WEBVTT - How powerful could a civilization get? 0:00:08.680 --> 0:00:10.760 Daniel, how's our podcast doing these days? Are you number 0:00:10.800 --> 0:00:13.480 one in any territories right now? Unfortunately we are only 0:00:13.600 --> 0:00:16.520 number three in natural science in the US, behind some 0:00:16.680 --> 0:00:21.079 like paranormal and bigfoot podcasts. Maybe we should do those 0:00:21.079 --> 0:00:24.440 topics then we can be number one. Daniel and Jorge 0:00:24.480 --> 0:00:28.120 explained Bigfoot. How are those considered natural science? Doesn't seem 0:00:28.240 --> 0:00:30.000 very natural to me. I don't know, but the folks 0:00:30.000 --> 0:00:32.640 in the UK actually have us as number one in 0:00:32.760 --> 0:00:36.480 natural science, ahead of the big Foot podcast. So shout 0:00:36.479 --> 0:00:39.320 out to the UK science listeners. Maybe they don't have 0:00:39.320 --> 0:00:41.600 sasquatch in the UK, or maybe they call it something 0:00:41.640 --> 0:00:45.440 different like lockness or be for a guy. I don't know, 0:00:45.479 --> 0:00:47.599 but it makes me hopeful that will be number one 0:00:47.640 --> 0:00:51.880 in natural science in other places. Are you thinking globally 0:00:52.080 --> 0:00:54.959 or are you thinking like solar system? Why? Yeah, let's 0:00:55.000 --> 0:00:57.880 go into planetary I want to become the top podcast 0:00:57.960 --> 0:01:01.880 of Martian colonists. Why stop there? Why not go all 0:01:01.920 --> 0:01:07.080 the way to Jupiter or Uranus? I mean Uranus? Sure? 0:01:07.160 --> 0:01:10.520 I want to also be number one podcast among aliens 0:01:10.680 --> 0:01:14.279 eavesdropping on human technology? Do you think we have alien fans? 0:01:14.480 --> 0:01:16.360 I just wonder if that's going to change who buys 0:01:16.440 --> 0:01:18.320 ads for the show? What kind of products do you 0:01:18.319 --> 0:01:20.920 think they would be trying to sell to humans? I 0:01:20.920 --> 0:01:23.880 don't know, but thanks to cryptocurrency and Venmo, they can 0:01:23.959 --> 0:01:27.840 actually send their funds interplanetary lee to us on Earth. 0:01:28.480 --> 0:01:32.240 You think they have Venmo and other galaxies or other planets? Also, 0:01:32.280 --> 0:01:34.640 how do they do the exchange tree? Don't you need 0:01:34.680 --> 0:01:36.840 like a central bank or something. We'll figure that out 0:01:36.840 --> 0:01:39.760 when we build our Daniel and Jorge Galactic Empire, which 0:01:39.760 --> 0:01:43.520 will include cryptocurrency. I don't know, Man, sounds kind of risky. Well, 0:01:43.560 --> 0:01:45.839 if we're not going to do crypto zoology, we gotta 0:01:45.880 --> 0:01:51.160 do crypto something, crypto economics, exo crypto economics, exo crypto 0:01:51.240 --> 0:01:54.480 podcast comics. I'll be the first person with a PhD 0:01:54.520 --> 0:02:12.160 in that field. Hi am Jorhammer, cartoonists and the creator 0:02:12.240 --> 0:02:15.239 of PhD comics. Hi, I'm Daniel. I'm a particle of 0:02:15.280 --> 0:02:18.160 physicist and a professor at UC Irvine, and I own 0:02:18.560 --> 0:02:22.520 zero cryptocurrency. Oh how do you know? I mean, isn't 0:02:22.520 --> 0:02:25.600 it all virtual? Couldn't you virtually own it too? I 0:02:25.600 --> 0:02:27.600 mean I checked my pockets and I didn't find any. 0:02:27.680 --> 0:02:29.960 So that's what I mean you wouldn't find it in 0:02:30.000 --> 0:02:34.399 your pockets, I mean my digital pockets. Man. No, I'm 0:02:34.400 --> 0:02:37.360 not invested in cryptocurrency, have not bought any cryptocurrency. I 0:02:37.360 --> 0:02:40.840 don't think that anything I own owns any cryptocurrency. To 0:02:40.919 --> 0:02:42.960 the best of my knowledge, as my lawyer's advised me 0:02:43.000 --> 0:02:45.519 to say, I am not in the crypto universe. It 0:02:45.600 --> 0:02:47.600 might be hard to tell the these days. I wonder 0:02:47.680 --> 0:02:50.200 like if some mutual fund you buy, buy some other 0:02:50.280 --> 0:02:52.680 fund that buys another fund that maybe has a little 0:02:52.680 --> 0:02:54.359 bit of crypto in it. We probably all have a 0:02:54.360 --> 0:02:56.760 little bit of crypto in us. Humans