Human history is told by the energy we use. At first we had to use our muscles, then we learned to control fire. We industrialized the world using coal and oil and entered the Atomic Age when we learned how to split a nucleus. At each step, we increased our energy harvest to a scale never seen before and advanced as a species. Currently, we’re slowly transitioning to renewables and if we’re lucky, fusion energy will become viable in the future. As humanity progresses further, if we don’t destroy ourselves or our habitat, we will likely gain complete control of our planet’s resources. At that stage we’ll probably begin to look outwards for new places to expand into. But space is hard and establishing a serious human presence in the solar system will require ungodly amounts of energy. Luckily, we know where to find it. The Sun – the ultimate source of energy. A furnace 100 quintillion times more powerful than our most efficient nuclear reactor. It shines with the energy of a trillion nuclear bombs per second. So, how do we get this energy? Not some of it, all of it. If we want to collect the most energy physically possible, we’ll have to build the largest most ambitious structure in the universe. The Dyson Sphere, a megastructure that encompasses a whole star to capture its power output. For an intelligent species, building a Dyson Sphere is a technological leap on a par with the discovery of fire for our ancestors. The transition from a planetary species to an interstellar species. It would usher in an age of exploration and expansion on a scale we can barely imagine. So, what would it look like? Solid shell enveloping the Sun is probably not the way to go a large rigid body like that would be vulnerable to impacts possibly shattering it would be liable to drift and could crash straight into the Sun a 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 beam it elsewhere such as sward would give humanity basically unlimited energy but building it won’t be easy the Sun is very big so we need a lot of satellites if Each satellite is a square kilometer we’d need around 30 quadrillion to surround the Sun even if they’re built as lightly as possible we need about 100 quintillion tons of material and Then we need the energy to actually put the parts together and deliver them to their positions around the Sun on top of all that we need to have a permanent infrastructure set up in space to start building let’s assume for the purposes of this video that our descendants will take care of that and want to create the mega structure We can sort the challenges into three main categories materials design and energy To get the vast amounts of raw materials required for our Dyson swarm will have to largely disassemble a whole planet Of the planets available mercury is the best candidate it’s the closest to the Sun and very metal-rich close to the Sun also Means less moving stuff around and mercury has no atmosphere and only about a third of the surface gravity of Earth making it comparatively easy to launch material into space Next we should consider the design of our swarm simpler is better Conventional solar panels are far too intricate and short lives our satellites need to operate without repairs or intervention for astronomically long times and they need to be cheap to produce But they’re most likely going to be enormous mirrors which refocus sunlight to central collecting stations like in concentrated solar power on earth to build and launch them efficiently they must be incredibly light made of little more than polished metal full bound to some supports and Last we need the energy to build and launch the swarm itself taking a part of planets and launching things into space requires an enormous amount of energy for example if we used all the fossil fuels and Uranium on earth and we? Were perfectly efficient we could only launch as much Mass as Mount Everest into space a rather meager accomplishment compared to planetary disassembly 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 But that’s. Ok there’s plenty of sunlight to be had on Mercury so let’s get to work Humans are expensive to keep alive and are very sensitive to the environment So, we’d want to automate as much as possible Ideally we’d have a small crew of controllers who oversee an army of autonomous machines doing the actual work There are four major pieces of technology required solar collectors miners refiners and launch equipment the solar collectors are going to give us the energy we need to disassemble the planet To start maybe we deploy something like one square kilometer of them either as mirrors or as traditional solar panels 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 fabricate them into our swarm satellites to get them into space we need a creative and efficient solution Rockets aren’t too expensive and difficult to deorbit and reuse Instead, we’ll want to use a sort of railgun a longer Electromagnetic track which launches our satellites at high speeds Our swarm satellites will be packed tight for launch unfurling like an enormous origami once in orbit from this point we can take advantage of 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 each panel provides the energy to build another those to work together to build the next to Four become eight eight become 16 and so on within just about 60 doubling times the Sun would be completely surrounded by solar panels and This can happen quickly if a square kilometer of solar collectors takes a month to build we could be done in a decade if only our infrastructure on the planet’s surface can keep up with the quickly growing budget of energy Even collecting 1% of the sun’s energy is an unbelievable change in our species energy budget We could create the infrastructure to being basically unlimited amounts of energy around the solar system for all sorts of projects colonies on other worlds terraforming planets constructing more mega structures or even traveling to other stars it could be the start of an interstellar Civilization based on physics alone this is not just possible but easy It’s such a simple process and such a necessary step for any species to expand beyond their home planet that many astronomers Think there are probably Dyson spheres already out there in the Milky Way we haven’t spotted any yet but they could be there 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 Conflicts that will not matter in the long run but if we survive the challenges we’ve set ourselves we could potentially become the first species in the universe to create a structure with the scope of a star if We? Do it the only limitation left will be our own imagination We’ve just hit you with a lot of pretty wild claims and crazy concepts if You’re like us and enjoy using the power of science to determine absurd ways to destroy stuff you might want to hear how you can come up with something like that yourself 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 build up to an interesting conclusion It helps you understand how science works by actually using it instead of just memorizing a bunch of stuff brilliance has tons of interesting courses and puzzles on things like quantum computing astronomy and logic and even dyson sphere’s if you visit brilliant org slash nutshell Or click the link in the description you can sign up for free and learn all kinds of things as A bonus for cooks without viewers the first 688 people will, also get 20% off their annual membership with brilliance you can finish each stay a little bit smarter and Just maybe you can help to expand the human species into the universe one day We love dyson sphere’s so much that we’ve also made a poster about them it will look pretty on your wall but Also has some information about the concept of a Dyson Sphere a great way to start a conversation Or you can just stare at it and dream about the future go get it here
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you skipped over how we would manage to stabilize propulsion, or any type of energy on mercury given it's 800 Fahrenheit surface temp.
