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/sci/ - Science & Math

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2217829 No.2217829 [Reply] [Original]

The answer to humanity's energy problem: build a Dyson sphere made of graphene constructed by self replicating nanobots. This would require dismantling a few planets, and would start off very slow but would accelerate due to exponential growth. We could then absorb all the sun's energy and build I dunno, a giant frikken laser to fend off aliens or sum shet...

>> No.2217841

Solar power is a dead end, fuck that.

>> No.2217847

>>2217841
10/10

>> No.2217858

>build a Dyson sphere

Yeah good luck with that

>> No.2217862

>>2217841
solar power gathered from earth, yes. Solar power from the entire sun is > anything we could ever produce on earth.

>> No.2217872

>>2217858
we're not the ones building it, preprogrammed nanobots would

>> No.2217893

>>2217841
Agreed

>> No.2217917

Where do you plan on building this dyson sphere so it isn't raped out of position by the solar wind or jupiter's gravity? If the sun isn't dead fucking center, it's pretty much going to get fucked up.

>> No.2217923

>>2217872
>implying you're the first one to think of this
>implying you have any grasp of how complex nanbots wilkl have to be to accomplish this shit
>fucking technology how does it work
last time I checked, we aren't a class III civilization. tell us your grand plans in 1000 years or so, babby.

>> No.2217934

>implying it wouldn't fuck up the day/night cycle

>> No.2217942

>>2217923
You mean class II

Class III is galactic

>> No.2217944

>>2217923
I'm from the future bitch

>> No.2217947

close, Op, close...
>pour money into cognitive neuroscience research
>make AI
>AI evolves exponentially
>assimilates all matter
>has enough matter to make itself infinitely intelligent
>find ultimate truth
>become andrew hussie

>> No.2217952
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2217952

>>2217841
>implying fossil fuels are not stored solar power

>> No.2217953

That's only a short-term answer. The sun will only last for a few billion years, and it will start expanding before it dies (thus destroying the Dyson sphere, unless it expands as well). What we need is a real solution.

I propose that we build a computer system to ponder the last question man will ever need to ask: How can the net amount of entropy of the universe be massively decreased?

>> No.2217955

>>2217917
In the lagrange point between mars and saturn, Jupiter would be dismatled.

>> No.2217961

>>2217953
yeah until reaching to the point we can construct Dyson Sphere's we have some more immidiate energy subjects to overcome

>> No.2217962

>>2217953
basically this and this
>>2217947
/thread. now go back to your middle school, OP. You probably have homework to do.

>> No.2217963

>>2217934
this sphere would encompass the orbit of the earth.

>> No.2217970

>>2217953
a few billion years is short term? *facepalm

>> No.2217972

>>2217963
Holy fuck, man. That's gonna be a little more than a "few" planets.

>> No.2217974

>>2217947
borgs+evangelion
nice

>> No.2217985

>>2217970
Compared to eternity? Compared to the lifetime of the universe as a whole? Yes.

>> No.2218011

>>2217972
Most or all of the solar system would need to be disassembled to provide the material for a solid Dyson shell. Of course, we could always use a Dyson net instead, or simply use a nodal system. Essentially, we could surround Sol with "plates" providing a livable surface (each could be a great deal larger than the surface area of the Earth), and connect these plates with a thin web consisting mostly or entirely of solar collectors. This would vastly reduce materials requirements while maintaining energy capture potential, not to mention living space.

Alternatively, we could harvest the planets from other systems (without FTL this would take a good deal of time, but Dyson-level construction projects are not quick), or collect material from the sun itself.

>> No.2218018

>>2218011
can't we just colonize other solar systems?

the fucking milky way is full of those

>> No.2218047

>>2218018
Yes, and ideally we would, eventually, enclose all of the galaxy's stars (less one or two for construction mass, if necessary) in Dyson units of some kind.

>> No.2218059

>>2217972
The graphene material would be very thin, on the order of nanometers, we're not talking about conventional pv cells.

>> No.2218073

>>2217985
fossil fuels will run out in a few hundred years given out pop growth is steady, if we can buy ourselves a few billion years of energy from the entire output of the sun we could move to another system in the meantime.

>> No.2218096

>>2218073
And in those few billion years, all of the other stars in the galaxy would be burning down as well.

