Could you imagine if we explored the Kuiper belt only to find out that it's the remnants of ancient Dyson sphere?

"What we do with all that energy is another matter." I see what you did there!

Destroy planets for resources and energy? *Galactus would like to know your location*

We should cannibalize mercury Mercury: *I dont wanna die, sometimes I wish I'd never been born at all*

3:15 we can get started right away. I got no plans for Saturday, you guys want to go grab us some Molten Iron from mercury?

We will build a wall around the sun and the sun will pay for it! Vote Dyson 2020

Every time I hear “self replicating” I get terrifying StarGate flashbacks

For the record Freeman Dyson's original concept of a Dyson's Sphere was a swarm, the Dyson Shell was based on a misinterpretation of his words and people ran with it. Dyson himself said a solid shell is impossible.

I've learned more from this channel in 1 day than the past 3 years of school...

The solid sphere wasn't his idea. The Sphere idea if his IS the swarm. The Shell was a misinterpretation.

PBS Spacetime video title 10K years in the future ... “Should we destroy our Dyson sphere?”

I feel like achieving type II status is enough reason to build this. It's important to show our type I alien neighbors how much cooler we are compared to them.

And suddenly, future humans are sounding like the evil, planet-destroying, aliens that we are afraid of.

Confused viewer here. Please help. I’m looking for a powerful cordless vacuum that can clean big messes and hard-to-reach places. Should I get the Dyson Sphere, or the Dyson Swarm?

12:12 FINALLY. THANK YOU! I could NEVER find ANYBODY who could explain WHY we couldn't use quantum entanglement as FTL communication; they would ALWAYS default to, "Well, it's just against the rules of information going faster than light!" You ACTUALLY explained that we cannot know which photons are entangled because it's impossible to figure out which photons have the right interference patterns until we compare information from the two screens, which requires separate communication. THANK YOU!

Haha.. love the title question. Sure! Let's build one on Thursday.

Lets build a death star

*"Fermi paradox solved"* is my next t-shirt

2:31 "Dyson's original idea" was not a rigid sphere! He knew damn well that a rigid structure was impossible and never even put the idea forth that it should or could be built that way. Ffs!

So we have 3 victims Mars: who Venus: idk Mercury: its us bro im gonna be the first

Did you just justify Building the Death Star

It's nearly 5 am here, why are you good channels kept me up for whole night?

The problem I have with both this idea and Issac Arthur's (Love his channel) plan for the disassembly of planets, is the tiny problem of gravitational resonance..If Mercury were the only planet in the Solar System, its path around the Sun would stay fixed in space, but according to Newtonian physics, and the fact the Mercury isn’t alone. Not to mention, gravitational interactions with the other Jupiter has it shifting its orbit by 0.15 degrees per century already! This alone may cause the complete loss of, or sterilisation of the Earth, prior to the sun going red giant and consuming the Earth!. In addition, when Einstein famously predicted with his theory of general relativity, the Sun-Mercury attraction also adds another 0.01 degrees per century to Mercury's orbital procession as well. In any case, dismantling Mercury all together could/would cause serious issues for our fragile blue spaceship. 1000's of simulations have been run on various super computers to predict the current movement of Mercury, and the outlook is grim. We may be flung into the sun or into deep space becoming a rouge planet, or we may even switch our orbit with Venus and have our oceans boil off or have Mercury slam into the Earth! Gravitational resonance, is a fickle bitch. This is the reason the Kepler space telescope found so many "hot Jupiter's" so close to their star and has changed the way we think about how solar systems are formed and how rare the one we live in is. In fact, Jupiter's own theoretical migration towards the inner solar system may have been the cause of the late heavy bombardment (bringing water, amino acids and the collision of the planet Thea to glance off the Earth, creating the moon) and maybe just maybe, the only reason life developed on the Earth in the first place. We may have just been a solar system with another hot Jupiter. We were just lucky enough that Saturn followed behind Jupiter, gaining mass as they migrated together toward the inner solar system. Then, when Saturn was just massive enough, it caused what is known as the "grand tack", reversing the direction of the two gas giants and perhaps flipping the orbit of Uranus and Neptune, as well as perturbing Neptune's rotation onto its side. It also put Jupiter in the perfect place to eat up asteroids/comets, giving the earth enough time to allow multi-celled creatures to evolve in the first place. Anyways. I digress. The point I am trying to make is, if we start dismantling planets, the Earth is going to be fucked!!! 99% of the species that have ever existed in earth's history are extinct already. Let's not become a statistic. Perhaps, we should figure out how to stop the current mass extinction event and the warming of our planet we are causing (we are an outbreak species) prior to destroying the only habitual planet we know of by in the observable universe prior to dismantling others...Or maybe I'll just put my tinfoil hat back on.