are pretty cryptic, 0:02:56.880 --> 0:02:59.640 I guess. But welcome their podcast. Daniel and Jorge explained, 0:02:59.680 --> 0:03:02.080 do you know a production of our heart Radio in 0:03:02.080 --> 0:03:04.800 which we attempt to do our best to decrypt the 0:03:05.040 --> 0:03:08.880 universe and explain all of its mysteries to you. We 0:03:08.919 --> 0:03:13.520 want to unscramble the craziness that is our cosmos and 0:03:13.560 --> 0:03:16.680 explain to you how it can be understood in terms 0:03:16.720 --> 0:03:19.520 of a set of basic physical laws. It seems like 0:03:19.720 --> 0:03:23.040 so far everything out there can be made sense of. 0:03:23.400 --> 0:03:27.160 It's possible to assemble simple mathematical stories that describe how 0:03:27.240 --> 0:03:30.160 balls bounce against each other. How galaxies form, and maybe 0:03:30.200 --> 0:03:35.040 even what's inside black holes or the fundamental underpinnings of 0:03:35.160 --> 0:03:38.360 alien economics. It's right because it is a pretty rich 0:03:38.520 --> 0:03:42.240 universe full of amazing and incredible treasures that you can 0:03:42.320 --> 0:03:45.400 invest in in order to grow your mind, I guess, 0:03:46.120 --> 0:03:47.640 And so that's what we do here. We like to 0:03:47.680 --> 0:03:49.480 talk about it so we can have a pretty good 0:03:49.480 --> 0:03:51.760 exchange with all of you about it. All we ask 0:03:51.840 --> 0:03:54.360 for is your time and a slice of your brain 0:03:54.520 --> 0:03:57.400 to sit with us and enjoy the crazy mysteries of 0:03:57.440 --> 0:03:59.920 the universe as we try to unravel them. While we 0:04:00.040 --> 0:04:02.200 are here on this tiny rock, we are able to 0:04:02.320 --> 0:04:05.560 cast our minds across the cosmos and wonder what's going 0:04:05.600 --> 0:04:08.640 on out there in other solar systems. Are there aliens 0:04:08.640 --> 0:04:11.480 looking up at their night skies wondering what we are 0:04:11.600 --> 0:04:14.560 thinking about and whether we would be interested in buying 0:04:14.760 --> 0:04:17.440 their n f T s. Yeah, because it's a pretty 0:04:17.440 --> 0:04:19.600 big universe, and as they said in the movie Contact, 0:04:19.600 --> 0:04:21.159 it would be kind of a shame if we were 0:04:21.200 --> 0:04:24.719 the only living Sentien beings in it. It would be 0:04:24.760 --> 0:04:26.760 a pretty amazing thing to be the only ones in 0:04:26.800 --> 0:04:29.359 this vast universe that we have some kind of intelligence 0:04:29.480 --> 0:04:31.880 or podcasts. It would be pretty amazing to be alone, 0:04:31.960 --> 0:04:34.960 and it would be pretty amazing to not be alone. Either. 0:04:35.080 --> 0:04:39.000 Answer to this famous question is mind blowing. Does it 0:04:39.040 --> 0:04:41.560 depend you think on whether you're an extrovert species or 0:04:41.600 --> 0:04:44.279 an introvert species. I think it's nice to know that 0:04:44.320 --> 0:04:46.880 they're out there. If you're an introvert species, you might 0:04:46.920 --> 0:04:48.600 not want to give them a call, but you still 0:04:48.680 --> 0:04:50.480 want to know that they exist. You know, I think 0:04:50.520 --> 0:04:54.360 everybody is probably curious about the universe, but there's an 0:04:54.360 --> 0:04:58.200 insumption there. Right we're extrapolating our experience to the experience 0:04:58.200 --> 0:05:01.520 of aliens. We're hoping that the is other intelligence out 0:05:01.520 --> 0:05:03.400 there in the universe because we know that we are 0:05:03.440 --> 0:05:06.560 capable of joy and love and beauty, and we hope 0:05:06.560 --> 0:05:09.359 that aliens out there are also having a good time. 0:05:09.520 --> 0:05:11.640 We hope that they aren't floating in their slime pits 0:05:11.680 --> 0:05:13.760 and just totally suffering. Would that makes you, I guess, 0:05:13.839 --> 0:05:17.320 more of an ex overt because you like exceplanetary life. 0:05:17.440 --> 0:05:19.560 I am more of an ex overt than an extrovert, 0:05:19.640 --> 0:05:22.120 that's true. I'm more interested in talking to aliens than 0:05:22.160 --> 0:05:26.520 humans sometimes and learning from them. I guess because if 0:05:26.560 --> 0:05:28.279 there are aliens out there, there's a lot that we 0:05:28.279 --> 0:05:29.960 can learn from them, right, there's a lot that we 0:05:29.960 --> 0:05:32.640 can learn about how to travel through stars, or even 0:05:32.720 --> 0:05:35.440 just how to make it past our point intilisation to 0:05:35.680 --> 0:05:39.159 greater things, or just how to be alive in this universe. 