Great World Visualization

[curingaging00]

Im working on a story through painting and drawing which has a "Dysons sphere" the size of earth or Mar's orbit in it and this information would definitely be a help.

What is truly amazing is that if a project, more should I say WHEN a project like this becomes a reality, it would increase the carrying capacity of a civilization by a factor of the billions depending how large it is.

I also wonder how long would it take for an alian civilization to complete.

[deepskyfrontier]

@curingaging00 I wish you endless inspiration in pursuit of your project. When I started working with this object in fiction, I treated it as a whole. I've since become more interested the "small story" that takes place on an "endless world"- often lasting hundreds or 1ks of years. Btw, GW is based on the idea that, in order to go the distance, any civilization capable of doing so must immediately sequester all others that might one day do the same to them. It's actually a "prison for cousins."

[deepskyfrontier]

@curingaging00 As for how long, this version takes 10,000 years to build- most of which is spent gathering and transporting the materials across interstellar distances- in the form of a thousand habitable mini-GWs that are being finished and populated en route. In fact, the GW presented in the video is actually one of these 1/1000th scale mini's. Otherwise, you couldn't see individual continents!

[deepskyfrontier]

@curingaging00 And thank you for the great questions! It's a fun little thought experiment and I always appreciate a chance to revisit it.

[curingaging00]

How many Earth masses would a dysons sphere which would extend towards Mar's orbit need? And would it need to be made out of a super strong material such as Grafine or carbon nanotubes.

[deepskyfrontier]

@curingaging00 An verage specific gravity of 3 and an average material thickness of 3km, then it would mass in at around 5.6e30 kg, ~735 earths. It's safe to say that there's no possible baryonic matter strong enough to stand up to the stresses involved. So, while it would use lots of exotic carbon for local structure, the major load moments are managed by manipulating spacetime topology on the quantum scale and exploiting the nuclear strong force over vast distances.

[curingaging00]

@deepskyfrontier Interesting thought, manipulation of space time and changing the bindings of atoms to be in favor of the dysons sphere. But as for Grafine, according to michio in theory Grafine could be made to be so strong that a sheet of grafine 1 molecule thick would not puncture through if you took a pencil then stack an elephant on top. I wonder if grafine could be made to be that strong would that alone be able to handle the stresses.

[curingaging00]

One problem with building a Dyson's sphere within the traditional HZ zone is that it would overheat, for the night time on rotating planets cools them down. One possible idea would be to create a Dyson's sphere much larger, beyond the traditional HZ zone. For the Sphere to have an average temperature for say about 60 degrees-90 degrees F how large do you think it would have to expand to? if it orbited a G2V star, sun like star.

[deepskyfrontier]

@curingaging00 You're absolutely right. Waste heat is a major concern. GW has a more conventional dyson swarm / sphere close to the star to create day/dusk/night, though nighttime IR does return inward. So, GW would get by on a K2V of about 0.8 solar masses which would normally have an early habitable zone ranging from 0.5 to 1.0 AU. A mature K2V (up-to 20B years) might extend from 0.6 to 1.4 AU. My model ranges from 1.0 to 2.0 AU (it's a 3D cyloid). Most important: outward facing IR radiators.

[Scattnam]

interesting subject, perhaps in the future we will acquire such technology, I wonder what's it's carrying capacity.

[deepskyfrontier]

@Scattnam Thanks for the question. If it had a population density similar to that of earth, it would be about 21 quintillion. However, the GW is only about 20% ocean and doesn't have polar areas- so... somewhere in the range of 1 sextillion. According to the mythology built around this thing, that was the population a thousand years into its existence. Most of my writing takes place around 100k into its existence. A number of factors raise the number *much* higher.

[button4boy]

when he said each of the green spots would a continent sized area like North America or Asia, my mind melted slightly at the unimaginable scale and impossible requirements to build and maintain this "structure"

[TheMohawk36]

what about radiation?

[deepskyfrontier]

@TheMohawk36 Good question. The Earth has the Van Allen belts, arising from our active iron / nickel core, to protect us from much of the charged radiation coming our way. I don't know exactly how the Great World handles solar flux, but here are some options. 1. Great World atmospheres tend to be much denser and heavier than Earth's. 2. The daymaker (interior Dyson sphere) focuses and capture much of the solar influx, actually returning its mass directly to the star. ...

[deepskyfrontier]

@TheMohawk36 ...3. Active magnetic shielding could be built into the Great World terraces. However, this would cause the radiation to be focused in some areas (analogous to the poles of our planet). 4. Radiation could be addressed at a biological level via a more aggressive genetic response.

