Are Dyson Sphere's Realistic? [Analysis]

originally posted by: luthier
a reply to: amazing

There will need be a need to harness energy? There is only so much mechanical work you can do without energy. Don't confuse electronics for forging metal and building machines. There is no more efficient way to get energy than the energy that already exists.

Don't you think these cutting edge physicists and mathmaticians have thought of these things? It's kind of insulting to assume they haven't.

Harnessing energy will most ikely not be irrelevant. Especially with the extreme demand for energy while building in space.

I think you missed the point. With our technology advancing at such a fast rate and with it continuing to advance we wont' have a need for a dyson Sphere, ever. We will still be able to harness energy, from the sun without a huge construct millions of miles in diameter. Imagine how much energy and resources it would take to build a dyson sphere/swarm. Too much. It's not cost, time or resource effective and nor will it every be. We don't have enough resources on earth to build a dyson sphere/swarm.

Yet...we have enough technology right now to power the entire earth and all of our machines with solar energy with existing technology and resources. Imagine how much more energy we'll be able to produce and store in the future just with solar panel technology.

We will never need a Dyson Sphere. It was always a weak Hypothesis.

a reply to: amazing

It was a weak hypothesis? Even though experts in the field believe it?

I think the weak hypothesis is that technology and processing speed will make us less dependent on energy.


Maybe your right though. I am sure all those astrophysicists have never thought of these things. Maybe you should email Tyson and tell him.

Or maybe read a little more on the subject.

a reply to: Navarro
I am no scientist in any way so I am sorry if I am completely off on this one, but...

I have to disagree on this one.. by that time we need a dyson sphere it means we have a way to capture, store and release huge amounts of energy at will.
In order to keep the armor (and resources) needed at a minimum the sphere could be equiped with a (automated) defense system which is capable of spotting the threat, calculate the risk and release some (or all if needed, overkill is the key) of the energy in 1 single beam to completely vaporize the threat.

Although, when I am writing this I realize that the one that has control over the sphere and the defense system rules the world by the threat of using the defense as an offensive strategy..

The clue that just got to me is that as long mankind only does things for their own personal gain and greed, these things will never (be allowed to) happen.

originally posted by: stormcell
Cities on this planet grew as ringworlds around rivers. Having access to freshwater was critical to farming and keeping domestic livestock as well as basic living. Once we started running out of rivers, new reservoirs were built.

Exactly. That is Medieval thinking. The universe doesn't have rivers where we need fresh water. We can make our own, along with livestock. We settled around our power sources in the past because we had to.

So are you just going to be a literal stick in the mud or are out going to strap a little (or huge) version of the sun and fly off into the sky?

(Not that it will happen, anyway. Humanity only has less than 1,000 years left on this planet. Probably not enough time to built it.)

What about the possibility that an advanced civilization created some "grey goo" of which they lost control?

A primitive nanotechnology that is driven to reproduce by converting all available matter into more grey goo, yet powered by solar energy. After completely consuming its planet of origin, it would simply be drifting in space. Once it contacts more matter, perhaps in the form of other planets in its solar system, it would convert that as well.

And maybe gravity, or van der Waals forces, keep these clumps of grey goo together. Over time it seems that a natural structure would form in the shape of a sphere of a single layer of the nanites to make the most efficient use of that solar system's star.

Therefore, the construction of a Dyson's sphere would not the be the conscious effort of an advanced civilization, but the instinctive action of a colony of technologically created space-bugs.


-dex

originally posted by: luthier
a reply to: amazing

It was a weak hypothesis? Even though experts in the field believe it?

I think the weak hypothesis is that technology and processing speed will make us less dependent on energy.


Maybe your right though. I am sure all those astrophysicists have never thought of these things. Maybe you should email Tyson and tell him.

Or maybe read a little more on the subject.

It's okay to criticize a scientific theory when you have a valid point to make.

