of all these little things orbiting
Speaker 1: the Sun, which would be kind of cool in and
Speaker 1: of itself that it's kind of like there's some arguments
Speaker 1: saying that we should have solar harvesters on the Moon
Speaker 1: and then being the energy back to our planet. It's
Speaker 1: some of the same concepts in play here. But of
Speaker 1: course the problem is we haven't even mastered our type
Speaker 1: one civilization yet, and that's we are really talking about
Speaker 1: a type to civilization here. And there's some even more
Speaker 1: advanced like ideas. They're like I've seen some some proposals
Speaker 1: for a like a type three um dicen sphere which
Speaker 1: would would can use even thinner materials um and would
Speaker 1: it would be kind of like a big bubble around it. Um.
Speaker 1: I've seen like really a concepts. So I mean this
Speaker 1: would definitely be a tie three uh for the shock
Speaker 1: Shocked of Thruster concept, which would involve like basically the
Speaker 1: the star, like the structure around a star becomes a
Speaker 1: spaceship and just takes a start with it. M M yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: so like again, but that's just crazy advanced future. Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm just I'm trying to Yeah, that's not really screwing
Speaker 1: in my head right now, I have to say, but
Speaker 1: I do think it's an interesting proposition about the aliens, uh,
Speaker 1: not because I believe that we have aliens roaming around
Speaker 1: in the universe per se a little green men in
Speaker 1: that in that scenario. But what I do think is
Speaker 1: interesting is that people have brought us up as an
Speaker 1: explanation for dark matter. And we'll get to that after
Speaker 1: this quick break. This presentation is brought to you by
Speaker 1: Intel Sponsors of Tomorrow, and we're back matter. Dark matter.
Speaker 1: It's a problem for us, right because there's a bunch
Speaker 1: of it. We don't know what it is. We know
Speaker 1: that's uh composing something like of of the universe, and
Speaker 1: yet we can't see it. But we know just with
Speaker 1: our mathematical equations that it's there. So people have said, okay,
Speaker 1: if it's perhaps the situation here. The crux of it
Speaker 1: is that these aliens, who are you know, type two
Speaker 1: type three civilizations, have you know, created so many different
Speaker 1: dice in spheres that it's all being contained in there,
Speaker 1: like the universe is just more developed than we thought. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and we just can't spot it. Like you know, there's
Speaker 1: a there's a gazillion of these dice in spheres out there.
Speaker 1: It's like the SRaw right, Yes, it's like it's like
Speaker 1: everywhere exactly exactly enclosed in the structure um. And it
Speaker 1: really is an intriguing idea, but there are a couple
Speaker 1: of reasons why I just couldn't be I'm sorry to say. Well.
Speaker 1: One of the big ones, of course, is just the
Speaker 1: amount of materials required, especially when you start talking about
Speaker 1: this solid enclosure, because but even the satellites to build
Speaker 1: that many satellites, I mean, the Sun is huge, guys,
Speaker 1: it's a it's it's tremendous. Most stars are enormous, and
Speaker 1: and ours isn't even particularly enormous sun um. I mean,
Speaker 1: there there's there would be a problem just getting enough
Speaker 1: materials out of our own solar system to build this
Speaker 1: sort of right, there aren't enough heavy materials in the
Speaker 1: universe to actually construct the amount of dicen spheres that
Speaker 1: you would need to house all of these aliens hiding
Speaker 1: out and and hoarding the dark energy. Yeah, it's like
Speaker 1: the dark matter, and what are you building it for
Speaker 1: if the yeah? Yeah, so, but again it's very clever
Speaker 1: the idea that they might be doing that. And then
Speaker 1: there's the fact that we could still detect a dicen
Speaker 1: sphere because it would be radiating key, right, Yeah, they
Speaker 1: would have to be jetting some radiation, you know. I
Speaker 1: mean it can only be self contained to a certain point.
Speaker 1: Uh far as physics go, they would they would would
Speaker 1: have to be able to detect it. So I mean
Speaker 1: that was the back to Dyson's original argument, Like he
Speaker 1: was just saying, we haven't seen aliens. Well maybe this
Speaker 1: is what we should look for, because this is what
Speaker 1: their energy collection might be like, even sufficiently advanced technology.