[nashertheatheist]

Wouldn't you get zero g at the very top and bottom? Some sections would be largely uninhabitable unless they're surfaces are kept entirely indoors.

You would also need deflectors to prevent rocks from space hitting the sphere. Any terrace that took a hit would leak its atmosphere to space thanks to centrifugal force. On top of that, the solar wind would need to be ejected or stored somehow. With a ringworld there isn't really a problem, but with a sphere you would get a gradual buildup of gas.

[deepskyfrontier]

@nashertheatheist Right about zero-g poles and right about the high latitudes- gravity would be so low that the atmosphere would need to be contained. And right about solar wind. In this case, solar wind would produce around 4-6 billion tons / hr., or roughly the weight of a cubic mile of water. Not a problem in the short term, but this isn't a short term concept. The inner Dyson sphere would need a honeycomb of magnetic scoops to concentrate, capture, and return the material to the star.

[RandyLahey911]

Doesnt need to be a solid sphere of course, Dyson intended shells of objects. Ie a Matrioshka brain.

[deepskyfrontier]

@RandyLahey911 Quite right. Thanks for the comment! Good point about dyson sphere's being hollow. This is what I call a "virtual solid" because (-> pure science fiction) it uses linearized atomic nuclei to multiply the nuclear strong force. These're created with spacetime pinholes- subatomic-sized wormholes that bridge the central axis. They serve to counterbalance the centrifugal forces that would otherwise tear the thing apart- like hyper-space spokes on a *big* bicycle wheel.

[RandyLahey911]

@deepskyfrontier

I hadnt grasped the curled space aspect.

I like the idea of a Story World where billions of versions of Earth could play out. See 'Wireless' by Charles Stross for an example on a fairly arbitrarily shaped hyperstructure.

It may well be that a galactic scale strong AI culture could well make one of these, although I suspect they would think it a bit crude.

[Baleur]

What i do LOVE about these thought experiments however, is that you must consider, we are humans, we've been technological for a mere few thousand years (if you count using stone tools as tech).

And yet, we are capable of imagining these things..

If we, a just-entering-the-fusion-age civilization can imagine this, its more than likely that someone beyond our age can make it a reality.

If we can imagine it and the physics allow it, it will exist right now, somewhere.

[Baleur]

As for the star flare / inevitable death problem, just build the thing closer in, around a red dwarf (which have lifespans in the hundreds of billions of years, incredibly enough).

As for gathering the resources though, it most definetly would not require 100 billion years, our universe (as we know it) is 14 billion years old..... You realize how long a time that is? There are even astronomers looking for signs of dyson spheres out there, it wouldnt take 14 billion years to build.

[deepskyfrontier]

@Baleur I like how you think. That's a good point about red dwarfs- though they also produce minuscule amounts of energy (around 0.01 solar luminosities), and most of that's in the IR. Btw, when I mentioned "white dwarf" I was wrong. What I should have said was "small yellow dwarf" (like the sun, which is actually white), only smaller. Also, most of the energy collected from the star isn't used by inhabitants- it's used by the Great World itself to constantly stabilize the orbit.

[TheThorguitar]

terrible idea too much resources needed and stars are somewhat unstable with solar flares and such not to mention gravitational problems this would cause among the solar system and sphere itself , besides we will have cold fusion achieved as an almost inexhaustible energy source long before this, it's just pointless

[deepskyfrontier]

@TheThorguitar The tone and content of your comment is puzzling. My friend, it's easy to come up with questions that you can't answer. What worries me is whether or not you think that no answers exist.

[TheThorguitar]

@deepskyfrontier it would take resources and energy to build that would consume several million earth sized planets to construct a single dyson sphere in 1 solar system once you've figured out a way to actually construct and control such a massive and complex environment just think unless we're travelling through moving space we cannot even come close to light speed therefore considering distances involved in simply obtaining the raw materials for this it would take billions of light years of ..

[TheThorguitar]

@deepskyfrontier ... travel and considering mankind as an entire species has only existed for approximately 200,000 or so years total the entire thing would take as a very conservative estimate even just to gather basic materials 100 billion years then you've gotta figure a way to construct the damn thing the total process would destroy whole solar systems assuming they had the necessary materials in it's construction and take far more the the total energy lifetime output of a star like the sun

[deepskyfrontier]

@TheThorguitar You're right that it would take a long time, and I really appreciate your interest, but your numbers are off by several orders of magnitude. Not millions of Earths, but tens of thousands. Even if it did take millions, that's solvable in principle using self-replicating machines. With geometric growth rates, they'd do it in centuries, not eons. You're on the right track! What makes an extreme thought experiment worthwhile are the challenges involved, and there are many!

