WEBVTT - What Is A Dyson Sphere? 0:00:07.560 --> 0:00:09.719 Hey, or hey, what do you think is the most 0:00:09.760 --> 0:00:14.319 impressive thing humanity has ever built? It's a pretty good question. 0:00:14.400 --> 0:00:17.480 Let me think about it for a second. I think 0:00:17.520 --> 0:00:19.360 I think I would have to say probably the most 0:00:19.440 --> 0:00:24.400 impressive human achievement is the refrigerator. Obviously, I mean the 0:00:24.520 --> 0:00:27.760 refuge every day. I couldn't live with that without it. 0:00:28.320 --> 0:00:31.760 It's pretty awesome. That's a cool answer. I was sort 0:00:31.760 --> 0:00:34.440 of thinking things like, you know, the Great Wall, or 0:00:34.600 --> 0:00:37.559 the Golden gate Bridge or the Birge Khalifa, you know, 0:00:37.880 --> 0:00:40.159 stuff that would inspire all you know, things that like 0:00:40.280 --> 0:00:43.640 last for generations. Well, you know, there is still in 0:00:43.640 --> 0:00:48.040 my fridge that's been there four generations. I don't know. 0:00:48.080 --> 0:00:50.839 I look at these projects sometimes and I think, you know, 0:00:51.000 --> 0:00:54.360 humanity can really accomplish great things when we work together. 0:00:54.400 --> 0:00:56.440 It's really sort of impressive what we can pull off, 0:00:56.480 --> 0:00:59.960 and we we all work together. Yeah, well, I don't know. 0:01:00.040 --> 0:01:02.480 I mean I once ate everything in my fridge all 0:01:02.520 --> 0:01:04.800 by myself. I mean I didn't meet the rest of 0:01:04.840 --> 0:01:08.560 humanity for that. Yeah, well, you can accomplish great things 0:01:08.600 --> 0:01:11.160 by yourself. But it makes me wonder sometimes like what 0:01:11.280 --> 0:01:14.120 future humans will build, Like what are the great what's 0:01:14.160 --> 0:01:16.679 the Great Wall of the twenty one century. You know 0:01:16.720 --> 0:01:19.040 what kind of achievements will we what kind of monuments 0:01:19.080 --> 0:01:22.440 will we leave behind for future humans? The Great Refrigerator 0:01:22.520 --> 0:01:26.680 of China. That's right, a huge refrigerator in space that 0:01:26.880 --> 0:01:30.120 you can see from space, that you can see from 0:01:30.160 --> 0:01:49.200 space that it needs to be cleaned. Hi, I'm poor. 0:01:49.440 --> 0:01:52.200 I'm the cartoonists behind the comics are piled Higher and 0:01:52.240 --> 0:01:55.720 Deeper or PhD comics. And I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist. 0:01:55.880 --> 0:01:58.760 And I smash protons together at the Large Hagon Collider 0:01:58.760 --> 0:02:00.720 to try to figure out what the universe is made 0:02:00.720 --> 0:02:03.320 out of. And together we wrote a book called We 0:02:03.400 --> 0:02:06.080 Have No Idea, which explores all the things we don't 0:02:06.080 --> 0:02:08.280 know about the universe. And right now you're listening to 0:02:08.280 --> 0:02:11.959 our podcast, Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe, a production 0:02:12.080 --> 0:02:14.360 of I Heart Radio, in which we try to mix 0:02:14.440 --> 0:02:18.360 accessible science with a huge quantity of low quality jokes. 0:02:20.080 --> 0:02:21.720 What do you mean? Are you saying my jokes are 0:02:21.800 --> 0:02:25.280 low quality or no? I'm saying we spray a huge 0:02:25.360 --> 0:02:27.240 number of jokes and our editor just picks out the 0:02:27.240 --> 0:02:29.720 ones that are best to our listeners. Think we're funny, Yeah, 0:02:29.720 --> 0:02:32.720 are awesome editor exactly our producer who we should give 0:02:32.760 --> 0:02:35.040 a shout out to for sure, Taylor, thank you so 0:02:35.120 --> 0:02:37.120 much for making us funny. Thank you for making us 0:02:37.200 --> 0:02:40.959 sound funny. And speaking of human achievements, today's podcast is 0:02:41.000 --> 0:02:45.720 all about monumental constructions and accomplishments. What can civilizations do 0:02:46.080 --> 0:02:49.040 when they get together and build something enormous? Yeah? What 0:02:49.160 --> 0:02:52.160 can humans? What are humans capable of making? Like, what 0:02:52.240 --> 0:02:55.840 are the limits