How many animator did you guys sacrifice for that part mate? 4:00
These videos have taught me that birds will become the dominant species and take on interplanetary expansion.
Unlimited energy. To cement our existence in this universe forever. Instead of dying on this fuckin rock.
Ok I get that this is incredibly smart and well thought out but didn’t you forget to bring up that Mercury is incredibly hot
I'm sorry, but this would make a great RTS game.
Slowly chipping away at the goal to send a million mirrors, getting faster and more satisfying with every launch.
legit bout to learn game design for this.
1st we need to build a rail gun in eaRth.
i love you
where are we gonna get the material for dyson sphere in that much amount?..i wrote this question before actually watching the full video..
The Cowboy Bebop poster at 9:04 is class <3
We've not even become a class one civilization yet and you're already thinking about becoming class two.
Hell why not go all in and aim to become a class three civilization that can utilize the entire energy output of a galaxy.
Water Power!
2H2O [heat]-> H2 + O2 + energy [pressure]-> 2H2O
That energy is precious and almost unlimited (Just a bit less than mobile perpetuum) ~~~
please create a simulation like this
Anything that close to the sun would burn up. Dont' think there is any known material that could withstand those temperatures.
How to build a Dyson Sphere?
Put a solar farm by the sun
why would we need a Dyson Sphere if we discover how to do Nuclear Fusion ourselves?
Instructions unclear, Built a Strange Matter, Black hole, Dark matter and neutron star bomb
In a few decades we will look back at this as a dream of a bygone age.
Can I buy one of these spheres from ikea ?
What shape will the panels be?
Pentagon?
Hexagon?
Mercurygon?
This is incredibly epic
This is misleading as heck, we split the atom sure but Nuclear energy accounts for less that 3% of the energy production on the planet. In fact renewable energy has more impact that Nuclear in usage. The issue is the there are different kinds of Nuclear and most plants use Uranium 232 if memory serves, they are out of date big time.
What makes it worse is that renewables such as solar and wind consume so much land space that they devastate the habitats they are built in in order to compare to the output of one Nuclear (even aged) plant.
Hopefully no crazy person controls all this energy
Thanks. I understood 2 things: Dyson Sphere's can't be created (simmilar tool maybe, but not sphere covering all Sun). We could kill ourself if we build it, we need Sun to stay alive.
Okay, but like, if you focus all the sun's light on mercury, the solar system gets really cold because the sun isn't endlessly beating it with light.
We are not too far from Dyson sphere. Space X already building Starlink
Do one on antimatter
Maybe one limitation it’s called dark energy.
We will never be able to leave the local group.
so let's just skip being type 1 and go straight to type 2.
Just build tnt duping slime block fly machines
I don't agree that Mercury is the best planet. Being the closest to the sun, it's orbital velocity is high, which means getting closer to the sun requires severe deceleration (lots of energy!) followed by even larger acceleration, whereas decelerating from, say, Mars, you have to do slow down less and drift towards the sun in a few years, simply harnessing gravity and using small thrusts to fall into orbit. A small orbit around a massive star is not easy to achieve cheaply and safely and will take a lot of time. Maybe this is not feasible outside the asteroid belt?
