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Human history is told by the energy we use. At first we had to use our muscles, then we learned to control fire.
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We industrialized the world using coal and oil and entered the Atomic Age when we learned how to split a nucleus.
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At each step, we increased our energy harvest to a scale never seen before and advanced as a species.
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Currently, we're slowly transitioning to renewables and if we're lucky, fusion energy will become viable in the future.
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As humanity progresses further, if we don't destroy ourselves or our habitat,
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we will likely gain complete control of our planet's resources.
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At that stage we'll probably begin to look outwards for new places to expand into.
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But space is hard and establishing a serious human presence in the solar system will require
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ungodly amounts of energy.
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Luckily, we know where to find it. The Sun - the ultimate source of energy.
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A furnace 100 quintillion times more powerful than our most efficient nuclear reactor.
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It shines with the energy of a trillion nuclear bombs per second.
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So, how do we get this energy? Not some of it, all of it.
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If we want to collect the most energy physically possible, we'll have to build the largest most
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ambitious structure in the universe.
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The Dyson Sphere, a megastructure that encompasses a whole star to capture its power output.
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For an intelligent species, building a Dyson Sphere is a technological leap on a par with the discovery of fire for our ancestors.
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The transition from a planetary species to an interstellar species. It would usher in an age of exploration and
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expansion on a scale we can barely imagine.
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So, what would it look like?
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Solid shell enveloping the Sun is probably not the way to go a large rigid body like that would be vulnerable to impacts
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possibly shattering it would be liable to drift and could crash straight into the Sun a
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More, viable design for a Dyson Sphere might be a Dyson swarm an enormous set of orbiting panels that collect the sun's power and
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beam it elsewhere
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such as sward would give humanity basically unlimited energy but building it won't be easy
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the Sun is very big so we need a lot of satellites if
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Each satellite is a square kilometer we'd need around 30 quadrillion to surround the Sun
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even if they're built as lightly as possible we need about 100 quintillion tons of material and
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Then we need the energy to actually put the parts together and deliver them to their positions around the Sun on
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top of all that we need to have a permanent infrastructure set up in space to start building
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let's assume for the purposes of this video that our descendants will take care of that and want to create the mega structure
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We can sort the challenges into three main categories
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materials design and energy
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To get the vast amounts of raw materials required for our Dyson swarm will have to largely disassemble a whole planet
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Of the planets available mercury is the best candidate it's the closest to the Sun and very metal-rich
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close to the Sun
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also
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Means less moving stuff around and mercury has no atmosphere and only about a third of the surface gravity of Earth making it
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comparatively easy to launch material into space
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Next we should consider the design of our swarm simpler is better
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Conventional solar panels are far too intricate and short lives our satellites need to operate without repairs or intervention for
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astronomically long times and they need to be cheap to produce
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But they're most likely going to be enormous mirrors
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which refocus sunlight to central collecting stations like in concentrated solar power on earth
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to build and launch them efficiently they must be incredibly light made of little more than polished metal full bound to some supports and
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Last we need the energy to build and launch the swarm itself taking a part of planets and launching things into space
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requires an enormous amount of energy for example if we used all the fossil fuels and
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Uranium on earth and we?
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Were perfectly efficient we could only launch as much
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Mass as Mount Everest into space a rather meager accomplishment compared to planetary disassembly
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To get the energy needed to build a Dyson Sphere it's almost as if you're going to need the power output of a dyson sphere
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But that's. Ok there's plenty of sunlight to be had on Mercury so let's get to work
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Humans are expensive to keep alive and are very sensitive to the environment
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So, we'd want to automate as much as possible
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Ideally we'd have a small crew of controllers who oversee an army of autonomous machines doing the actual work
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There are four major pieces of technology required solar collectors miners refiners and launch equipment
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the solar collectors are going to give us the energy we need to disassemble the planet
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To start maybe we deploy something like one square kilometer of them either as mirrors or as traditional solar panels
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they'll provide the energy to run our miners which strip-mine the surface of the planet and our refiners which extract valuable elements and
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fabricate them into our swarm satellites
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to get them into space we need a creative and efficient solution
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Rockets aren't too expensive and difficult to deorbit and reuse
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Instead, we'll want to use a sort of railgun a longer
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Electromagnetic track which launches our satellites at high speeds
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Our swarm satellites will be packed tight for launch unfurling like an enormous origami once in orbit
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from this point we can take advantage of
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exponential growth using the energy of the existing parts of the swarm to build more infrastructure on Mercury and launch new panels faster and faster
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each panel provides the energy to build another those to work together to build the next to
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Four become eight eight become 16 and so on
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within just about 60 doubling times the Sun would be completely surrounded by solar panels and
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This can happen quickly if a square kilometer of solar collectors takes a month to build we could be done in a decade
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if only our infrastructure on the planet's surface can keep up with the quickly growing budget of energy
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Even collecting 1% of the sun's energy is an unbelievable change in our species energy budget
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We could create the infrastructure to being basically unlimited amounts of energy around the solar system for all sorts of projects
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colonies on other worlds terraforming planets
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constructing more mega structures or even traveling to other stars it could be the start of an interstellar
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Civilization based on physics alone this is not just possible but easy
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It's such a simple process and such a necessary step for any species to expand beyond their home planet that many astronomers
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Think there are probably Dyson spheres already out there in the Milky Way we haven't spotted any yet but they could be there
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it's far from certain that humanity will ever get to this point our attention is too often focused on short-term political gains and
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Conflicts that will not matter in the long run but if we survive the challenges we've set ourselves
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we could potentially become the first species in the universe to create a structure with the scope of a star if
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We? Do it the only limitation left will be our own
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imagination
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We've just hit you with a lot of pretty wild claims and crazy concepts if
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You're like us and enjoy using the power of science to determine absurd ways to destroy stuff
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you might want to hear how you can come up with something like that yourself
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Brilliant is a problem-solving website that helps you learn stuff through fun puzzles that split up a complex problem into bite-sized chunks and
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build up to an interesting conclusion
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It helps you understand how science works by actually using it instead of just memorizing a bunch of stuff
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brilliance has tons of interesting courses and puzzles on things like quantum computing astronomy and logic and even dyson sphere's if
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you visit brilliant org slash nutshell
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Or click the link in the description you can sign up for free and learn all kinds of things as
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A bonus for cooks without viewers the first 688 people will, also get 20% off their annual membership
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with brilliance you can finish each stay a little bit smarter and
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Just maybe you can help to expand the human species into the universe one day
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We love dyson sphere's so much that we've also made a poster about them
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it will look pretty on your wall but
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Also has some information about the concept of a Dyson Sphere a great way to start a conversation
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Or you can just stare at it and dream about the future
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go get it here11865
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