of our ingenuity and resources and our 0:02:55.960 --> 0:02:58.400 ability to work together? That's right, because you know, there 0:02:58.400 --> 0:03:00.520 are a lot of problems right in the world, like 0:03:00.560 --> 0:03:04.959 a global energy consumption and global warming, and that's right, 0:03:05.120 --> 0:03:06.919 and some of those are being tackled, right, like we're 0:03:06.960 --> 0:03:09.800 developing solar power so that we can get energy just 0:03:09.840 --> 0:03:13.040 from the sun and not burn fossil fuels and to 0:03:13.200 --> 0:03:16.200 meet the global energy demands. Right, But if you extrapolate 0:03:16.200 --> 0:03:18.560 forward and you think, like, what is humanity gonna need? 0:03:18.880 --> 0:03:21.799 Our global energy consumption is just increasing and it seems 0:03:21.880 --> 0:03:26.320 unlikely unless we have some cataclysmic event in our civilization 0:03:26.520 --> 0:03:28.720 that that's ever going to turn around. So if you 0:03:28.760 --> 0:03:31.680 project forward, you might wonder, like, how is humanity going 0:03:31.720 --> 0:03:34.080 to meet its energy needs in the future. If we 0:03:34.120 --> 0:03:37.880 don't invent some fantastic new form of fusion, right, what 0:03:37.920 --> 0:03:40.800 can we do to to rapidly increase the amount of 0:03:40.920 --> 0:03:42.880 energy we have accessible? And that's the question two of 0:03:42.880 --> 0:03:45.600 our listeners had, and so they sent us questions via 0:03:45.680 --> 0:03:48.000 Twitter and via email. That's right. So we owe a 0:03:48.080 --> 0:03:51.920 shout out to Evertenson and to Steve Davis for requesting 0:03:51.960 --> 0:03:54.400 this topic. So today on the podcast we'll be covering 0:03:54.400 --> 0:04:03.200 the topic what is a dycen sphere? That's right? Yeah, 0:04:03.200 --> 0:04:05.320 so the dycen sphere? Daniel, Um, So this is the 0:04:05.320 --> 0:04:09.800 idea that you know, we could maybe build something that 0:04:09.960 --> 0:04:13.320 can really take advantage of all that amazing power that's 0:04:13.360 --> 0:04:15.880 coming out of the sun. Right. That's right. If you 0:04:15.920 --> 0:04:18.720 think about like grabbing solar power and you think, well, 0:04:18.760 --> 0:04:20.480 we might need a huge amount of it for your 0:04:20.480 --> 0:04:22.640 first instinct is like, let's just put a bunch of 0:04:22.680 --> 0:04:25.159 solar panels in the desert, right, Let's just like build 0:04:25.200 --> 0:04:28.040 solar panel after solar panel. After all, nobody's really using 0:04:28.080 --> 0:04:30.159 that land. Is a lot of sun out there, right. 0:04:30.640 --> 0:04:33.680 But as humanity gets more and more greedy about energy, 0:04:33.760 --> 0:04:36.160 you might think, like is there enough room on Earth 0:04:36.400 --> 0:04:39.920 to put enough solar panels, right, So is that true? Like? 0:04:39.920 --> 0:04:42.680 What if we covered all of the Sharad Desert in 0:04:42.720 --> 0:04:45.080 solar panels, would that not be enough? I think that 0:04:45.080 --> 0:04:48.240 would be enough today. Like actually, I think today all 0:04:48.279 --> 0:04:52.000 you need to do is cover like Delaware with solar 0:04:52.040 --> 0:04:54.680 panels and you'd have enough energy to power the entire 0:04:54.760 --> 0:04:59.560 United States or maybe even the Earth. What really, yeah, exactly, 0:04:59.560 --> 0:05:07.040 solar pan So you're just ready to Delaware, Delaware. That's 0:05:07.040 --> 0:05:09.760 where all those fake companies are set up, aren't they. Um, 0:05:09.839 --> 0:05:12.480 we probably have listeners in Delaware, so you might want 0:05:12.480 --> 0:05:16.080 to check with them before you. They might appreciate the shade, 0:05:16.160 --> 0:05:21.159 you know, being relocated. Sorry, um all we have authority 0:05:21.200 --> 0:05:23.760 here from J. H. Cham a podcast host, or we're 0:05:23.760 --> 0:05:27.679 gonna raise your house and put solar pants emin eminent 0:05:27.800 --> 0:05:31.680 podcast main being moved out of Delaware. Well, I just 0:05:31.839 --> 0:05:34.880 check the numbers, and it turns out Delaware is actually 