0:05:39.480 --> 0:05:41.920 When you travel, even just here on Earth and experience 0:05:42.000 --> 0:05:44.800 different human cultures, you learn so much about the basic 0:05:44.880 --> 0:05:47.840 questions they ask about life, the approach they take. It 0:05:47.839 --> 0:05:50.479 makes you realize how much of your life and the 0:05:50.480 --> 0:05:54.240 way you think is kind of arbitrary and cultural. It 0:05:54.320 --> 0:05:57.240 opens your minds, it shows you the box that you 0:05:57.360 --> 0:05:59.720 have been thinking in, and so talking to aliens would 0:05:59.720 --> 0:06:02.840 be the ultimate version of that. Experience could help us 0:06:02.960 --> 0:06:06.560 understand our context in ways we can't even imagine today, 0:06:06.600 --> 0:06:08.919 and of course, perhaps help us crack some of the 0:06:08.960 --> 0:06:12.000 long standing physics problems we're being in our heads against. 0:06:12.000 --> 0:06:13.960 I feel like maybe we could do that on our own, Daniel, 0:06:14.080 --> 0:06:16.280 what do humans need help? Can we figure it all 0:06:16.320 --> 0:06:19.040 out eventually on our own? It's certainly possible that we 0:06:19.080 --> 0:06:21.599 could figure it all out eventually, But we might not 0:06:21.839 --> 0:06:24.880 be the smartest species out there, right, I think humans 0:06:24.920 --> 0:06:27.120 are pretty clever, But it's possible we have a limitation 0:06:27.160 --> 0:06:30.360 to our fundamental neural capacity that makes it impossible for 0:06:30.440 --> 0:06:33.920 us to grasp the mathematics that underlie the universe. Is 0:06:33.960 --> 0:06:37.640 also the possibility of false starts. You know, human science 0:06:37.760 --> 0:06:40.479 is fairly diverse, but it also has collapsed along a 0:06:40.520 --> 0:06:44.000 few pathways, choices we made early on, being influenced by 0:06:44.080 --> 0:06:47.320 geniuses who came along. It's just interesting to think about 0:06:47.400 --> 0:06:50.760 other paths and intelligent species might have taken that might 0:06:50.760 --> 0:06:53.880 be more or less fruitful in terms of understanding the universe. 0:06:53.960 --> 0:06:55.480 I wonder how we would react if one of your 0:06:55.480 --> 0:06:58.600 students said that to you, like, Hey, Dr Whiteson, I 0:06:58.640 --> 0:07:00.680 don't think I'm the smartest person in the class. I 0:07:00.720 --> 0:07:02.920 just don't have the neural processes for it. Can I 0:07:03.040 --> 0:07:05.960 copy that person next to me for our test? You 0:07:06.000 --> 0:07:08.279 would have to say yes, Daniel. I think the ultimate 0:07:08.320 --> 0:07:12.120 exam for an intelligent species is working together to figure 0:07:12.160 --> 0:07:14.200 out the mystery of the universe. So we're all getting 0:07:14.200 --> 0:07:16.840 graded on a group project. That's how I see it. Well, 0:07:16.880 --> 0:07:19.320 it is an interesting topic to think about whether aliens 0:07:19.320 --> 0:07:21.840 exist out there, And just to be clear, Daniel, nobody 0:07:21.880 --> 0:07:24.040 has seen or talked to any aliens as far as 0:07:24.040 --> 0:07:26.960 physicists know. Right, as far as this physicists, no, we 0:07:27.040 --> 0:07:30.960 have no confirmed communications with aliens. Absolutely, that's a different 0:07:30.960 --> 0:07:34.600 podcast in the natural sciences. Maybe the Luckness Monster is 0:07:34.600 --> 0:07:36.880 actually an alien come to Earth to talk to its 0:07:36.920 --> 0:07:39.880 long lost brother Bigfoot. I think you just found our 0:07:40.000 --> 0:07:48.320 new gold mine here, fun fan fiction about human fiction cryptozoology. 