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I’m less intrigued by the Dyson sphere than I am about what a civilization would actually do with all that power? Create tiny worm holes?
by deadbabe 2y ago
I’m less intrigued by the Dyson sphere than I am about what a civilization would actually do with all that power? Create tiny worm holes?
- z3phyr 2y agoSure, create worm holes, travel dimensions and all that
- deadbabe 2y agoIsn’t it kinda dangerous to observe a civilization that has figured out how to know it has been observed and then instantly wormhole their way to us?
- z3phyr 2y agoI mean, Its dangerous to exist in the same space as a potentially advanced aliens. Might as well observe them.
- mr_mitm 2y agoYou cannot create wormholes instantly, their creation is still bound by the speed of light. Also, the energy requirements for wormholes are well above of what one measly star can provide, not to speak of a host of other issues.
- cletus 2y agoThree big possibilities: 1. Interstellar travel: people don't realize just how large the energy budgets are to get to even the nearest stars, even with pure matter-to-energy conversion. This is, of course, the theoretical upper limit of efficiency but we have nothing remotely close to it. Chemical rockets are complete nonstarter becasue of the mass of the fuel makes the entire thing nonviable, even in a theoretical sense, beyond a travel time of hundreds of thousands of years. Even then you need energy to survive so it's unclear if you have enough. So what do you do? Well, if you can reach interstellar speeds without using fuel you've solved so many problems. How do you do that? You focus energy from the Sun onto effectively a solar sail. You still need to slow down at the other end but you get some of this for "free" with resistance from the interstellar medium. 2. Computers. Our ability to utilize extra computing power shouldn't be underestimated. One possibility is virtual worlds. One estimate I've seen is that you need about 10^15 operations/second to simulate a human brain. A Matrioshka Brain (basically a Dyson Swarm that's essentially a giant computer) gets to (IIRC) ~10^80 operations/second. AIs that are basically people could live an entire virtual existence. 3. Weapons. Basically, if you have a Dyson Swarm you could sterilize the galaxy in about 100,000 years if you wanted to with a so-called Nicoll-Dyson Beam. Or use relativistic kill missiles taht are just basically lumps of metal or rock at near light speed.
- deadbabe 2y agoIf human brains are proof you don’t need the energy of a star to do 10^15 operations/second, doesn’t that just mean our understanding of how to build efficient computers is very primitive?
- jjk166 2y agoA human brain consumes approximately 12 Watts. If 10^15 operations per second took 12 watts, 10^80 operations per second would take 10^39 W, which is several orders of magnitude beyond what all the stars in the visible universe combined produce. Using all of the Sun's power at brain level energy efficiency would be equivalent to 10^40 operations per second. Still a quintillion times the combined brainpower of all humans currently alive.
- benhurmarcel 2y agoIf we look at what we use it for, it would probably to power some kind of cryptocurrency speculation scheme, or personal AI generation of ads for neural implants.