0:05:34.920 --> 0:05:37.000 a bit too small. I think you need to add 0:05:37.080 --> 0:05:40.640 Maryland to hope. That's okay with Maryland. No, But the 0:05:40.880 --> 0:05:43.960 point is that I think today human civilization can survive 0:05:44.520 --> 0:05:47.240 using energy captured by a pretty small fraction to the 0:05:47.240 --> 0:05:49.880 Earth's surface. But imagine in the future. Right, what if 0:05:49.920 --> 0:05:52.600 we want to build a huge civilization, what we want 0:05:52.600 --> 0:05:55.880 to construct enormous things? We want to send ships across 0:05:55.960 --> 0:05:59.520 the stars. We're gonna need incredible amounts of energy and 0:05:59.600 --> 0:06:01.240 you know, not gonna be able to burn cold to 0:06:01.320 --> 0:06:03.240 do that, and we're not going to be able to 0:06:03.279 --> 0:06:06.799 necessarily cover the Earth and solar panels, and so people 0:06:06.800 --> 0:06:09.600 started thinking big. People started thinking what's the limit, Like, 0:06:09.920 --> 0:06:12.719 what's the maximum number of solar panel solar panels you 0:06:12.720 --> 0:06:16.640 can make? What's the biggest solar panel you can build? Yes? Exactly? 0:06:16.720 --> 0:06:19.120 And where would you put it? Okay, so this is 0:06:19.160 --> 0:06:22.680 where the question of what is the Dyson's fear comes from? Exactly? 0:06:22.839 --> 0:06:25.320 This is a thought a thought experiment by Freeman Dyson, 0:06:25.360 --> 0:06:28.200 a famous physicist, to think about what is the biggest 0:06:28.240 --> 0:06:31.560 solar panel? Is it possible? Could we build one? How 0:06:31.560 --> 0:06:34.400 would you do it? And could we see if other 0:06:34.520 --> 0:06:38.560 civilizations are doing it? Wow? That's amazing? All right? So we, 0:06:38.640 --> 0:06:40.599 as usual, we're wondering how many of you out there 0:06:40.680 --> 0:06:43.560 actually knew what a Dyson's fear was Like If someone 0:06:43.560 --> 0:06:45.560 approachedate on the street and ask you, hey, have you 0:06:45.560 --> 0:06:48.320 seen any dicens fears? Or hey, do you know what 0:06:48.400 --> 0:06:51.320 it is? Or would you contribute ten dollars towards building 0:06:51.320 --> 0:06:53.880 a Dicen sphere um. So, as usual, Daniel went out 0:06:53.880 --> 0:06:56.920 into the streets and ask people randomly out there if 0:06:56.920 --> 0:06:59.279 they knew what a Dyson's fear was. Yeah, here's what 0:06:59.360 --> 0:07:01.480 people had to say. Have you ever heard of a 0:07:01.520 --> 0:07:06.919 thing called a Dyson sphere? I know it in the 0:07:06.960 --> 0:07:09.640 context of looking for other life on other planets, because 0:07:09.640 --> 0:07:12.320 it's basically like a ring that you can build around 0:07:12.320 --> 0:07:17.040 a star to harness its light for energy. You look 0:07:17.080 --> 0:07:20.720 at the light patterns. If something interferes with the patterns 0:07:20.760 --> 0:07:24.200 and like in a certain way, it can lead to 0:07:24.240 --> 0:07:27.000 the assumption that maybe there's a Dicen sphere around it. 0:07:27.160 --> 0:07:34.000 There's something awesome. Okay, yeah, it's this gigantic thing that 0:07:34.040 --> 0:07:36.640 you've put around like a solar system and then you 0:07:36.640 --> 0:07:39.240 can harness all the energy. I heard of it. I 0:07:39.280 --> 0:07:44.160 don't know what it is, all right, So pretty much 0:07:44.200 --> 0:07:47.200 no across the board. Well, I would say we got 0:07:47.200 --> 0:07:50.400 our our typical set of binary responses, a bunch of news. 0:07:50.760 --> 0:07:52.920 I got a bunch of weird looks too, people like 0:07:53.040 --> 0:07:55.040 is you're making this up? Like is that a thing? 