Speaker 1: And and so um you know said he looked for
Speaker 1: it a few times, you know, and and they didn't
Speaker 1: see it. I mean, so we followed up on Dyson's
Speaker 1: idea and we're like, no, well we don't really see
Speaker 1: Dyson spares um and uh and Dyson didn't have I
Speaker 1: mean he's I've seen interviews where he's kind of dismissive
Speaker 1: of the whole thing too. You know, he's just kind
Speaker 1: of like, oh, yeah, Dyson spares I did that. But yeah,
Speaker 1: He's like, that was this thought that I had on
Speaker 1: a Sunday afternoon. Yeah, So it's not like he was
Speaker 1: disappointed that that we haven't found a dicens fere yet.
Speaker 1: But the concept continues to really resonate with everyone. I mean,
Speaker 1: besides the fact that it's just a really awesome idea. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's it's like the modern or like the space age
Speaker 1: Tower of Babble, you know, the Tower of Babble, the
Speaker 1: old you know Bible story idea of the of early
Speaker 1: man became became so pompous in their technological prowess that
Speaker 1: they built that they were building this tower that would
Speaker 1: they would actually they would touch the sky, that would
Speaker 1: they would rival heaven, that you'd be able to that
Speaker 1: the crews working on it would be able to shoot
Speaker 1: arrows in the air and wing angels and watch them
Speaker 1: plummet to the ground. You know that it was just
Speaker 1: a yeah, but it was just an offense to God,
Speaker 1: and it was about how awesome man was. And so
Speaker 1: you know, we built towers like that every day now,
Speaker 1: so it's no big deal. But but but what's the
Speaker 1: space age version of that? It would be, what if
Speaker 1: we built something so big and so awesome that we
Speaker 1: could fit the Sun in it? Like that's that's just
Speaker 1: that's just like we're just up in the game in
Speaker 1: terms of of what's the most pompous thing we could
Speaker 1: possibly do with technology. You know, we could build a
Speaker 1: shell around the Sun and then keep it for ourselves.
Speaker 1: Let's see. That's what I think is so awesome about
Speaker 1: it too, because it shows this level of creativity we
Speaker 1: cannot stop imagining for ourselves going beyond the boundaries that
Speaker 1: that we know or suspect are there. Yeah, And that's
Speaker 1: the thing it's interesting to think about because in terms
Speaker 1: of because you could, you could come up with more
Speaker 1: grandiose ideas, like what if I built a giant steel
Speaker 1: egg and put the entire solar system in it? All Right,
Speaker 1: well that's grandi yes, but it's that's that's that's beyond
Speaker 1: the pale um. Whereas the idea of building a Dycen
Speaker 1: sphere is is advanced, you know, and it's certainly pushing
Speaker 1: the limits of what's possible in terms of matter within
Speaker 1: our own solar system. But it's it's conceivable. We can
Speaker 1: say like, well, yes, that could possibly be. And so
Speaker 1: it's it's it's interesting to sit around and do the
Speaker 1: math and and uh and and and also just envisioned
Speaker 1: what it would be like to encounter it. Yeah, dycens
Speaker 1: an interesting cat um. I remember looking up some stuff
Speaker 1: for another podcast, doing some research, and there's an article
Speaker 1: in Slate and he was was that for this podcast
Speaker 1: for the Moment podcast. No, not for the mom podcast, Uma,
Speaker 1: because that the mom podcast, we are always talking about
Speaker 1: a theoretical physicist. Um. But but anyway, he was talking
Speaker 1: an article a slate. He was actually asked what our
Speaker 1: descendants could possibly look like a trillion years from now
Speaker 1: when the stars have disappeared in the universe is dark
Speaker 1: and freezing and so diffuse that it's practically empty from
Speaker 1: the article, and he said, the most plausible answer is
Speaker 1: that conscious life will take the form of interstellar dust clouds.
Speaker 1: So for him, consciousness is just a bunch of charged
Speaker 1: particles hanging out in a dust cloud. And he actually
Speaker 1: thinks that our consciousness will merge into one great mind
Speaker 1: and actually be able to transcend the locality of the physicality. Really, see,
Speaker 1: that's beauty of ourselves. I know. I really think that
Speaker 1: he's a very um exciting thinker. I think that he's
Speaker 1: a thinker that I like thinking about. Well, excellent, UM,
Speaker 1: give me some give me some mail to think about. Okay, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: let's move on. Let's let's exit the dising sphere and
Speaker 1: see what we have from our listeners. Here a listener
Speaker 1: mail from a listener by him of Zach the a
Speaker 1: k He says, uh high stuff to blow your mind. Crew.