[TheThorguitar]

@deepskyfrontier self replicating machines made of what materials? the numbers and size of these machines would be massive in themselves they would have to travel further to gather more resources to build not to mention the degree of artificial intelligence necessary and the amount of energy it would take to accelerate them to near light speed to accomplish this task and to function in moving such a huge amount of matter and getting exactly the materials required to "self replicate" would be....

[TheThorguitar]

@deepskyfrontier ...very difficult as nt all solar systems would hav them nd if u used so many solar systems causing endless havoc to space it will cause problems!, 4 jus 1 dyson sphere u would've wasted countless energy+matter way more than the star itself will produce! even if everythin went @ near light it wud still take far longer to do than that (do the math for real!) but say it'll take 200,000 yrs lmao XD it'll jus be unusable due to causing ridiculous gravitational issues it's a fail!!!

[deepskyfrontier]

@TheThorguitar Wow, you're passionate about this, aren't you? And that's okay. I'd be happy to address the things you brought up. First, you're right. The number and size would of the self-replicators would be astronomical. And they'd all be recycled.  The universe is rich in material- there are probably whole planets of carbon out there. If you're worried about conservation, this concept conserves the remainder of the galaxy by concentrating use. And there's no need for going light speed.

[TheThorguitar]

@deepskyfrontier ugh... i'm not gonna support this ridiculous debate any longer due to the fact you obviously don't have a clue, just to reiterate my main point is it's ridiculously impractical, unnecessary and wouldn't ever be of benefit the idea in general is far 2 flawed there are far more realistic ways of getting energy a dyson sphere to create would use more energy and resources than the lifetime energy output of a star would make machines space travel destroying planets ALL require energy

[TheThorguitar]

@deepskyfrontier ..unfathomable amounts of energy at that, say you had created one it would be of no use by the time it would be completed by your own (grievously inaccurate) estimates tens of thousands of years we would already have developed proper sustainable energy using less destructive and more practical means so a dyson sphere would be pointless, oh and if you were not traveling at near light (as it is impossible to excel) you'd never complete the thing! a dyson sphere is a failed idea!!!

[deepskyfrontier]

@TheThorguitar I think you already know that insults aren't arguments, but you can still lose by using them. I haven't explained the assembly process in any detail- it would take hours- so you're not expected to understand. I honestly appreciate your interest, but at this point, I'm afraid that it's misplaced.

[finnertyManuel]

wow.

[fuxu123]

Thats a great song in the background. Great music for a great presentation.

[deepskyfrontier]

@fuxu123 Yeah, it's "No Limits" by Code 14. I thought it worked perfectly. And thanks for the compliment :)

[Donnyvoon]

Dammit I was born to early

[deepskyfrontier]

@heftomatic. Good questions. The full-sized GW is built around an existing main sequence star. Tiny artificial stars are used in the feeder GWs only. And self replicators can be built safely. A.I.- not so much. They don't have to be equivalent.As for destroying planets, yes, exactly. The GW takes a small number of uninhabitable planets and creates the equivalent of 3 billions inhabitable ones.

[heftomatic]

WOW. The resources to produce this thing would be staggering. Where would it come from. "Star Stuff?"

[deepskyfrontier]

@heftomatic Great question. It's built in the center of a dense star cluster with 20+ stars within 15ly. The Great World uses microscopic blackholes and exotic matter to create strong-force confinement lines- single atoms that are objectively several meters long but are expressed as being millions of kilometers. Otherwise, it uses massive amounts of nano-engineered carbon for local structure as well as earth and water, etc for its inner skin.

[deepskyfrontier]

@heftomatic To gather all that material, self-replicating robots (called Von Neumann machines) build a staggering array of copies varying from nanoscale to moon-sized. These disassemble planets and build an energy-collecting shell (a Dyson sphere) around the star. This mines the star by collecting radiation, by harvesting fusion-ready isotopes from the Corona, and via macro-scale magnetic induction, etc. This energy is converted to antimatter (using primordial simulation) for propulsion.

[heftomatic]

@deepskyfrontier ... Ya ive seen the STar trek tng episode. But are you saying we would construct a Race of robots. BIllions of these things to build the dyson sphere for us?? Replication is improbable at this point. So to concievably build this, These robots would have to mine and pillage thousands of planets worth of resource. Right??? And why not model it over a star in its addolecent stage. Instead of coming up with crazy theorys on how to create our own star. SOUNDS DANGEROUS

[deepskyfrontier]

@heftomatic Actually, you're absolutely right.  It actually is built around an adolescent, stable star. A thousand tiny, artificial stars are used while 1000 mini-Great Worlds are in transit to a central location- a journey lasting thousands of years. And replicating robots are VERY dangerous. However, living things are self-replicating, but they've managed not to destroy everything. I'd like to invite you to see if you can explain why.