>> No.2218113

>>2218011
how could we collect material from the sun??
even if we could this sounds like a bad idea

>> No.2218123

>>2218096
Then you start throwing stuff into black holes causing accretion. Throwing hydrogen into accretion disks releases like 10 times more energy then fusion.

>> No.2218132

>>2218123
What happens when you run out of stuff?

>> No.2218134

>>2218096
wrong, those stars would nova and create new stars, the universe's recycling process. Besides, there are some small stars that are going to be stable for 100 + billion years.

>> No.2218144

>>2218132
Try to tap into dark energy/matter? only 4% of universe is like normal stuff so we should still have plenty energy left.

>> No.2218154

>>2218134
And what happens when those stars burn out?

>> No.2218206

>>2218154
the heat death of the universe; nothing we can do about that unless we figure out a way to travel to another one.

>> No.2218237

>>2218206
Or find a way to reverse entropy, as suggested.

>> No.2218312

>>2217953
You clearly do not understand what is entropy

>> No.2218329

ITT: People whose knowledge of science is a step above pop-sci nutjobbery who think Dyson Spheres are solid shells and that nanotechnology == "hurr durr self-replicating nanobots hurr durr waste heat what waste heat?"

>> No.2218338

>>2218329 solid spehere

But that's what it was is the TNG episode with Scotty!

>> No.2218346
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2218346

>>2218338

Wasn't that the episode written by Charles Pellegrino? Titled "Dyson Sphere"?

>> No.2218359

>>2218346
Actually it was called "Relics" and was written by Roland Moore, of Battlestar Galactica fame.

>> No.2218361

>>2218359

Oh well, what can one do.

>> No.2218446

>>2218312
And you've never read Asimov, apparently.

>> No.2218500
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2218500

>>2218073
>fossil fuels will run out in a few hundred years

More like fossil fuels will run out in a few decades, at which point industrial civilization will collapse triggering a second medieval age.

>> No.2218503

>>2218500
>ignore wall of text in image
>read bottom line
Nope, day isn't ruined, I feel just fine!

>> No.2218515

yeah here's your solution: suck on twenty dicks a day

>> No.2218536

>>2218500
Nope. The oil may run out, but there's plenty of coal.

Enjoy your steam truck.

>> No.2218557
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2218557

>mfw we have a nuclear fusion reactor larger than we can imagine near enough to give us functionally limitless energy for the foreseeable future, but instead we burn old swamps.

>> No.2218705

>>2217953
"THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."

>> No.2218746

>>2217829
and how exactly do you plan to transfer the energy to places it's needed once you have collected it?

>> No.2218759

>>2218500
Commercializing algal biofuels down to competitive prices will allow us to produce tons of synthetic oil to supply our current petroleum-based infrastructure. We just need to commercialize the current algae that produces clean burning biofuel for gasoline engines. This technology will inevitably get more attention and investment as oil production decreases.

Stop panicking as one of the defeated.

>> No.2218761

>>2218557
Seriously. fucking. this.

How we thought burning dead things was a better idea than using the same method that allowed plant life to practically blanket the entire goddamn world will forever be a goddamn mystery.

>> No.2218764

>>2218746
Microwaves, bro.

>> No.2218768
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2218768

This thread sparked a thought.
I'll probably go full retard here, but if many advanced alien civilizations have built Dyson spheres wouldn't that explain why there seems to be so much gravity in our universe? I mean other than the traditional dark matter explanation. Perhaps far more stars that we simply can't detect.

>> No.2218782

>>2218768
not bad. perhaps nasa can use their magic to test for evidence of large stuctures like this.

>> No.2218791

>>2218557
>>2218761

Oil currently produces more energy than solar does, at a lower cost. There's your explanation. Economies don't plan for the future, they expect infinite growth and infinite resources.

>> No.2220169

>>2218768

... But the MASS for the Dysons has to come from somewhere I mean Jesus I know you smoke but it's starting to mess with your mind.

>> No.2220172
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2220172

>>2220169
Perhaps there was a lot more iron and rock then we thought. I dunno. Was just a thought.

>> No.2220195

>self replicating nanobots
The moment these are created I'm killing myself

>> No.2220206

you are starting the house by the roof op

>> No.2220221

>>2218768
You just blew my mind.