My point is that they are assuming a few things....like that it's possible to build a structure so big that it sorrounds the sun or blocks a part of it. Especially when there is no need to have that much power. If we took all the resources from all of the planets in our solar system there would not be enough to build a dyson sphere.

I use my analogy of my own solar panels. Installed last year and all ready this year I could replace them with smaller, more efficient panels that could provide twice as much power. Already they can produce 95% of the power of my house. In ten years how much more efficient. In 100 years how much more efficient. In a thousand years how much more efficient?

I would only need a solar panel the size of a postage stamp and battery that size in my garage to power and store energy for my house for years. That's my theory. Now if we had a Billion postage stamp size panels and battery storage units. We would never need any more power...every. That's just one technology. What about power sources we haven't even discovered yet and other technology we haven't even thought of inventing yet.

A dyson sphere/swarm is an old idea that doesn't take into account any other evolving technology.

Potentially, the energy concentrated by the first stages of the project might be used to construct the subsequent stages.

imo, an advanced civilization would have no need for such a device. However, we are talking about concepts that are magnitudes beyond where we are today, so kind of hard to analyze it fully.

A Dyson Sphere type of project would potentially attract attention, but the constructors would know that. Either they have no fear of outsiders....maybe part of a collective....maybe not.

Given that it's a theory we came up with I find it unlikely.

It's like children drawing up blueprints for an aircraft. No not the genius savant children, the normal kind.

it would be in an unstable orbit, we would need some excessively strong material to withstand the forces of something so large under the effect of the suns gravity and extremely prone to damage by small and large asteroids.

as others have said, by the time we solve these we will most likely have other more efficient means of energy.

a reply to: Navarro

I have to disagree with your analysis.

As a few posters pointed out, the Dyson sphere will most certainly be a Dyson swarm. I can imagine a number of satellites probably in a close orbit (more energy per area) producing antimatter.

The main consumers of this antimatter will probably be interstellar spacecraft. Going fast requires wast amounts of energy, and most of energy in a solar system is concentrated in its sun (99.85% of the mass of our solar system).

originally posted by: AndyMayhew
I have never been convinced that Dyson Spheres were likely.

"Culture" Orbitals (Banks) or even a "Ringworld" (Niven) maybe, but when you have the technology to build a Dyson Sphere - even assuming there is enough matter in the system to buid one (not sure the maths add up)! - you surely have the technology for ftl travel and to colonise myriads of other solar systems?

If you have to use all the resources in the system as well as from others what would be the point. By any stretch of the imagination its a waist of resources. The only way I could think of it being practical is in the future when all the stars are dead and life huddles around the last remaining star.

All the pros and cons thus far are Human Earth based 21st century reasoning.

No?


A truly Alien Intelligence on some distant planet within a completely different solar system may have a need to create what they need, however they need it. The Dyson "Sphere" in it's original manifestation seems a bit over the top imho, I'd vote for a Dyson swarm/web of satellites. Like all forms of energy production in our own Earth based history, it could conceivably be a phase in which they have or had, considering the distance we are observing they progressed through and have sine already moved on from, we won't know for a few hundred years.

Creating Nuclear fission? Why bother?

If they are truly that sophisticated they already have the technical means to harvest it, They already have a massive Fission generator that conceivably will last Billions of years with no planetary environmental side effects.

Their Sun.

Quite simply put, the inside of the sphere would cook, how would the inhabitants deal with the charged particles? the eruptions of said particles? the heat? as a poster above observed, damage from asteroids and comets?
How long would it take to build it? where would all that material come from? How many people?beings would it employ? would 'money' be used to pay for it?
The race would possibly be extinct before it was finished!

a reply to: Navarro

Self replicating Robots. You can take it from there.

originally posted by: Blue Shift
I agree. Once you reach a certain level of technology, there's no real need to bother with trying to contain the energy of a star. The universe is your oyster, as it were, and you carry your own stars around with you in the form of fusion generators (trans-dimensional, of you got 'em).