I doubt humanity will ever do this, the universe is vast and empty, economics will favour galactic sprawl over higher planetary density. Basically the galactic equivalent of LA.
Is Venus a Dyson sphere?
First lets go to mars bitches
Wouldn’t the heat of the sun melt the metal used for the satellites? And wouldn’t the sun’s gravitational pull affect the orbit of the satellites?
I was born too early. But we're probably kill earth soon, so who knows.
I love the animation.
If sun gets covered by the spherical mirrors, would the earth still get regular sunlight?
I like the civilisation game reference in this video
hello person scrolling the comments:)
I see every comment is getting likes, why not mine!
Hmm. Mining a whole planet.
Neat
How is called this tyoe of "drawing" would really like to know more a out it
But how to convert energy to food?? We need more food
Wouldn't doing this kill humanity? Like, earth needs all the heat its getting, blocking that cant be wise
A neutron star (city sized) and a white dwarf star (earth sized) could have a real solid sphere around it because of their smaller size, it would still be a mega structure but at the point where we can travel between stars to get to one of these I think that we could build a sphere the size of a city at least.
lest turn it into the largest steam generator in the world
{ If only we couldn’t mess up the gravity in our solar system if we were to disassemble a planet. }
It would be disgusting to destroy an entire planet just to feed our thirst for energy. It reminds me of past generations almost eradicating the American bison, or trying to drain the Everglades.
Do mean like solar panels
Why not hollow out mercury and turn it into a giant machine, just like what the vex did.
I imagined it as a game, it really looks like space colony game
, yes, because a beam of pure energy is going to be good for earth
Endless energy, genorators, auto workors non hungry and non work! Just need to think! Wow!!
What if black holes are just an alien creation for harvesting energy
Collect and earn all total money in this world and you can't even build half of that thing in it's shell, let alone it's weapons and artillery.
Thats not a red herring, thats a msgicarp.
You do realise that mercury is super hot right?
Love the Tetris music! Great vid…I can see why each vid you make takes over 200 hours to complete! The quality always shows! Keep up the great work please, ppl need to be thinking about these things
See people, if we get to Mercury, we can play Destiny 2
7:07 nice reference
Kurzgesagt 1/2 of your views are from me lol I rewatch all your vids every day
I love this channel but this isn't a really good explanation
Just write /gamemode 1
2:24 Unlimited POWEEEERR
Wish dis was a game like he did xD
Neat
If we are going to surround the sun with satellites, wouldn’t effect the amount of sunlight that the earth gets.
Maybe cool down the planet
Too much starcraft for today
That's why they're going to build artificial intelligence and use that to design Nano replicators which will be able to disassemble planets and extract resources, build factories, and launched the satellites into space around the Sun
Nice. The only kurzgegast video that doesnt give me anxiety
hey, Kurzgesagt you should make a game like this!!!!
this video mad me want to play a strategy and ressource management game where you create a dyson sphere
Their are so many directions we could be going in order to harness energy or even create it. Why then do we waste our time with unrealistic goals? Truly, someone's imagination has gotten away from them.
The u.s. be like
But where the oil
I am gonna cut the sun to show you the power of FLEX TAPE
4.2k dislikes are from greedy Politicians, and people who are very superstitious 🤕
Problem is humans are not inna collective that has a goal in mind. We are trained to be selfish instead of selfless
If do that , will we loss sun light .Right??
Does that mean that if we did try to do it then failure is not an option because we would lose a lot of resources that would risk the life of humanity.
Wouldent the mirors cast giant shadows that could make it cold if your under it.
why can't it be some other sun
TERGTYUUJBCVTRNRVNNFGCT
Lol this will never happen
This is such an amazing concept.
I hope that mankind starts this huge project before I die.
Kurzgesagt, you forgot something about this video: If humans were to go to mercury to build solar panels, do they need to be concerned about the loss of strength, mass, and DNA damage?
Stfu
i am the one who gonna make this happend
i am the one who gonna make this happend
Did u think about the temperature?
Close to the end you started to sound like Mumbo when he says his projects are simple
Does anyone know of a good game similar to this? Like survival sim with different eras?
Ooooofff in my face
Do you technically say if we do this we could survive big red by make other planets habitable or a giant space ship?
Humans: Let's make a Dyson Sphere!
Invisible Alien Watchers: Okay! It's Sabotage Time!
I finished watching the video and the only thing I want to know is where to download this game……
Haha I bet if we harness energy of sun and be intergallactic species, some human planet will declare war on another in no time.
Please turn this into a game
When there is a light blocking sphere around the sun, what are the plants going to eat?