0:07:55.200 --> 0:07:57.760 Really is this like a test? You know, I wonder 0:07:57.760 --> 0:07:59.600 how many people have thought you were talking about the 0:07:59.720 --> 0:08:05.840 dice and vacuum cleaner. That thing really sucks. Um No, 0:08:06.040 --> 0:08:08.080 I think I think it was like people thought maybe 0:08:08.080 --> 0:08:10.560 it was a control question, like I was making things up, 0:08:10.600 --> 0:08:13.480 like have you ever heard of the you know, um 0:08:13.640 --> 0:08:17.680 smith gabakabui or whatever, And because it was like a 0:08:17.720 --> 0:08:19.960 trick question, like to see if you if you try 0:08:20.000 --> 0:08:22.440 to make up some funny things. Yeah, which actually gives 0:08:22.480 --> 0:08:24.560 me the idea I should do that, right, We should 0:08:24.600 --> 0:08:28.040 have a trick question and see if people spout off. Um, 0:08:28.080 --> 0:08:30.119 you know, Oh yes, I told I saw a Nova 0:08:30.160 --> 0:08:33.760 episode about that, and it's in balls, you know, electrophons 0:08:33.800 --> 0:08:36.079 and whatever. What would it be about? Let's be dark? 0:08:36.400 --> 0:08:39.679 Should be like dark, a dark black hole about that? 0:08:40.040 --> 0:08:42.200 Oh you know what, that's actually really cool. And people 0:08:42.240 --> 0:08:44.400 are written and asking whether you can have a black 0:08:44.400 --> 0:08:48.520 hole made of dark matter, which is a really awesome question, 0:08:48.559 --> 0:08:50.960 which we should talk about in a different episode. Um, 0:08:51.040 --> 0:08:54.560 but an anti dark matter black hole? Dark matter black hole? Yeah, 0:08:54.559 --> 0:08:57.160 isn't that a cool idea? An anti dark matter black hole? 0:08:57.400 --> 0:09:00.319 Oh well, we don't know if dark matter has anti particles. 0:09:00.400 --> 0:09:02.200 We don't even know dark matter is made of particles, 0:09:02.600 --> 0:09:03.880 so we don't know if there is such a thing 0:09:03.920 --> 0:09:06.160 as anti dark matter. But we know there is dark matter, 0:09:06.200 --> 0:09:09.280 and we know there are black holes. So people have 0:09:09.320 --> 0:09:13.360 this tendency to like ram them together anyway, So nobody 0:09:13.360 --> 0:09:15.360 thought you'd meant the vacuum cleaner because you know the 0:09:15.440 --> 0:09:17.920 Dyson vacuum cleaners. They are known for having this like 0:09:18.080 --> 0:09:21.800 sphere out front that that you used to pivot and 0:09:21.840 --> 0:09:24.040 to roll around and like it twist the head of 0:09:24.040 --> 0:09:27.280 the vacuum cleaner as you tilt and turn. Did you 0:09:27.320 --> 0:09:29.640 get some like check from Dicing company? Because I didn't 0:09:29.640 --> 0:09:31.560 get one. I don't understand why you're promoting the Dicing 0:09:31.640 --> 0:09:35.400 vacum Maybe if you used to link if you used 0:09:35.400 --> 0:09:42.680 to link Dyson slash or he got a check slash 0:09:42.800 --> 0:09:51.440 and didn't share it with Daniel. Well, um, let's break 0:09:51.480 --> 0:09:53.520 it down for people. Then what what is the Dyson's fear? 0:09:53.720 --> 0:09:56.600 So the dycens vary is basically the idea of maximal 0:09:56.720 --> 0:09:59.160 solar panels. Right, you want to build solar panels, you 0:09:59.200 --> 0:10:02.240 cover the earth. The Earth captures a tiny fraction of 0:10:02.320 --> 0:10:04.880 the energy from the sun. Right, It's it's like a tiny, 0:10:04.880 --> 0:10:07.440 tiny fraction right like to the Sun, the Earth just 0:10:07.679 --> 0:10:11.120 looks like a little marble way out there in space exactly, 0:10:11.200 --> 0:10:14.080 and so it's it's barely catching any of its rays exactly. 0:10:14.160 --> 0:10:17.520 So imagine a spear, and the radius of the sphere 0:10:17.960 --> 0:10:20.480 is the distance from the Earth to the Sun. Right. So, 0:10:20.520 --> 0:10:22.800 now imagine a sphere that's basically the size of the 0:10:22.800 --> 0:10:25.240 Earth's orbit. It's like a ball centered on the Sun 0:10:25.960 --> 0:10:28.400 that reaches all the way to Earth exactly, and it's 0:10:28.400 --> 0:10:30.240 made out of what well, I mean, just imagine the 0:10:30.280 --> 0:10:33.160 spear for now geometrically, and think about what fraction of 0:10:33.160 --> 0:10:35.360 that sphere is covered by the Earth. Right, this is 0:10:35.400 --> 0:10:37.400 the point you're making before. It's like a tiny dot. 0:10:37.800 --> 0:10:40.520 Most of the Sun's energy just gets rated out into space, 0:10:40.679 --> 0:10:43.640 right it. Maybe it hits a Jupiter or Saturn, but 0:10:43.679 --> 0:10:49.120 the vast majority of it just gets shot out into space. Right. 