A Type-IIi civilization is the one capable of harnessing the energy of an entire GALAXY. It would take millenia for humanity to be at that level of development

The Dyson Sphere was always meant to be a swarm, the idea of a solid sphere is just a misunderstanding of what Dyson meant. Also, calling it "partial" or "complete" is kind of arbitrary, it doesn't have to be dense. It's our energy needs that will dictate its density, not having to fully enclose the sun just for the sake of it. Plus if "complete" means collecting all of the energy, before that we'll reach a point of diminishing returns, so we may never complete it.

ah he made a "Achievement Unlocked" joke! He finally said something down at my level!

Love these futurism videos. You should do more.

3:29 Well... Mercury is right there.

Set up a Dyson swarm of mirrors, point them all at a solar sail. You can all thank me in a few million years.

Isaac Arthur is amazing he's done a series on Dyson Sphere and humans in space futurism

Wysession’s a professor at WashU, where I just finished my undergrad. I never took any classes with him, but he taught other sections of lectures I did. Really cool that you’ve got access to the same cool people I do from somewhere else! Technology’s wild, dude

the more I learn, the more I realise how much I don't know

"It's never aliens" Love it.

Do a video about singularity! What it might be, what it could be, etc. The physics behind it. Please!

The best Fermi paradox dilemma explanation - EVER!

Always great to watch these clips

It will cost more than a million schmeckles to build a kugelblitz..

Big problem: if you delete our moon from a solar system simulation, Venus either falls into the sun or gets kicked out of the solar system after around 15,000 years (or so) depending on where the moon was when it was deleted. The solar system is a chaotic system and even a small change like this can have dire consequences. You can't rearrange the masses like this (putting the mass of Venus where Mercury is) without introducing instabilities into the solar system that may, in the long run, destroy the Earth or the entire planetary system. This makes even a Dyson shell less realistic, let alone a Dyson sphere, if you intend to keep the Earth around.

Excellent vid

Always interesting, thank you.

this is just so totally freaking awesome. I wish I would live to see this happening.

"What we do with that energy, is another matter" I see what you did there ;)

A crazy thought crossed my mind. A Dyson ring with an electromagnetic field to direct solar wind plasma to create directional thrust slowly making the whole solar system a space ship.

This is actually interesting, not many things in life interest me anymore so this was cool/awesome great work on that explanation mate!

"industry standard" had me laughing

Cannibalizing planets before we succesfully colonize on another star system to me seems an awfully bad idea...

Well, this is a trip down memory lane to all those hours spent watching Star Trek: the Next Generation. There's an entire episode about a Dyson sphere and they explain the Romulans' engines as working with singularities.

I'm hooked to these videos lol

You had me at "galactic empire" I'm in! :D

What Dyson proposed was not a shell. It was a swarm made up of asteroid sized space habitats. The shell was a later misunderstanding. In fact he so hated the idea of a solid Dyson Shell that later in life he wished he hadn't written his original paper and thus had such a stupid idea pinned to his name. Also, we wouldn't need to leave earth intact were we to tackle Dyson's original idea because we'd have billions of times more living space available in the space habitats orbiting the sun.

Crushed it. Enjoyed that ride.

I dont know what is more entrancing. That guys voice or his beard, truly majestic

I wanted to thank you guys for this video. I never really gave space much thought. Absolutely fascinating to imagine what humanity will accomplish up there.

got a lot of trees to punch before I can unlock that achievement.

Very interesting subject and presentation. Enjoyable and thought provoking. Those eyebrows though!

5:58 - 6:00 I just graduated from DeVry University. One thing that we talked a lot about throughout my time there was nano-tech. Currently we are building and testing them. Overall it's the most beneficial to us. This along with DNA security scans, are 2 of the projects we are working on.

Matt, wouldn't cannibalizing Mercury completely change the gravitational dynamics of the solar system? I mean you can't just pluck out planets from the solar system and have no impact on the orbits of the other planets can you? And what would the implications of that be?

It's a long time away. People like money too mucc

I watched Stargate! Self-replicating robots are never a good idea! :P

My goal in life is to build it But I'm probably just gonna procrastinate till I die

OMG OMG OMG!! New video from PBS Spacetime!! Yay!

This is the smartest sounding caveman ive ever heard.

You had me up until "Fermi Paradox Solved" lol.

"We can cannibalize Mercury." Mercury: "Oh God please No!"

By the way Matt, you said that adding up a sine and cosine wave would give a flat distribution. That will only occur if you change one of the waves' phases; for example, advance the sine wave by 90 degrees forward. Just a small point.

How do you keep a kugelblitz from falling into the core of the planets they are on?

Funny. I am currently working on a music project creating a song for each of the planets and various other objects in the solar system. Each song is accompanied by a science fiction short story, all playing in the year 2134 at the same time. The idea for Mercury was indeed using it as resource base for the creation of dyson swarm panels. This will certainly help with the details, thanks.

Subscribed and hit the bell

sin+cos would still be an interference pattern, but I get what you mean.