0:07:48.360 --> 0:07:50.960 But instead of thinking about what other weird kinds of 0:07:51.000 --> 0:07:54.480 life might exist in the lakes of Scotland or the 0:07:54.560 --> 0:07:57.520 deep forests of Alaska, we like to think about what 0:07:57.600 --> 0:08:00.520 kind of life might exists on other planets and whether 0:08:00.720 --> 0:08:03.440 it would be possible to communicate with them. If we're 0:08:03.440 --> 0:08:06.680 going to hear messages from distant civilizations on the other 0:08:06.720 --> 0:08:09.240 side of the galaxy, will of course need to receive 0:08:09.400 --> 0:08:12.600 those messages. They'll need to be capable of sending us 0:08:12.640 --> 0:08:15.000 those messages, so we have to think a little bit 0:08:15.040 --> 0:08:18.080 about what their civilizations might be capable of. Yeah, and 0:08:18.280 --> 0:08:21.920 all those this might seem like baseless extrapolation or speculation, 0:08:22.000 --> 0:08:24.640 it is something that physicists have been engaging for a while, 0:08:25.360 --> 0:08:27.960 have polished papers on these ideas about aliens and what 0:08:28.040 --> 0:08:30.040 aliens could look like, and even Carl saying I was 0:08:30.080 --> 0:08:33.040 sort of famous for chiming in a lot about aliens. 0:08:33.280 --> 0:08:36.240 You say baseless extrapolation like it's a bad thing. I 0:08:36.240 --> 0:08:40.439 don't get it usually when maybe in physics the bar 0:08:40.600 --> 0:08:42.360 is lower. Is that what you're saying? Well, you know, 0:08:42.400 --> 0:08:46.000 in physics were often tackling problems that are basically impossible. 0:08:46.040 --> 0:08:47.840 We don't know how to get started, and so what 0:08:47.920 --> 0:08:50.839 we usually do is we begin with the simplest, dumbest thing, 0:08:50.920 --> 0:08:54.560 which often involves baseless extrapolation, Like we don't know how 0:08:54.600 --> 0:08:58.280 to tackle this, Let's just assume a spherical cow and 0:08:58.360 --> 0:09:02.240 start from there. And we're going to talk about alien civilizations. 0:09:02.240 --> 0:09:04.440 The only example we have is our own, and so 0:09:04.559 --> 0:09:07.960 we have to begin at least by making some assumptions 0:09:08.120 --> 0:09:12.240 about alien civilizations and their similarity to civilization on Earth, 0:09:12.559 --> 0:09:14.880 knowing all the time, keeping in the back of our 0:09:14.880 --> 0:09:17.600 heads that we are making these assumptions and that maybe 0:09:17.640 --> 0:09:20.000 one day we'll figure out how to relax them or 0:09:20.080 --> 0:09:22.560 break them or get out of that box. And then 0:09:22.600 --> 0:09:24.760 I guess the point would be that once we meet aliens, 0:09:24.800 --> 0:09:27.280 you can be like, Hi, I told you so, or WHOA, 0:09:27.320 --> 0:09:30.280 I was totally wrong? Is that the whole point of it? Yeah, 0:09:30.320 --> 0:09:32.840 if you think this through and you come to some conclusions, 0:09:33.080 --> 0:09:35.640 and then you meet aliens and discover they're totally different 0:09:35.640 --> 0:09:38.000 from what you expected. It helps you think through what 0:09:38.120 --> 0:09:41.960 you might have misunderstood, which aspect of your assumptions, which 0:09:42.080 --> 0:09:44.800 step in your line of thinking might have gone wrong. 0:09:44.920 --> 0:09:48.120 How much of your time did you waste? Well, it's 0:09:48.200 --> 0:09:52.640 that or just don't think about it. You know that's right. 0:09:52.640 --> 0:09:54.880 It's do physics or just don't think about it. Those 0:09:54.920 --> 0:09:58.120 are the two only two options. Do physics or do nothing? Right, 0:09:58.160 --> 0:10:03.400 I mean, is there anything else on the menu that's right? Well, 0:10:03.480 --> 0:10:05.559 what else would there be in life to do? No? 0:10:05.720 --> 0:10:08.720 But when you are tackling really big, hard questions about 0:10:08.720 --> 0:10:11.680 the nature of the universe and alien civilizations, you don't 0:10:11.720 --> 0:10:14.520 often have first principles to start from, so you just 0:10:14.559 --> 0:10:17.800 sort of explore the space using some assumptions to get 0:10:17.840 --> 0:10:20.640 yourself oriented. Yeah, so this is something physicists have been 0:10:20.679 --> 0:10:23.400 thinking about, and in fact, there's an interesting framework to 0:10:23.400 --> 0:10:25.720 think about it. And the question here is what would 0:10:25.720 --> 0:10:31.080 an alien civilization look like? Can we extrapolate from human civilization? 