0:10:49.400 --> 0:10:52.240 So the idea is, if you really want to go big, 0:10:52.360 --> 0:10:54.400 if you want to build a huge project, you know, 0:10:54.800 --> 0:10:58.880 then could you build solar panels that capture a significant 0:10:58.920 --> 0:11:05.679 fraction or even dare I say, all of the Sun's energy? Right? All? Wow, 0:11:06.240 --> 0:11:09.240 So it's like a giant solar panel that surrounds the 0:11:09.559 --> 0:11:11.760 sun completely. Yeah, I mean, like, let's do with the 0:11:11.800 --> 0:11:14.640 thought experiment. Let's think as big as possible. How much 0:11:14.720 --> 0:11:17.280 energy would that be? Um, you know, how would you 0:11:17.320 --> 0:11:21.360 do it? And could you tell if other people had 0:11:21.400 --> 0:11:22.959 done it? And so this is the origin of it. 0:11:23.240 --> 0:11:25.880 Freeman Dyson thought about this and he wrote a paper 0:11:25.920 --> 0:11:27.800 about it, and he thought, could you build one of 0:11:27.800 --> 0:11:31.440 these things? And if another civilization around another star had 0:11:31.480 --> 0:11:34.560 done this, could we tell and could we use that 0:11:34.640 --> 0:11:38.200 to find alien civilizations? This is like a legit physics paper. 0:11:38.360 --> 0:11:40.520 This is a a legit physics paper is published in Science, 0:11:40.559 --> 0:11:43.560 one of the top journals, and really yeah, And the 0:11:43.559 --> 0:11:45.320 thing I love about that is about it is that 0:11:45.360 --> 0:11:47.920 it's visionary. It's like, what would we do in a 0:11:47.960 --> 0:11:50.520 thousand years, what would we do in a million years? 0:11:50.600 --> 0:11:53.880 And could we use those ideas if we could predict them, 0:11:53.920 --> 0:11:58.079 could we use those ideas to discover super advanced alien civilizations? 0:11:58.080 --> 0:12:00.800 Like let's not look for other civilizations at the same 0:12:00.880 --> 0:12:03.240 level as us. Let's look for civilizations that are like 0:12:03.280 --> 0:12:05.760 a million years or a billion years ahead of us 0:12:05.800 --> 0:12:07.560 and trying to anticipate what they would do and how 0:12:07.600 --> 0:12:09.360 we would spot them. So I love that kind of 0:12:09.440 --> 0:12:14.440 visionary thinking, like if if you use your imagination wildly, 0:12:14.720 --> 0:12:18.600 where could humans go? And then that we could maybe 0:12:18.640 --> 0:12:22.199 see or get evidence of from other civilizations out in 0:12:22.520 --> 0:12:26.200 the universe. Yes, exactly right, exactly like trying to think 0:12:26.240 --> 0:12:28.560 of what the grown ups they're doing, because we're basically kids. 0:12:28.600 --> 0:12:31.000 You know, we are pretty new to this whole universe. 0:12:31.360 --> 0:12:35.240 We've been intelligent for you know, maybe tens of thousands 0:12:35.240 --> 0:12:39.200 of years. We've been technological for decades, right, we've been 0:12:39.240 --> 0:12:42.760 communicating for you know, less than that, And so we 0:12:42.800 --> 0:12:45.480 are brand new on the universe stage. And there may 0:12:45.520 --> 0:12:49.880 be a pimples voices cracking if we're not even there. Man, 0:12:49.920 --> 0:12:52.760 we're not a puberty. We're growing hair and from places. No, 0:12:52.880 --> 0:12:58.040 we are still pooping our pants. Um, from the civilization 0:12:58.080 --> 0:13:02.920 point of view, like literally mean literally and here we're 0:13:02.920 --> 0:13:07.640 filling it with pop. We are pooping the bed, that's true. Um. 0:13:07.760 --> 0:13:09.760 And so you know, you might ask like what are 0:13:09.800 --> 0:13:11.800 the growing ups doing? And the same way it's hard 0:13:11.800 --> 0:13:15.000 for kids to anticipate, like what is an adult life like? 0:13:15.240 --> 0:13:17.719 And how would you tell what's going on? It might 0:13:17.760 --> 0:13:21.640 be hard for us to predict what super advanced civilizations 0:13:21.640 --> 0:13:23.320 would do and how they would live and how they 0:13:23.320 --> 0:13:26.280 would get energy. So that was the idea of Freeman Dyson. 