>> No.2220249

>>2220169
Anotherfag here, what if some of the stars were dismantled to build the spheres around the other stars?

What if E.T life really is super-abundant all around us?
But the majority of life is based on other elements than what we are.

All this would mean that the yellow dwarf stars that WE though would be perfect for harboring life are actually the DREGS and LEFT-OVERS that no other species wanted and was thus left uncocooned. Maybe Sol was too insignificant to even use as the raw-material to build dyson-shells out of.

There could be a trillion cocooned stars in this galaxy alone, accounting for the over-abundance of "dark matter".

>> No.2220272

>>2218768
OH SH-

>> No.2220295

>>2220221
>>2220272

You can't actually take this seriously.

The MASS for the DYSON SPHERES doesn't come from NOWHERE. Jesus Christ.

>> No.2220306
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2220306

>>2220295
The implication is that there is far more matter than originally thought.
But still, just a theory (a guess)

>> No.2220322

>>2220295
But we can't notice this mass. Do you think that mass of the universe is defined by weighting it?

>> No.2220332

>>2220295
the point is that where the should be a star or the remnants of a star we observe nothing (because dyson sphere absorbs its light) and misassign it as dark matter

>> No.2220354

except a solid shell dyson sphere wouldn't be linked by gravity to the star.

>> No.2220373

I also had the Dyson sphere = dark matter idea, but if 2 people on 4chan could come up with it, somebody at nasa or somewhere probably already thought of it too.

>> No.2220393

>>2220373
Or maybe not, cause if you know anything about astrophysics you know that dark matter is not baryonic(stuff made of protons and neutons etc)

>> No.2220395
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2220395

>>2220373
I believe there is already a plan for analyzing Dyson sphere-like objects in the cosmos.

>> No.2220397

>>2220322

What are you implying? That non-baryonic mass can be used to make a Dyson sphere?

( ._.)

>> No.2220406
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2220406

>>2220397
Ah, but there is. If you think like a Vegan.

Who knows how advanced their technology can be.

>> No.2220415

>>2218768
The dark matter we observe doesn't behave like baryonic matter (i.e. mostly atom nucleai). That's the whole point of 'missing mass'.

>> No.2220436

>>2220415
How can they predict the structure of matter that fara way when it can only be seen by it's gravitational effects?

>> No.2220437

>>2220393
the reason its thought to be non-baryonic is to explain why its "dark", but dyson spheres explain that so there is no need for it to be non-baryonic

>> No.2220444

Use Dyson sphere to power super computer you have uploaded yourself.

Build more Dyson computers and link up with them.

Solve all mysteries, become omnipotent.

>> No.2220453

>>2220406
meat IS required for a healthy diet whether you like it or not fucktard

>> No.2220457

>>2220444
"link up with them" you do realize stars are generally situated more than a mere block or two apart from eachother? A more reasonable method would be dyson spheres beaming energy to one fuckhuge computer.

>> No.2220458

>>2220437
No its not.

>> No.2220460

>>2220415
how could we know what invisble matter is made of or not made of? All we know is that there is too much gravity given the visible stuff we see, hence making alien dyson spheres a possibility.

>> No.2220463

>>2220397
no

It is implyed that you are a stupid furfag.

putting ad hominoidems aside

I never implied that Dyson spheres are made from non-baryonic mass. Just that we measure the total mass of the universe and where gravity indicates that there should be a shitload of (bright) stars we don't see shit captain and say "oh it must be dark matter" when it actually is normal matter and aliens just nom their delicious electromagnetic radiation.

>> No.2220464

>>2220457

Link up with wormholes. Or perhaps quantum mechanics. IDK.

Having multiple computers is more failsafe..

>> No.2220467
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2220467

>>2220453
Have you NEVER watched Contact?
What the FUCK

>> No.2220468

>>2220460
>>2220436
The DM isn't clumped like baryonic matter (stars, star clusters etc.). It's mucj more spread thin in galaxies and intergalactic space. We can see that from its gravitational effects.

>> No.2220472

>>2220458
>its not the reason its thought to be non-baryonic
>its not thought to be non-baryonic
>its not non-baryonic
>its not to explain why its "dark"
>its not "dark"
>dyson spheres dont explain that
OR
>there is still a need for it to be non-baryonic
please specify instead of just saying its wrong.