0:10:31.160 --> 0:10:38.120 So to be on the podcast, we'll be tackling how 0:10:38.200 --> 0:10:42.920 powerful can a civilization get? Now? Daniel is as powerful 0:10:42.960 --> 0:10:46.160 as in like awesome, or powerful as in like will 0:10:46.200 --> 0:10:48.840 come and kill us? Powerful as in what is there 0:10:48.880 --> 0:10:53.640 in number one podcast? In the natural sciences in certain 0:10:53.679 --> 0:10:57.800 countries clearly a leading indicator of cultural value and progress, right, 0:10:58.040 --> 0:11:01.760 and handsomeness as well. Don't forget there's a clear correlation 0:11:02.080 --> 0:11:04.080 if you look at a certain data set. There's lots 0:11:04.080 --> 0:11:06.800 of ways to think about the power of a civilization. 0:11:07.000 --> 0:11:09.240 But in a very practical sense, if we are going 0:11:09.320 --> 0:11:13.040 to discover an alien civilization without going there, they need 0:11:13.080 --> 0:11:16.280 to be pretty powerful because we have to receive their signals, 0:11:16.679 --> 0:11:19.199 right if they are far far away around another star 0:11:19.640 --> 0:11:22.320 for us to hear their messages, their messages have to 0:11:22.480 --> 0:11:25.320 arrive on Earth, which means they need a certain power 0:11:25.480 --> 0:11:28.439 in their broadcast. And so we can think about, like, fundamentally, 0:11:28.480 --> 0:11:31.640 what is the energy available to those civilizations? Would they 0:11:31.720 --> 0:11:34.959 even have enough energy to beam us a message from 0:11:35.000 --> 0:11:37.600 the other side of the galaxy? You mean sort of 0:11:37.640 --> 0:11:41.000 like what's their footprint, Like what's their energy footprint? I 0:11:41.040 --> 0:11:43.960 physicist tends to think about things as like simple black boxes, right, 0:11:44.000 --> 0:11:47.160 like energy in, energy out. But if physicist things about nutrition, 0:11:47.200 --> 0:11:50.320 for example, it's just like calories in calories burned, right, 0:11:50.360 --> 0:11:54.520 physicists model humans as like simple bomb calorimeters, and so 0:11:54.600 --> 0:11:57.480 here we're modeling like the entire complexity of an alien 0:11:57.520 --> 0:12:00.240 civilization in terms of like how much energy to have 0:12:00.280 --> 0:12:02.480 access to and how much energy can they afford to 0:12:02.520 --> 0:12:05.040 put it to their signal? I see. So today we're 0:12:05.040 --> 0:12:08.960 serve asking like how much energy and alien civilization might 0:12:09.000 --> 0:12:11.800 be able to consume I guess so spend or hardness 0:12:11.920 --> 0:12:14.840 or channel into one signal exactly. It's a way of 0:12:14.880 --> 0:12:18.880 thinking through our possible future for our civilization. What does 0:12:18.920 --> 0:12:21.840 that hold? What technology might we develop in the future 0:12:21.920 --> 0:12:25.679 that gives us access to stars or many stars or 0:12:25.760 --> 0:12:28.839 many universes. And so physicists have come up with or 0:12:28.880 --> 0:12:31.000 at least some physicists have come up with a scale 0:12:31.080 --> 0:12:34.280 to measure how much energy and alien civilization might be 0:12:34.320 --> 0:12:36.920 able to tap into around them in where they live. 0:12:37.000 --> 0:12:40.040 It's called the kar dash Off scale. It's not related 0:12:40.040 --> 0:12:44.720 to the Kardashian Yeah. The scale is how many Kardashians 0:12:44.760 --> 0:12:47.199 do you have on your social media? And so we've 0:12:47.240 --> 0:12:51.160 currently maxed that out. We're leading the galaxy. Yeah, you know, 0:12:51.800 --> 0:12:54.000 I think one is maybe too many on that scale. 0:12:54.280 --> 0:12:56.079 But it's a kardas chef kardash If how do you 0:12:56.120 --> 0:12:58.560 pronounce it? I've heard it pronounced kardas chef. And it's 0:12:58.600 --> 0:13:01.920 a popular trope inside it's fiction also because it's a 0:13:01.920 --> 0:13:06.000 fun way of thinking about very powerful alien civilizations, and 0:13:06.040 --> 0:13:08.120 so it crops up everywhere. And a bunch of listeners 0:13:08.120 --> 0:13:10.920 wrote in and asked us to talk about the Cardassip scale. 