0:13:26.720 --> 0:13:29.720 He thought, can we spot other stars being wrapped by 0:13:29.720 --> 0:13:32.480 their feet by these spheres? Um to what kind of 0:13:32.480 --> 0:13:35.040 physics is was he? Oh, he's famous for being really broad. 0:13:35.120 --> 0:13:36.920 He's like, he's done all sorts of physics. I think 0:13:36.920 --> 0:13:40.160 he even did some chemistry. Um, he did quantum mechanics. 0:13:40.200 --> 0:13:43.320 He's thought about consciousness. He's one of these modern day 0:13:43.679 --> 0:13:46.160 you know, renaissance men who have like thought endabbled in 0:13:46.200 --> 0:13:48.200 all sorts of different kinds of physics. I wonder if 0:13:48.240 --> 0:13:50.120 your name affixed that, you know, like, if you go 0:13:50.200 --> 0:13:53.240 around with the name Freeman Dyson, is it just the 0:13:53.520 --> 0:13:58.040 expectation that you really amazing personality? What that you only 0:13:58.080 --> 0:14:00.160 have that expectation because there's a guy in the him 0:14:00.200 --> 0:14:03.160 that who has an amazing hum But that's what I mean. 0:14:03.320 --> 0:14:05.200 It's like he's got the perfect name to be a 0:14:05.240 --> 0:14:08.599 renaissance man. It's the other direction. Man, he was a 0:14:08.600 --> 0:14:11.440 renaissance man, and now therefore his name is connected with 0:14:11.480 --> 0:14:14.160 being a renaissance man. It doesn't work the other way. 0:14:14.160 --> 0:14:17.720 It's not like you're born He's like the original cool guy. 0:14:17.920 --> 0:14:20.560 It's not like they're like Galileo that sounds like could 0:14:20.560 --> 0:14:23.280 be a great scientist. Yeah, No, I think it's the 0:14:23.280 --> 0:14:25.920 other direction. Um, But he does have sort of a 0:14:25.960 --> 0:14:28.480 mystical name. I always thought his name, you know, I 0:14:28.480 --> 0:14:31.000 always connected his name with like the Freemasons, you know, 0:14:31.040 --> 0:14:33.560 Freeman Dison. He sounds like he's probably the member of 0:14:33.560 --> 0:14:37.760 a secret society somewhere. Yeah, like cool people who are 0:14:37.760 --> 0:14:40.600 trying to build names, trying to build mega structures. Even 0:14:40.600 --> 0:14:43.440 that word is fun to say, right, mega structures. So 0:14:43.480 --> 0:14:46.720 he had this idea, he thought, hey, what could we 0:14:46.800 --> 0:14:51.160 possibly what could have aliens civilization much more advanced than us. 0:14:51.160 --> 0:14:54.920 What could they possibly be doing that we could maybe detect? 0:14:55.120 --> 0:14:57.840 And he had the idea that maybe they figured out 0:14:57.880 --> 0:15:01.120 a way to capture all of a sun energy, like 0:15:01.280 --> 0:15:05.800 building something basically like wrapping up a sun. Yeah, exactly. 0:15:06.200 --> 0:15:08.680 And that's pretty hard to do. I mean imagine, as 0:15:08.680 --> 0:15:11.320 you were saying before, that you had to build something 0:15:11.480 --> 0:15:15.240 that size, right, Like the radius of it is millions 0:15:15.240 --> 0:15:19.360 of miles, right, So you're gonna construct something that wraps 0:15:19.440 --> 0:15:21.800 the whole Sun at like the distance from the Earth 0:15:21.840 --> 0:15:24.600 to the Sun and grabs all that energy. I mean, 0:15:24.640 --> 0:15:27.520 the size of it is is boggling like um, the 0:15:27.600 --> 0:15:30.520 inside of that sphere did a few calculations, inside of 0:15:30.520 --> 0:15:33.720 that sphere would have the surface area of five hundred 0:15:33.720 --> 0:15:39.920 and fifty million earths. Wow, which sounds doable. Maybe, I 0:15:39.960 --> 0:15:42.600 don't know. It's it's hard to build something that big. 0:15:42.600 --> 0:15:44.040 I mean, in order to build something that big, you 0:15:44.080 --> 0:15:47.240 need stuff, right, you need materials, You need like, you know, matter, 0:15:48.040 --> 0:15:51.440 And if you're gonna build it, you need to basically 0:15:51.560 --> 0:15:55.520 use all of the matter in Jupiter and Saturn and 0:15:55.560 --> 0:15:58.680 the asteroid belt. You use up like all the stuff 0:15:58.680 --> 0:16:01.160 in the Solar system