3 ms·
Pinnacle of intelligence within the solar system is still pretty likely, even if not in the universe. People forget how brutally hard star flight is if you're n
by andrewflnr 2y ago
Pinnacle of intelligence within the solar system is still pretty likely, even if not in the universe. People forget how brutally hard star flight is if you're not using scifi cheats.
- ben_w 2y agoNobody knows how hard interstellar travel is yet, owing to us not being at that economic level. What we think we know, says that self replicating systems are possible because we are ourselves an example, and that PV and lasers are possible, and that light imparts momentum. All of this suggests that it is possible for a civilisation that only doubles in numbers every 30 years to be able to make a Dyson swarm in 30 * log2(mass of mercury/mass of a minimal human colony and support equipment) years, which even in the most pathologically extreme case for lightweight starting colonies isn't going to be more than 2174.5 years. It appears that with a Dyson swarm, much of the future light cone of the universe can be colonised directly without needing to focus on nearby stars first. But we don't know until we try.