0:13:11.880 --> 0:13:13.959 And are you sure they weren't asking us to talk 0:13:14.040 --> 0:13:16.400 to a Kardashian on the podcast because that would probably 0:13:16.400 --> 0:13:18.800 put put us in the number one spot. I reached 0:13:18.800 --> 0:13:20.720 out to all of them. None of them have responded, 0:13:20.920 --> 0:13:23.760 all right, So then let's talk about this Cardaship scale 0:13:23.760 --> 0:13:26.319 here on today's episode. And so, as usual, we were 0:13:26.320 --> 0:13:28.360 wondering how many people out there had heard of this 0:13:28.800 --> 0:13:33.439 scale and how it measures an alien civilizations possible energy use. 0:13:33.840 --> 0:13:35.760 So thank you very much to everybody out there who 0:13:35.760 --> 0:13:39.440 participates in these questions and answers. It's really fun for 0:13:39.520 --> 0:13:42.080 us to hear what people are thinking. If you'd like 0:13:42.160 --> 0:13:45.120 to participate for future episodes of the podcast, please don't 0:13:45.160 --> 0:13:47.400 be shy right to us two questions at Daniel and 0:13:47.480 --> 0:13:49.640 Jorge dot com. So think about it for a second, 0:13:49.720 --> 0:13:52.920 what do you think a Cardiship scale is. Here's what 0:13:52.920 --> 0:13:55.320 people have to say. I'm pretty sure I've heard of 0:13:55.320 --> 0:13:58.040 the Cardassi of scale, but I am blanking on what 0:13:58.080 --> 0:14:01.160 it is. Something in the back of my mind is 0:14:01.160 --> 0:14:04.760 saying it's something about the size of stars or something 0:14:04.800 --> 0:14:07.240 like that. I have no idea. I don't know, no 0:14:07.400 --> 0:14:12.400 have any idea Kardashi of scale. No, I don't know 0:14:12.440 --> 0:14:14.559 what the kardashi of scale is. But if I had 0:14:14.600 --> 0:14:16.840 to take a kiss, I would say it is some 0:14:16.960 --> 0:14:22.600 sort of high energy scale at which quantum effects become important, 0:14:22.800 --> 0:14:25.320 like in a black hole or something because of the 0:14:26.200 --> 0:14:31.280 or the very high energy density and also quantum property 0:14:31.320 --> 0:14:35.040 has become important. All right, maybe we need a we 0:14:35.080 --> 0:14:38.560 have no idea scale here, because everyone seemed to max 0:14:38.640 --> 0:14:41.240 it out on the idol no scale. There really was 0:14:41.600 --> 0:14:44.120 no recognition. I'm sort of amazed. It's given the number 0:14:44.160 --> 0:14:46.920 of listeners who asked us to talk about this. The 0:14:46.960 --> 0:14:49.840 listeners a happy example here had never heard of it. Well, 0:14:49.880 --> 0:14:52.880 that's what we're here for, to talk about the Kardashians 0:14:53.040 --> 0:14:56.800 and obscue or alien scales that measure their energy. I 0:14:56.800 --> 0:15:00.880 wonder what the alien Kardashians are like, Oh my gosh, 0:15:01.240 --> 0:15:05.120 I kind of hope they don't have Kardashians. Maybe the 0:15:05.160 --> 0:15:08.520 Kardashian scale is how much your civilization has jumped the shark. Well, 0:15:08.560 --> 0:15:10.720 we have jumped the shark and the Bigfoot and the 0:15:10.800 --> 0:15:13.520 Lockness monsters. So I think we're in big trouble. We're 0:15:13.600 --> 0:15:18.440 due for cancelation any moment, the galactic Netflix is going 0:15:18.480 --> 0:15:21.000 to pull our budget. Huh right, yeah, no, I want 0:15:21.040 --> 0:15:24.120 to see what happens in season five thousand of Humanity. 0:15:24.720 --> 0:15:27.800 Which season are we on? Now? I haven't been binging Humans. 