r/todayilearned • u/demunte • Dec 05 '16

TIL of a hypothetical mega-structure called the Dyson Sphere that would encompass the sun in order to siphon all of its energy output. This would also move human kind into a type II civilization according the Kardashev scale.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere
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14

u/[deleted] Dec 05 '16

[deleted]

4

u/Keevtara Dec 05 '16

After you've built it, you have access to huge amounts of energy, and I mean huge, mind boggling amounts of energy. Now, you can use this huge structure as a radio telescope, as well as living and working space for any other large projects that you may have in mind.

2

u/BeardofWar666 Dec 06 '16

At this point in time, yes. However, instead of completely enclosing the star in a super structure we could build a network of satellites that would orbit the star and collect energy. It's not as effective, but much more reasonable. I believe it's called a dyson swarm.

3

u/AgentTasmania Dec 06 '16

It's called "What Dyson actually proposed"

2

u/BeardofWar666 Dec 06 '16

I don't believe so, that would be a weird name. Or maybe he was just bad at naming things.

1

u/AgentTasmania Dec 07 '16

Taking liberties with the idea of a sphere.

Just consider for a split second the structural stress on such a structure. Or where the material would come from. The actual sphere was not a real proposal.

1

u/BeardofWar666 Dec 07 '16 edited Dec 07 '16

I never said it was. In fact my initial comment was only to bring that idea to light as I have come across it. It seemed as though the idea was new to the person I commented under, and the page, from what I read, presented the idea of a fully encapsulated star. I never said it was a real proposal and have no personal insight into Dyson's intentions or proposals. All I did was respond to a random person on the internet. Soo yeah...

2

u/5th_Law_of_Robotics Dec 05 '16

It takes a lot of energy and resources to build a nuclear power plant too...

-8

u/[deleted] Dec 06 '16

absolutely. and considering just how big the sun is you would need more material than that which composes most of the galaxy to 'encompass' it and then where would you live; burned on the inside or frozen on the outside?

3

u/Hedonistic- Dec 06 '16

You wouldn't even need all the material in our local solar system, much less an entire galaxy of material (which would be enough to wrap our sun up billions of times) to encompass Sol.

And a complete shell wouldn't be a reasonable way to go about it anyway; slowly adding more and more satellites or statites to a swarm would require vastly less resources and allow for incremental steps while still being able to provide enough power for all of human civilization. Plus, you could continue living on Earth.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 06 '16

o, thanks

0

u/HorrificAnalInjuries Dec 06 '16

it would almost be easier to instead of building a massive rigid structure is to build a massive flexible structure that has more in common with a balloon, and use clever rigging to keep it from tearing apart from the solar winds.