just to build that shell. Like 0:16:01.240 --> 0:16:04.160 it's just barely enough stuff to build a shell all 0:16:04.200 --> 0:16:06.400 the way around the Sun. But why does it need 0:16:06.440 --> 0:16:09.080 to be the radius of where the Earth is? Couldn't 0:16:09.120 --> 0:16:11.560 you just make it smaller and be more convenient to 0:16:11.640 --> 0:16:15.720 make make it the radius of what's the mercury the 0:16:15.720 --> 0:16:18.280 closest one, you know, as small as sphere around the 0:16:18.280 --> 0:16:20.480 Sun and then just have like a cable running to 0:16:20.640 --> 0:16:23.760 us to Earth. Yeah, you have to balance, right, the 0:16:23.760 --> 0:16:29.320 closing extension cord extend. The closer you get to the Sun, um, 0:16:29.360 --> 0:16:32.240 the hotter things get and things melt and it's harder 0:16:32.240 --> 0:16:34.400 to work, you know, So you want to balance there. 0:16:34.400 --> 0:16:36.200 You don't want you don't want to be like immediately 0:16:36.240 --> 0:16:38.200 surrounding the Sun. You don't want to be really far 0:16:38.240 --> 0:16:41.800 away because that's to be bigger um between tents to 0:16:41.960 --> 0:16:44.120 build something that close to the Sun. Yeah. The other 0:16:44.160 --> 0:16:46.400 advantage if you built it at the radius of the 0:16:46.440 --> 0:16:49.960 Earth is then you'd have an awesome livable surface, right, 0:16:50.440 --> 0:16:53.440 you people could live on the inside of that sphere, 0:16:53.600 --> 0:16:56.840 Like you could put dirt down and plant crops and 0:16:56.880 --> 0:16:59.080 you'd be at the be in the habitable zone. Right, 0:16:59.320 --> 0:17:01.120 you'd be the right distance for the Sun to have 0:17:01.160 --> 0:17:03.680 the right temperature. Oh, you build it at the rates 0:17:03.680 --> 0:17:06.760 of this Earth and where the Earth is, then really 0:17:07.119 --> 0:17:11.520 it could be like um, sunny Florida all year round exactly. 0:17:11.720 --> 0:17:15.920 I mean, let's all around the solar system. Yes, let's 0:17:15.960 --> 0:17:18.400 think big. Let's think like, you know, we're gonna do this, 0:17:18.760 --> 0:17:20.400 what would be the best thing to do, Like humanity 0:17:20.480 --> 0:17:23.360 is gonna be huge and having a huge amount of energy. Um, 0:17:23.440 --> 0:17:26.280 then let's like, let's prepare for the future of humanity 0:17:26.320 --> 0:17:29.880 and build five hundred and fifty million times the land 0:17:29.880 --> 0:17:32.680 of the Earth. The amount of energy to this thing 0:17:32.680 --> 0:17:36.359 with capture is just ridiculous. Like if you captured all 0:17:36.480 --> 0:17:39.119 of the energy of the Sun every year. There's this 0:17:39.240 --> 0:17:42.040 number which is pretty hard to understand. It's three hundred 0:17:42.080 --> 0:17:46.920 and eighty four yatta watts, right, what's being stive energy 0:17:47.119 --> 0:17:51.040 and yatta being at a lot of what a whole 0:17:51.119 --> 0:17:56.439 lot of exactly? No, it's um three point eight times 0:17:56.520 --> 0:17:59.439 ten to the twenty six watts, right, Like, it's just 0:17:59.480 --> 0:18:02.159 a ridicul list number. So I thought, well, let's explain 0:18:02.200 --> 0:18:05.560 in terms of how much energy humanity currently uses. Right, 0:18:06.200 --> 0:18:10.840 So currently the power use of humanity is one thirty 0:18:10.960 --> 0:18:15.359 three trillion the energy put out by the sun WoT 0:18:15.560 --> 0:18:20.280 three thousand billion times how much we use right now? Yeah, 0:18:20.359 --> 0:18:23.160 so we don't really need this thing today or tomorrow 0:18:23.359 --> 0:18:25.720 or next year. Right. This is the kind of thing 0:18:25.720 --> 0:18:29.600 that would that would support a civilization with enormous energy consumption. 