0:15:28.200 --> 0:15:30.640 I'm not cut up. Everyone's talking about it. Everyone's like, oh, 0:15:30.680 --> 0:15:33.520 you gotta watch this, you gotta see these kids. But 0:15:33.600 --> 0:15:36.080 who has the time? You know? Spoiler alert, a lot 0:15:36.120 --> 0:15:40.080 of people die. Sounds like a depressing show. Well, let's 0:15:40.120 --> 0:15:42.720 jump into Daniel. What is the Cardaship scale? So the 0:15:42.800 --> 0:15:46.680 Cardassia scale was suggested by a physicist Cardassian, of course, 0:15:47.000 --> 0:15:50.880 that tries to imagine how civilizations will grow, specifically in 0:15:50.960 --> 0:15:54.360 their energy use, in order to understand how much energy 0:15:54.400 --> 0:15:58.400 they might have available to pump into signals to beam 0:15:58.480 --> 0:16:00.600 to Earth so that we can discus robbed them. The 0:16:00.600 --> 0:16:03.760 original Cardaship scale has a few stages. But in the 0:16:03.800 --> 0:16:06.200 meantime people have built on this and expanded on it 0:16:06.240 --> 0:16:08.840 and taken in all sorts of new directions. So sort 0:16:08.840 --> 0:16:12.360 of fun framework for understanding how a civilization might grow 0:16:12.440 --> 0:16:15.640 to tap into the natural energy available to us in 0:16:15.640 --> 0:16:18.160 the universe. I see. Is it more like a scale 0:16:18.160 --> 0:16:21.440 that measures how much energy a civilization uses or just 0:16:21.520 --> 0:16:24.400 kind of keeps tab of where they would get this energy. 0:16:24.600 --> 0:16:27.440 It's both. It's an accounting of how much energy is 0:16:27.480 --> 0:16:31.320 available to a civilization, but of course there aren't infinite 0:16:31.400 --> 0:16:35.320 arbitrary energy sources in the universe, and so it imagines 0:16:35.440 --> 0:16:37.960 how they might find those sources of energy. And it's 0:16:38.000 --> 0:16:41.400 broken into three categories. One where you think about all 0:16:41.480 --> 0:16:43.840 the energy available on a planet, another way you think 0:16:43.880 --> 0:16:46.480 about all the energy available in the solar system, and 0:16:46.480 --> 0:16:47.920 then a third where you think about all of the 0:16:48.040 --> 0:16:51.080 energy available in the galaxy. I see, So like a 0:16:51.120 --> 0:16:54.040 stage one civilization is one that only has the energy 0:16:54.080 --> 0:16:57.280 of a planet available to them, or alternatively, you assume 0:16:57.360 --> 0:16:59.640 that they have access to all the energy that a 0:16:59.760 --> 0:17:02.800 planet they can have. Yes, precisely, All right, well, let's 0:17:02.800 --> 0:17:05.479 get into each of these stages and see where humans 0:17:05.520 --> 0:17:08.880 are and where aliens might be at But first let's 0:17:08.920 --> 0:17:23.320 take a quick break. All right, welcome back to our 0:17:23.320 --> 0:17:27.520 podcast Baseless Speculation with Daniel and Jorge about Aliens The 0:17:27.560 --> 0:17:31.000 first steps in understanding the universe with Daniel and Jorge. 0:17:33.400 --> 0:17:36.720 I thought the first step was always observation. Daniel insights, well, 0:17:36.760 --> 0:17:39.879 we've been trying to observe aliens, but we have zero data, 0:17:40.040 --> 0:17:43.200 and so that's one thing we haven't tried to understand. 0:17:44.560 --> 0:17:47.679 I see, step one is observed. Step two a is 0:17:47.720 --> 0:17:50.080 if you don't observe anything, start making stuff up. Is 0:17:50.119 --> 0:17:51.920 that what you're saying? Yeah, well, also if you don't 0:17:51.920 --> 0:17:54.719 observe anything, try to understand why you didn't see something. 0:17:54.800 --> 0:17:58.159 One thing that motivated Cardasi's paper was the famous Fermi paradox, 0:17:58.280 --> 0:18:01.200 the idea that the galaxy is quite old, certainly old 0:18:01.320 --> 0:18:04.880 enough for alien civilizations to have developed and beamed US signals, 0:18:04.920 --> 0:18:06.840 and yet we haven't heard from any of them. So 0:18:06.920 --> 0:18:09.600 Cardassian was motivated to think about, like, well, how would 0:18:09.600 --> 0:18:12.439 they send us messages, would they actually have enough energy, 0:18:12.480 --> 0:18:14.639 and how would they do it? So it's a way 0:18:14.640 --> 0:18:17.320 of thinking about also why we haven't heard from aliens. 0:18:18.200 --> 0:18:21.359 Nice see, it's kind of like we they haven't come visited. 