>> No.2220474

>>2220468

bish bash bosh google WIMPS cock sucker. Minimum dimensions for dark matter 'clumps' is huge

>> No.2220477

>>2220468
Planet sized objects and interstellar gas wouldn't work either. Their effects on gravitation are different.

>> No.2220479
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2220479

>>2220467
>mfw

>> No.2220483

>>2220460
lemme quote:
Primordial nucleosynthesis and observational limits on the present day deuterium abundance gives a limit on the baryon content of about 4%.

>> No.2220484

>>2220373
execept that bringing up the possibily of super intelligent aliens is career suicide for any scientist. Looking for dyson speheres seems more like a job for SETI rather than NASA, although I have no idea how you would go about looking for these things.

>> No.2220486

>>2220474
Yeah, but WIMPs are weakly interacting and thus can't produce complex structures like life.

>> No.2220490

wouldn't a supper intelligent sifilaization be able to take the non-baryonic matter, take all the energy from the dyson spheres, some anti-non-baryonic matter, put it all together and produce sum baryonic matter and anti-baryonic matter, then procede to build a new dyson sphere and a anti dyson sphere rendering the past 20 posts useless?

>> No.2220495

>>2220490
what you said doesnt make sense

>> No.2220499

>>2220490
My point was, that the DM can't be aliens. So 96% of the mass of the universe can't be alien super tech.

>> No.2220525

>>2220495
take a electron (non-barionic), take a anti electron(non-barionic), smash it together with the amount of energy needed to propose a proton and anti-proton, use the proton to build a dyson sphere, use the anti-proton to make a another dyson sphere

>> No.2220533

>>2220468
in a galaxy of 100s of billions of stars I'm sure it WOULD look spread out

>> No.2220567

>>2220499
DM is about 23% of matter, dark energy not included, and 23% does not seem too unreasonable for a universe infested with von neumann probes

>> No.2220569

>>2217829
This post is the EPITOME of pop-sci.
10/10

ReCaptcha: Bliss Boning

>> No.2220570

>>2220533
Our current theories of DM indeed don't exclude some exotic long distance interactions between DM particles. This would probably allow gigantic (galaxy sized or much bigger?) DM solar systems with DM life and all. All I'm saying it's not in the scale, that we could really interact with it.

>> No.2220586

All you "dark matter is aliens" fags should look up the Bullet Cluster.

Really. You have no idea what the current knowledge about dark matter is. It can become separated from colliding galaxies, en masse.

>> No.2220590

>>2220567
Doesn't seem unreasonable? Our observations of the rotation curves of our own galaxy and all other galaxies exclude this 'infestation'. There would simply be too much baryonic matter.

>> No.2220592

ITT: Invisible Dysons make up the missing matter of the universe.

You idiots, Dyson spheres radiate waste heat. They RADIATE. A Dysoned star would be bright in the infrared, moreover, it would not be a solid shell because it physically can't, regardless of how much tensile strength you conjure up from the aether.

There would be gaps. And even if there weren't it would still radiate. Fucking pop-sci.

>> No.2220600

>>2220592
FIX
>You idiots, really fucking inefficient Dyson spheres radiate waste heat.

>> No.2220602

Dark matter is niggers.

They are black, space is black, you can't fucking see them.

QED

>> No.2220604

>>2220600
>HURDURR 100% EFFICIENCY IS THERMODYNAMICALLY POSSIBLE
You can't even capture all the waste heat and turn it into work. It's impossible. Really.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnot_heat_engine#Carnot.27s_theorem

>> No.2220607

Ringworld is practical, Dyson sphere is ridiculous.

>> No.2220609

Any other intelligence in the galaxy is going to notice if Sol just suddenly disappears from their skies.

>> No.2220611

>>2220604
>HURRDURR efficient enough to be undetectable from Earth is impossible.
Of course, they might have better tech than us.

>> No.2220613

>>2220611

Even if they had 99.999999999% efficiency photovoltaics the waste heat would be enourmous.

>> No.2220621

>>2220613
what are we even sacrificing though?

>> No.2220618 [DELETED] 

>>2220604
>You can't even capture all the waste heat
>all the waste heat
>all
All? But as any fewl no: 99.999% =/= 100%

>> No.2220623

>>2220609
In a few hundred/thousand more years, generally.