The Dyson Sphere concept was apparently born out of World War isolationism, where virulent imperialism was seen as bad and the best thing a person (or species) could do was hunker down, enjoy and completely control its own backyard.

Fuel, for portable fusion reactions you need fuel...

If you have enormous energy requirements, where will all that fuel come from?

Perhaps you could use a nearby star?

... and there is a reason for technological control of vast areas of the universe. It's because the universe is falling into entropy.

To survive longer, it is imperative that we (or whomever) deferentially collapse the universe.

If we don't do the steps along the way, we don't get there.

a reply to: amazing

A Dyson swarm is NOT an old idea from the past. My god man. Are we saying Realitivity is a thing of the past because it was pre world war 2?

I don't think you are really grasping how much energy is needed for creating space travel.

We aren't talking about powering your microwave oven. We are talking about powering things larger than CERN.

Seriously your thinking far too small. It's not about consumers having lights. It's about travelling that fast and creating energy that can do so.

A Dyson swarm is not just a bunch of solar panels by the way.

a reply to: pikestaff

All those questions and answers are being discussed by astrophysicists and engineers.

One theory is mining mercury and having a robotic space factory closer to the sun. It would be a swarm or band of satellites with replacement satellites for the damaged. With a swarm it is not a solid structure the chances of damage go way down. They also would probably be moveable/powered to propell.

It would also most likely happen over time by creating bands of satellites.

originally posted by: luthier
a reply to: amazing

A Dyson swarm is NOT an old idea from the past. My god man. Are we saying Realitivity is a thing of the past because it was pre world war 2?

I don't think you are really grasping how much energy is needed for creating space travel.

We aren't talking about powering your microwave oven. We are talking about powering things larger than CERN.

Seriously your thinking far too small. It's not about consumers having lights. It's about travelling that fast and creating energy that can do so.

A Dyson swarm is not just a bunch of solar panels by the way.

Understood. My theory is more along the lines that a Dyson Sphere/Swarm is unrealistic and unneeded.

My points on the solar panels is that just that one technology could power everything we would ever need (house, industry, travel) in a century. Imagine all the other advances in wind, geothermal, fussion, fission, hydro electric, battery storage in a thousand years. We'll be way beyond simple combustion engines and inert propellent engines for space travel. There will be advances that we haven't even thought of yet.

My theory is that we will have more than enough power to travel through space build colonies on other planets etc without constructing a dyson sphere. We will be able to harness the power of the sun much more efficiently.

Why do I say efficiently? Because how efficient is it to build a structure bigger than any planet in our solar system? Imagine how many centuries it would take to build, imagine how many solar systems we would have to travel to and strip of every single resource to build, Imagine how many billions upon billions of man hours. Imagine how much energy we would waste constructing a thing we don't even need?

a reply to: amazing

Again it's a swarm of satellites. Constructed in space. With materials from space (probably mercury)

There is nothing more efficient than harnessing energy already available. I don't think you get how much energy is needed to travel and build in space. What would cost more building these technologies on earth and rocketing them up to space or building them close to the source itself.

Again this is something actual experts in the field with all these things you are talking about considered are talking about.

We have been 5 years away from cold fusion for 30 years.

It's been considered mercury would be enough.

originally posted by: luthier
a reply to: amazing

Again it's a swarm of satellites. Constructed in space. With materials from space (probably mercury)

There is nothing more efficient than harnessing energy already available. I don't think you get how much energy is needed to travel and build in space. What would cost more building these technologies on earth and rocketing them up to space or building them close to the source itself.

Again this is something actual experts in the field with all these things you are talking about considered are talking about.

We have been 5 years away from cold fusion for 30 years.

It's been considered mercury would be enough.

But it's not just Satellites that we're talking about. We're talking about a swarm of satellates so massive that it blocks out the sun. Billions of satellites maybe hundreds of billions, maybe a trillion. That's a mind boggling number that defies reality.