0:18:21.600 --> 0:18:23.760 Why would that be? And we can't see them why 0:18:23.760 --> 0:18:26.000 would that be? And if you think about different scenarios, 0:18:26.000 --> 0:18:27.520 maybe you can come up with a way that you 0:18:27.560 --> 0:18:29.840 could see them exactly. And it might make the problem 0:18:29.880 --> 0:18:32.879 harder because maybe you discover, oh, it's quite trivial for 0:18:32.920 --> 0:18:35.280 aliens to have enough energy to beamas messages, and or 0:18:35.320 --> 0:18:37.360 maybe you discover that in order for aliens to send 0:18:37.400 --> 0:18:39.760 us messages from across the galaxy, they would have to 0:18:39.800 --> 0:18:42.760 harness all the power of the entire galaxy. And that 0:18:42.840 --> 0:18:46.600 might explain why we can't see Kardashians from other worlds, 0:18:46.840 --> 0:18:50.280 which is a bad thing. No value judgements here, man, 0:18:50.320 --> 0:18:53.479 this is just science. Well apparently this idea of how 0:18:53.560 --> 0:18:56.480 much energy and alien species might be consuming or have 0:18:56.560 --> 0:18:59.520 avail to them is all measured on something called the 0:18:59.560 --> 0:19:02.560 Kardashi of scale, which, as you said, has three stages. 0:19:02.840 --> 0:19:05.600 So let's step through these stages. What's stage number one? 0:19:05.680 --> 0:19:07.600 And is that something we're at or are we pass 0:19:07.640 --> 0:19:10.439 stage one? Where are we in this stage system? So? 0:19:10.520 --> 0:19:13.399 Stage number one is a civilization that uses all of 0:19:13.440 --> 0:19:17.239 the energy available on its planet, meaning all of the 0:19:17.280 --> 0:19:20.680 solar energy for example, that hits the surface of the Earth. 0:19:20.880 --> 0:19:23.600 We are not even at stage one. I mean we 0:19:23.640 --> 0:19:26.960 are capturing some fraction of the solar energy, for example, 0:19:26.960 --> 0:19:30.320 and digging up fossil fuels that have effectively stored solar 0:19:30.440 --> 0:19:34.119 energy from the past. But on the Earth, what's available 0:19:34.119 --> 0:19:38.080 to us is something like ten to the seventeen watts. 0:19:38.680 --> 0:19:42.320 Watts is a unit of power, so it's energy per second. 0:19:42.800 --> 0:19:44.280 Is that the kind of watt? It's like, if you 0:19:44.359 --> 0:19:47.040 had a solar panel the size of the Earth, that's 0:19:47.040 --> 0:19:49.000 how much energy we would be getting from the sun. 0:19:49.080 --> 0:19:50.919 If yes, if you can cover the entire Earth with 0:19:51.000 --> 0:19:52.879 solar panels, so you built like a solar panel that 0:19:53.000 --> 0:19:56.040 completely made the Earth in shadow, that's how much energy 0:19:56.080 --> 0:19:58.480 you could theoretically capture, or that's how much energy is 0:19:58.520 --> 0:20:02.720 falling onto those solar pan Solar panels, of course not efficient, 0:20:02.920 --> 0:20:04.800 but that's sort of like how much energy you have 0:20:05.000 --> 0:20:08.680 access to m M And that's interesting how you said that. Basically, 0:20:08.760 --> 0:20:11.960 like fossil fuels, even what we have here, maybe even 0:20:12.000 --> 0:20:15.760 wind energy, it all comes from the Sun eventually, right, 0:20:15.840 --> 0:20:18.200 All that energy originally does come from the sun. Yeah, 0:20:18.520 --> 0:20:21.280 wind also comes from the sun because it involves heating 0:20:21.280 --> 0:20:24.280 of pockets of air by the Sun, so all of 0:20:24.320 --> 0:20:26.879 that originally does come from the Sun. There are, of course, 0:20:26.960 --> 0:20:29.400 other sources of energy we could tap into on Earth 0:20:29.440 --> 0:20:31.720 that are not directly from our Sun. Like when you 0:20:31.760 --> 0:20:35.199 do fission, you're breaking apart uranium. That uranium was formed 0:20:35.200 --> 0:20:38.359 in some other process, maybe the supernova or collisions of 0:20:38.400 --> 0:20:41.800 neutron stars, well before our solar system was even birth. 0:20:42.000 --> 0:20:44.399 So you're tapping into energy sources that have been stored 0:20:44.440 --> 0:20:47.040 there for a long time. But you're saying all energy 0:20:47.160 --> 0:20:50.160 solar energy. So when I'm at the gas station actually 0:20:50.200 --> 0:20:54.119 pouring solar energy into my car, yeah, well, gas is 0:20:54.119 --> 0:20:56.320 sort of like a solar battery. The idea of the 0:20:56.359 --> 0:21:00.560 Cardaschef scale is not to argue that the maximum energy 0:21:00.640 --> 0:21:03.119