>> No.2220625

>>2220621
what?

>> No.2220628

>>2220625
jew fired steam engines are the way to go

>> No.2220630

>>2220628

Now that's what we call hitting two birds with one stone. ;)

>> No.2220635

>>2220613
Not to mention the fact that all their applications for power would have to be just as efficient, or you dump all the energy to waste heat anyway.

>> No.2220638
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2220638

>>2220635

This.

Finally some rational responses, thank you fine sir.

>> No.2220649

>>2220635
>Of course, they might have better tech than us.

>> No.2220659

>>2220649
You have never, EVER taken a class that taught thermodynamics. I already linked the Carnot cycle earlier - it's the theoretical maximum efficiency of a heat engine. It has more widespread implications than you think.

>> No.2220660

>>2220649

Even if they had molecular nano and superconductors, the amount of power handler and the amount of things they would do with it would produce enough waste heat to make the thing visible, more or less as bright as a brown dwarf and probably brighter.

Then anyone looking at it would realize that this glow is distributed over a huge radius and doesn't belong to a nebula (Too defined) or a brown dwarf (Too big), so your perfectly stealthy Dyson Sphere is suddenly visible to any species that can build an infrared telescope on the far side of their Moon.

>> No.2220674

>>2220659
Of course, they might have better science than us.

>> No.2220675

>>2220638
>implying implications
None of these reasons make the dyson-shelled dark matter impossible.

If you people haven't realized why, you need to read more about the distribution of dark matter and some of the above posts.

>> No.2220678

why does it matter that it wouldn't be 100% efficient? it's not like it's costing us anything to leave the sun running.

>> No.2220682

>>2220678

It's because the 0.001% inefficiency would mean radiated heat, so much for "hurr invisible" Dysons.

>> No.2220685

>>2220660
Just a good 100,000 lightyears of galaxy between us and the far side though. could be hundreds by now and we wont know about it for a good long time.

>> No.2220690

>>2220675
No, of course not. The impossibility, or at least extreme impracticality, of Dyson Spheres is purely based in material properties.

You'd just build a Dyson Swarm or Dyson Bubble instead.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere#Dyson_swarm

>> No.2220692

>>2220675
Bullet Cluster.

>> No.2220696

>>2220690
how could you get that shit to maintain spherical positions? you'd have to do a ring or it's just retardedly impractical

>> No.2220703

>>2220613
so with our current means we detect 100% of EM radiation of stars as predicted by the reverse square law?
/endsarcasm

>> No.2220705

>>2220682
>"invisible TO US" Dysons.
do keep up, double-oh-hurrdurr

>> No.2220716

>>2220703
INVERSE square, genius.

>> No.2220721
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2220721

>>2220696
>>2220705
>>2220703

>> No.2220724

>>2220696
The "swarm" is orbiting satellites, and the "bubble" is statites supported by radiation pressure.

The swarm is practical. The bubble needs very low areal mass densities. The shell needs unreal tensile strength. Graphene-based materials might cut it for the bubble, but not for the shell.

>> No.2220732

>>2220716
>implying everyone with a uni/high school education is natural english speaker

sorry I did not have to translate all my notebooks in english, bro

>> No.2220736

>>2220732
np, then.

>> No.2220742

>>2220724
Read:
Dyson Sphere: one solid object enclosing a star
Dyson Shell: a swarm of statites/orbiters

>> No.2220746

>>2220736
btw sice you were nice I'll grammernazi myself

>so with our current means we detect 100% of EM radiation of stars AS predicted by the reverse square law?
>as
it fucks up the context of what I wanted to say since it implies that with the inverse square law we expect to detect 100% of stars radiation

when I meant:
>so with our current means we detect 100% of EM radiation of stars predicted by the inverse square law?

>> No.2220750
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2220750

>>2220742

It's the other way around (Or was that what you were saying?)

>> No.2220756

>>2220742
I disagree on the "shell" term. You're referring to a swarm and bubble (or pick other terms), but not a shell.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere#Dyson_shell

>> No.2220785

>>2220746
wtf is grammer?

>> No.2220845

>>2220785
some sort of irony or self-sarcasm?