Speaker 1: I just got the house Stuff Works app, which is
Speaker 1: available for various various platforms. Now, Um, definitely check that
Speaker 1: out and have started listening to your podcast. I really
Speaker 1: enjoy it. But have a notice that you don't have
Speaker 1: any podcasts on space propulsion. I would love a podcast
Speaker 1: on a realistic deep space propulsion i e. Warp drive
Speaker 1: or hyper space or any other ideas floating around out there.
Speaker 1: Great show, keep it up. Um. Did we do one
Speaker 1: on solar sales or Mike? We did do one on
Speaker 1: seller sales, so yes, I check that out. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: definitely space propulsion. Did we do want on warp? Uh? No,
Speaker 1: I wrote some articles on warp, so maybe I could
Speaker 1: brush up and we could do an episode on war
Speaker 1: and the sellar sales. I think we talked about the
Speaker 1: the nuclear warheads too as as a means of propulsion.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, yes, yes, yeah um so so yeah, go
Speaker 1: back through the through the catalog. We we have touched
Speaker 1: on some space propulsion, but there are a number of
Speaker 1: cool concepts we we have it um, and this is
Speaker 1: kind of tied to It's not so much propulsion, but
Speaker 1: it's definitely in the same field as some of these uh,
Speaker 1: these these ideas about uh of taking science by the
Speaker 1: horns and using it to conquer the galaxy. UM, here's
Speaker 1: another one. This one is from Eric. Eric writes a
Speaker 1: few years ago my local paper paper Rio Vista, California,
Speaker 1: about twenty miles northeast of San Francisco. UM wrote a
Speaker 1: headline that began a man walked into an an Isleton
Speaker 1: bar with a porcupine. Isleton is right across the river
Speaker 1: from Rio Vista. This sounds like the intro into yet
Speaker 1: another joke, but it really happened. Apparently another patron of
Speaker 1: the bar was unhappy with this probably upset animal being there,
Speaker 1: and he and the porcupine owner began to fight. When
Speaker 1: police arrived, the porcupine owner fled on his motorcycle and
Speaker 1: led police on a on a high speed chase over
Speaker 1: the winding levy roads. UH. The man crashed and was arrested,
Speaker 1: but the fate of the porcupine was unknown. UH. Indeed,
Speaker 1: there is so much wonderful, full and wrong with that story,
Speaker 1: and and it's it's great that he brought up headlines though, because,
Speaker 1: as we talked about in our Laughter podcast, which is
Speaker 1: responding to here um, laughter and humor. You know a
Speaker 1: lot of it comes down to this idea of the
Speaker 1: nine and in the violation, but also to like absurd parallels.
Speaker 1: And there's there's a classic saying about headlines. Uh that
Speaker 1: dog bites man. It is not a good headline because
Speaker 1: that's very natural, you know, that's the natural recession of
Speaker 1: things that would happen. But man bites dog. That's a
Speaker 1: headline that gets our attention because it's it's in a
Speaker 1: way it's humorous because it's turning everything on its head
Speaker 1: and so getting the pants. Yeah, so it's dancing you,
Speaker 1: it is panting you. And as a former newspaper person myself,
Speaker 1: I I really love a good, uh juicy headline like that,
Speaker 1: that that that plays with your your expectations, that turns
Speaker 1: words around on themselves, um and uh yeah. And any
Speaker 1: time that you can get a sort of man by
Speaker 1: dog effect in a headline, it's it's instantly kind of funny.
Speaker 1: But also you're like, well, I've got to know how
Speaker 1: that happened. I gotta know what happened to this porkpine
Speaker 1: it was you know, never explained one of the That's
Speaker 1: the other thing about the newspapers may never follow it up.
Speaker 1: I don't know it's news when the porcupine does something wrong,
Speaker 1: but what about when they are the porcupines exonerate? Doesn't
Speaker 1: make the headlines at all. Porcupine exonerate, Well, that would
Speaker 1: be a good headline, but anyway walks away list a
Speaker 1: normal life. Yeah, that's not a story. So hey, if
Speaker 1: you have anything to share with us, if you have
Speaker 1: thoughts about Dyson spheres or want to point out any
Speaker 1: of the numerous examples of Dyson spheres and other cosmic
Speaker 1: megastructures from science fiction, let us know. We would love
Speaker 1: to read us some listener mail about that on the podcast,
Speaker 1: and you can find us, by the way, on Facebook
Speaker 1: and Twitter. We have accounts on both of those. We
Speaker 1: are blow the Mind, look us up, like us, follow
Speaker 1: us all that and that you will be rewarded with
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Speaker 1: to email us at Below the Mind at how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com. Be sure to check out our new
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Speaker 1: staff as we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities
Speaker 1: of tomorrow.