0:18:29.880 --> 0:18:31.439 You know, the kind of thing where you're like building 0:18:31.520 --> 0:18:34.400 huge spaceships and you're pushing them to other star systems 0:18:34.680 --> 0:18:38.399 with like lasers, you know, like light sales that capture 0:18:38.520 --> 0:18:41.199 laser beams, Like, you would have an incredible amount of 0:18:41.240 --> 0:18:43.760 energy if you could really capture all of the energy 0:18:43.800 --> 0:18:46.520 output of the Sun. Okay, I have a lot of questions, 0:18:46.600 --> 0:19:01.359 but first let's take a quick break, all right, So 0:19:01.400 --> 0:19:03.440 that's a dicense fear. It's this idea that you can 0:19:03.520 --> 0:19:07.320 maybe build a shell around the Sun and capture all 0:19:07.320 --> 0:19:09.560 of the energy that's coming out of it. And you 0:19:09.600 --> 0:19:11.920 would want to build it kind of far away from 0:19:11.920 --> 0:19:15.720 the Sun because otherwise it would just melt. Uh. And 0:19:16.000 --> 0:19:18.920 but it would be humongous. It would be bazillion times 0:19:19.600 --> 0:19:22.600 the surface of the Earth. Would take a lot of 0:19:22.600 --> 0:19:24.480 stuff to to build that shell. You take a lot 0:19:24.520 --> 0:19:26.800 of stuff. It would be enormous. And there's a lot 0:19:26.800 --> 0:19:29.040 of other problems, Like problem number one is you'd have 0:19:29.119 --> 0:19:30.840 to be really strong. I mean, this thing is going 0:19:30.920 --> 0:19:33.600 to have a huge amount of weight on it, right, yeah, 0:19:33.840 --> 0:19:36.879 like a and and just like it would get toussled around, 0:19:36.960 --> 0:19:39.360 right because it would have to hold together. Yeah, and 0:19:39.440 --> 0:19:42.399 it doesn't. You wouldn't also have any gravity, right, like 0:19:42.440 --> 0:19:45.200 the gravity we experienced from walking around on Earth comes 0:19:45.240 --> 0:19:48.160 from Earth. But if you're if you build a huge 0:19:48.240 --> 0:19:51.280 shell the size of the Earth radius and and build 0:19:51.280 --> 0:19:54.720 it around the Sun, then it's balanced gravitationally, right, you 0:19:54.720 --> 0:19:58.040 don't feel it doesn't feel the Sun's gravity. There's no 0:19:58.200 --> 0:20:00.840 net gravitational force on it for the Sun, so it'd 0:20:00.840 --> 0:20:03.600 be sort of like floating around the Sun, nothing to 0:20:03.680 --> 0:20:06.480 keep it in place, which means it could like drift, 0:20:06.600 --> 0:20:08.320 you know, and like one side of it could get 0:20:08.359 --> 0:20:10.919 too close and maybe bump into the Sun or something. 0:20:11.280 --> 0:20:13.280 It would be pretty hard to maintain. You need like 0:20:13.440 --> 0:20:15.879 jets on it to keep it in the right place. 0:20:17.080 --> 0:20:19.480 I think an interesting idea is that just the idea 0:20:19.520 --> 0:20:23.679 that you can envelop a sun, right like it, you know, 0:20:23.720 --> 0:20:25.920 your intuition. My intuition tells me that if you cover 0:20:25.960 --> 0:20:28.800 it up the Sun it would snuff out, but not 0:20:28.880 --> 0:20:31.600 so right like you could. The Sun doesn't need any feedback, right, 0:20:31.760 --> 0:20:34.760 it's just pumping that energy out. It doesn't need It 0:20:34.760 --> 0:20:38.120 doesn't need or care, doesn't need to know or care 0:20:38.160 --> 0:20:40.640 about what happens to the photons and protons that it's 0:20:40.640 --> 0:20:42.919 flying out. Yeah right, that's what I mean. Like you 0:20:42.960 --> 0:20:46.000 could you could capture a sun literally, yeah exactly, and 0:20:46.000 --> 0:20:49.760 it would burn happily inside your you're pumping out energy, 0:20:50.080 --> 0:20:52.920 yeah exactly. And you know, that's basically what we want 0:20:52.920 --> 0:20:54.760 to do here on Earth. On a much smaller scale, 0:20:54.760 --> 0:20:58.280 I mean that's fusion, right. Fusion says, build a little plasma, 0:20:58.359 --> 0:21:00.399 make it really hot, have it burned, and have a 0:21:00.480 --> 0:21:04.080 pump out radiation which we then capture. That's energy. Um, 0:21:04.160 --> 0:21:06.040 So we want to do that, and you know, we 0:21:06.080 --> 0:21:07.920 want to do that in a miniature way on Earth 0:21:07.920 --> 0:21:10.920 and a controlled way. But we basically have a huge 0:21:11.359 --> 0:21:14.200 fusion furnace already and it's going pretty well and it's 0:21:14.200 --> 0:21:16.719 not too far away. So some people say, let's just 0:21:16.840 --> 0:21:19.280