Logical person in me screaming "put a solar panel on ur goddamn roof" before talking about dyson sphere.Lets clear lvl zero first.

Damnit I thought this was about a super efficient vacuum cleaner. 🤨

9:41 I died there.

Just FYI, if anyone is interested in these types of concepts like Dyson's sphers, you've gotta check out the channel of 'Isaac Arthur'. That guy has loads of stuff like this on his channel which is presented in a very nice way. Btw. I'm in no way affiliated with the channel aside from being a big fan.

Screw Venus and Mars. What did they ever do for us?

Good! 🔥

Build a Dyson sphere, try to build a Kuglelbliz in Venus *goes wrong* Fermi Paradox: *took long enough*

if this subject interests you I strongly suggest that you visit Isaac Arthur's channel.. well worth giving a listen too

I've been thinking about the Dyson Sphere after seeing one on the Star Trek TNG episode Relics

Let’s start with small things, like repaving a intersection under 2 years first.

"It's never aliens" Sadder, yet truer words were never spoken. Turns out, that dimming star was due to space-dust...

Freaking awesome! I wish I could live long enough to see our future space-based projects

Now, human built LCH, biggest scientific equipment ever. 100 years later, human will build the 1st Dyson swarm satellite by excavating Mercury. 200 years later, human will build the 1st Kugelblitzes around Jupiter's orbit, starting of type 3 civilization. 300 years later, Star Wars was a story.

Matt O'Dowd NASA should hire you to be their think tank. You've blown my mind again.

What's the background image where you are standing at 11:00 in called? Thanks! Superb content, absolutely love the presentation and everything. 10/10.

A Dyson Swarm sounds much much more realistic than expecting a civilization to be able to focus 10% of a star's output into a space 100 times smaller than an atomic nucleus.

Any one not comfortable with building a power source that has the potential to destroy our solar system?

James Dyson is already working on it you will be able to buy one in Argos soon. It will hoover your carpet's a treat.

Who here from Kurzgesagt?

At that point in time, a civilization would have fusion figured out. Why would you need to bother with a single huge unmovable star, when you can create as many small stars as you like?

Stop squinting your eyes at me.. It's scary.

Genuine question: even though Mercury is small, removing it (or sufficiently reducing its mass)=> wouldn't that risk changing the orbits of the planets including a planet known as... Earth?

Thanks! It's never aliens, until every other explanation has been exhausted - and then it's *_still_* not aliens. Not until we shake their hands (or whatever they've got...) :o) tavi.

Isn't a 100% efficient engine impossible on thermodynamic grounds?

Matt, even though having a swarm of giant-arse mazers would be friggin _awesome_ ... i gotta say that the start of the video you are right on: *we don't know how the energy needs of advanced civs evolve* . My bet is that exponential growth and energy consumption is a long term _problem_ and must be dealt with/curbed naturally, if the civ is to last on, say, geologic scales. If we go digital and microscopic/nanotech, and our population growth stops being exponential (as developed world models imply may happen naturally anyway), our energy needs may even be substantially _lower_ in the future. The Kardashev scale is a product of colonial, expansionist thinking of the industrial era of the 19-20th centuries. It may not be a thing for those ET who found a way to coexist with their environments on cosmic scales. Perhaps we might be better off pursuing those avenues of progress.

Nested 'Ringworlds' like Larry Nivens Sci-Fi classic.

In one of your other videos you say that life can be described in terms of entropy (life is a local dip in entropy, an increase in organization, that contributes to an overall increase in entropy), I'd say the same is true for civilization: there is probably an upper limit to the local decrease in entropy that it represents, ultimately bound by the amount it can contribute to the overall increase in entropy in the larger thermodynamics of our planet and the surrounding space. This is expressed within the civilization by its internal contradictions: civilizations are not unitary entities, but rather they consist of different actors (classes, individuals etc) with contradictory interests that compete for access to resources that can sustain them. As a result, a dyson sphere will never be built, because it would require unitary action by all of these disparate interests for the gain of none of them in particular (or in entropic terms: the dyson sphere would represent a larger dip in entropy than what can be sustainably dissipated in the larger system, through the consumption of resources and the effort of individuals).

"Sound over the top? It's totally nuts! But, it's totally doable." Dude! Stop giving ideas to evil masterminds! :D

I heard that if you can get all the people on the Earth to pray to God for one week, you will earn enough favour for Him to grant us one Kugelblitz for free. This could get us started, I'll contact the Pope to see if we can get this thing organized. Praise Google!

We should absolutely build one. A dyson swarm is such a versatile megastructure, you can do a lot more with it than just generate stupid amounts of power. You can also use them for star lifting, the process of extracting material directly from a star and using various nuclear processes to convert the collective material into more useful elements.

Yes. Next question? (now watching the video, as is mentioned elsewhere in the comments, the shells are not rigid structures in Dyson's paper)