The theoretical physicist Dr. Michio Kaku has an interesting article about "The Physics of Extra-Terrestrial Civilizations - How advanced could they possibly be?"

http://www.mkaku.org/articles/physics_of_a...lien_civs.shtml

Cool, that was a great article.

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I agree, that was fun to read. The book Ringworld and Star Trek books and shows have visited this idea, among others. What would it be like to harness the power of the sun? Even the amount that hits our small little world.

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Great article, except for the bit about rock music and Hollywood films being global culture. India makes much more films than America, but we don't call Bollywood films global culture.

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Climate Change Australia

Another thought. If the universe is to end in a big chill...won't the enormous energy consumption of a type III civilisation speed up this process?

If you ask me, a wise, advanced civilisation would opt against high energy usage.

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Climate Change Australia

I sure hope what Hollywood puts out is not considered global culture.

Isn't entrophy the way of the universe? Using the energy wouldn't make it go away any faster. Maybe the harnessers of galactic energy may find a way to recycle the energy!

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Interesting indeed.
You might know that a Dyson Sphere is between the lines in at least one scerero of a type II civilisation .

However, I find that somewhat counterdictory, because to build a Dyson sphere would require more material then everything in our solar system minus the sun itself. To obtain such an endeavor would require the techical abilities of a type 3 civilisation. For whom a Dyson sphere would not be nearly enough energy. :unsure:

And furthermore, to move from fossel fuels to something more advanced for energy, what would the Republicans have to say about all that.

Planetwatcher, as Republican I say GREAT! No more fossil fuels and free energy. Just think of the ground vehicles of the future. Make a Humvee look like a VW bug!

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Yeah but are they as popular on a global level as the Hollywood stuff is?


Yes, but it depends on what you want to do, how much energy do you need for that, etc.? For example, only to send a moderately sized interstellar ship to another star will require enormous amounts of energy. Also, our population grows, and we want to colonize the solar system and other star systems, maybe do terraforming, etc. And besides, wouldn't it be better to use the energy that there is in the universe rather than having it radiating out everywhere? And besides, a really advanced civilization might have the capacity to reconstruct certain parts f the universe or that entire universe, to keep it from dying a Big Chill death. And to do that would require them to use up large parts of the universe itself I guess :)

Hmmn, an advanced civilisation could actually slow the death of the universe. If they could 'throttle' the sun, to burn (edit) slowler and cooler, the sun would actually last quite a bit longer. The solution to 'cooler sun' would be to move the Earth closer.

Actually, if a civilisation could somehow utilise 100% of a stars energy, then it would make more sense to 'shut down' the sun and utilize the fuel according to their desires.

For example, using the wonders of fusion, you could set up a completely viable civilisation around a gas giant. You wouldn't even need the Sun, since controlled-fusion would give you all the heat required. And since the gas giant isn't 'wastefully' burning to cause 'light', it would last longer.

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We can get to space as a species. The above link is information about life-extension (living longer) so that you can personally see a space-based civilization.

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Hey, if only 1/2 of the baryonic mass is accounted for by stars, couldn't the other 1/2 be accounted for by 'cold' stars. i.e., ones that weren't lit. There could be aliens there that we'd never see.

baryonic = Consisting of baryons - protons and neutrons - baryonic matter is "normal" matter. The Sun and the Earth are made of baryonic matter.

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Live long enough to see Space!

We can get to space as a species. The above link is information about life-extension (living longer) so that you can personally see a space-based civilization.

The MPrize (a prize to encourage life extension research now contains over 3 million dollars.

What about a type 4 civilisation? One which could effectivley prevent the universe from expanding or collapsing, by manipulating gravity itself. A type 4 civilisation may be able to cross into different universes as well.

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This is all based on theory that is far from conclusive. I find the whole notion of classifying civilisations purely on their energy consumption quite ridiculous.

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Tinaa, you are among the few Republicans in Texas who favors energy sources other then oil. But then you are likely better educated too.

I seem to remember an old Star Trek episode in which the population lived inside a planetoid traveling through space to a new star. Then Next Generation also used that as a plot. I'm wondering if that would qualify as a type 2.

You have to base them on something. Maybe technological advances.

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Just one way of classifying them, but I find it to be a pretty good way. After all, your activities decide on how much energy you need. For example a culture with a really low tech doesn't need much other than heating up their homes. We need more in order to heat our homes and water, and to produce and use all electric equipment, to make the cars roll and the aeroplanes fly, to make all the industries and factories go, even lift payloads into orbit and beyond. We will need much more to colonize other planets and to terraform them. I think that you won't produce much more energy than you need. Of course we can imagine a civilization with a really high population, using up a lot of energy because of this even though their technological level is low. But still, someone who wants to reengineer entire planets and restructure a solar system will need much much more anyway... But yes, this is just a system to classify them one way, there must be others as well.

Exactly so... which Dr. Kaku noted at the beginning and the end of his essay.

Not so much on energy consumption... but on their ability to harness energy. Certain technological ability requires immense amounts of power, which is why we can't figure out how to travel through interstellar space properly or stop losing socks in the wash.

I imagine that an advanced civilization would naturally use less "energy" than we in small, unimportant ways (emission of wastes, fossil fuels, etc.), and that they would be interested in using less energy to perform something than expected. But, as Parker pointed out, a civilization as it progresses is increasingly able to make use of larger amounts of energy. Rocks -> fire -> electricity -> nuclear power -> and so on.

Polarbeast

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I would like to think that after advancing a great deal, in the future we will need less energy per person as our usage will be more efficient.

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Kinda. I think some of our consumptions will go down (for example, I now use one of those super-efficient 14 watt bulbs to read by) - but at the same time, our constructions will require more energy. It takes a lot more to make an aircraft carrier than a longship.

I think that limiting the system to how many 'suns' of energy is a little naive - that's already assuming that fusion and the Sun are near-ultimate sources of energy.

A neat variation would be solar equivalents. "Yep, my spaceship gets 8 light years to the solar*day". In other words, the amount of energy pumped out each day by a star.

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Live long enough to see Space!

We can get to space as a species. The above link is information about life-extension (living longer) so that you can personally see a space-based civilization.

The MPrize (a prize to encourage life extension research now contains over 3 million dollars.

What do you mean?


How about grading advanced civilisation on how much they actually know. Not power consumption, thats a variable. Some advanced races may use a lot of energy, no care for how much they use for they have an almost unlimited amount, while Kashi has pointed out that some may try to conserve enrgy using their knowledge.

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Indeed. If we're talking about a wise civilisation (which would happen eventually once a civilisation is advanced technologically), maybe they'd opt to keep their citizens happy, leading simpler lives requiring less energy.

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