[pimpjuice739]

ah I see it now :)

[pimpjuice739]

If this is a Dyson sphere where is the star?? because I don't see it :)

[deepskyfrontier]

@pimpjuice739 Thanks for looking! It's a good question. The star never shows up in any of the angles until the very last second.

[ConstantC4]

what's the point of making it like the earth? it won't heave earth gravity or temperature unless you can spare our solar system to medicority

[deepskyfrontier]

@ConstantC4 It's a manifestation of the long-period interstellar doctrine of preemptive containment. As soon as civilization X becomes capable of containing its neighbors- for instance, due to the discovery of some advanced technology that gives it a substantial strategic advantage- it must capitalize on that advantage quickly or else it will find itself being contained by some other civilization in the future. The Great World is a prison with unlimited space.

[deepskyfrontier]

@ConstantC4 And it only appears to be earthlike in this (very old) visualization. In actuality, it would be as varied as any number of barely habitable worlds that life might adapt itself to. Local temperatures, atmospheric pressure, gaseous partial pressure, and gravity can each be variable by factors representing a huge range. Some parts of it- in fact, the polar cities- have almost no gravity.

[ConstantC4]

@deepskyfrontier I doubt the concept of biological life is really that destincy from whateer technology that would be used to build this thing.

[deepskyfrontier]

@ConstantC4 I read that word as "distinct" but I'm still having trouble understanding your comment. If I get your drift, you're saying that one of the prerequisites for achieving such feats of mega-engineering is that life itself would transcend its biological origins. If that's what you're saying then, yes, you're right. However, part of the doctrine of containment states that a race cannot survive indefinitely if it either abandons or delegates control of its own physical existence.

[ConstantC4]

@deepskyfrontier , simply that biology is based on chemical clodes and arramgment ... I don't think it's completely beyond technology... such stuff won't be built in mere years. and technology processes to contain all biology in the coming century(ies) so whoever could build such a thing will have the tools and himself would be capable to survive in outer space.... low temperature is also good for superconducting... so no need for atmosphere pollution...

[karadan100]

As far as i knew, a dyson sphere doesn't completely enclose a star, rather, it is made up of thousands of dyson rings with large spaces in between..

[bullcurr]

seems as if it would take a type 2 or even a type 3 civilization to make this thing.

[deepskyfrontier]

@bullcurr That's right. It's actually somewhere around a Kardashev 2.1. If you built millions of these Great Worlds and salted them throughout the Milky Way, you'd have an alternative interpretation of a Kardashev 2.9 - 3.1 (in which the majority of stars are utilized but not inhabited and the "naturally occuring earthlike world equivalent" is equal to tens of thousands of galaxies.)

[radrmd216]

I'm studying biomedical engineering and nanotechnology. Hopefully myself and people in these fields can make the human lifespan indefinite. It would be very cool to see the progress humans will make over the next several centuries, hopefully started by the harnessing of fusion power and a forming of a type 1 civilization.

[wardogmobius]

Is a massive sphere around a star? Is it like the Halo in the Halo games? Thats has to be like 1,000 of years from now to be accomplish. I wish I could last that long.

[LordIndar]

I would say more like 1000 years before we might began to imagine how we should build it and then another 10000 years of dismantling planets and hauling in matter from across this part of the galaxy to build it.

[deepskyfrontier]

@LordIndar The sci fi mythology in which this object is set places its early existence 100k years in the future. Many of its stories take place another 100k years later. The inhabitants are usually ammortal, though it's relatively rare to find someone more than about 30k years old. And you're right on about the time-to-build. 10k years is exactly what I calculated.

[deepskyfrontier]

It's terraced, with flat surfaces alternating with vertical walls. It's twice as long as it is wide, which means that the far ends would have 1/4th the light compared to the area nearest the sun. The vertical walls reflect more than enough light to compensate for this, especially since the walls are much taller relative to the flats near the poles. At the beginning of the video, you're actually seeing the walls, not the flats. The fact that it has the same texture on both is confusing. Sorry.

[Aslapacrosstheface]

Why is the wall corrugated?

[scienceandreasoniluv]

Could you mak a video explaining this in more detail please. Looks awesome!