Building a Dyson Sphere

What if an advanced civilization ran out of room to grow on their home planet? Their best bet might be to build settlements in space, so they could capture more of their star’s energy.

Hosted by: Reid Reimers
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[gabrielgomesbrito]

I'm Commander Shepard, and this is my favorite video on the Dyson Sphere.

[PunkOffice]

I'm gonna set up a Kickstarter page so we can start building the Dyson sphere. I'm sick of paying for petrol and electricity all the time

[zubmit]

Mr. Reimers is the only one in the Sci Show crew who doesn't need to cut their sentences into 5 different video clips.
Thank you for your great video.

[GengoNoTabi]

I could be wrong, but I think that a civilization that was so advanced might have managed energy utilization to the point where they didn't have much waste heat. After all this is the product of inefficient utilization. Humans are already pretty skilled at capturing the energy of waste heat and augmenting their generators rather than just letting it radiate off.
If there are civilizations so desperate for resources like energy that they are doing this, than there are "pirater civilizations" looking to tap the energy resources of a civilization like this you wouldn't want to betray yourself with such a easily detected "beacon".

[danheidel]

Nice callout to Starmaker.

For those who aren't aware of it (pretty much everyone) the author Olaf Stapledon wrote the books Starmaker and Last and First Men in the 1930s which are some of the first works of epic, hard sci-fi. He created the ideas of dyson spheres, genetic engineering and a ton of other incredibly prescient ideas decades before other sci-fi writers who are often credited with those ideas did. Although he's largely unknown to the public today, he was incredibly influential on numerous sci-fi authors such as Arthur C. Clark, Vernor Vinge and Stanislaw Lem.

Freman Dyson himself credited Stapledon for coming up with Dyson spheres and said that they should be called Stapledon spheres instead.

[DrayseSchneider]

The original Dyson Sphere was actually proposed as a swarm of orbiting objects not a solid shell.

[LamirLakantry]

I recommend the sci-fi novel Ringworld by Larry Niven.

[Lapusso]

This isn't like the other Dyson products?

[ClearInstructionsOnly]

Instructions Clear Enough. Successfully build the Dyson Sphere. Thank you

[billdong]

Waiting on the fusion experiment in France

[collinallen]

Keeping the Dyson sphere spinning and stopping it from crashing into the star seems like it would be a cake walk with all of that extra energy you're gathering.

[Abaris]

Wasn't this in a Star Trek TNG episode?

[-Generic-]

The longer I watch this video, the more the urge to clear my throat builds up.

[thishadowithin]

That would be something if scientists found one of those while searching for planets. We would know for sure we're not alone. That would be so cool.

[tonygilbert]

One of the best topics on Sci Show Space in months. Thanks!

[CoolGear]

i love these type of videos. keep it up!

[gamesman]

"Waste heat"? Seems to me if you could build a Dyson sphere you'd probably have a way to use that "waste heat" rather than throw it out to space.

[SuperKing]

Just discovered that Sci sci space was a thing, subbed immediately. This channel realy pushes home how amazing and fragile our planet is.

[warfjm]

No mention of the Star Trek TNG episode? I am not a merry man!

[deathclawplum]

reid is probably my favorite narrator on scishow space