How to Build a Dyson Sphere - The Ultimate Megastructure
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN links it as a nice intro to what a realistic Dyson swarm would require, and as a companion to megastructure discussions.
What it is
A Kurzgesagt animated explainer on how humanity could build a Dyson sphere, a swarm of structures capturing the sun's energy. It covers using Mercury's materials and a step-by-step construction approach.
Recommended by 1 HN commenters across 1 different months, 2019 to 2024.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec michaelbarton · 2022-04 · on “Help needed to build the colony on Moon, Mars and the Dyson Sphere”
Nice intro video on what may be realistically required to build a Dyson sphere: [this video] By Kurzgesagt, all their videos are excellent and informed by the literature.
Cites db48x · 2019-03 · on “Rotating Black Holes May Serve as Gentle Portals for Hyperspace Travel”
A Dyson Sphere is not a solid object. Instead, it's many small objects each of which is in a stable orbit. [this video] Also, a huge laser can certainly direct energy in a direction that nobody will notice. Unfortunately, creating the laser beam also creates waste heat, and that waste heat can be seen. Even collecting waste heat generates waste heat that you cannot collect. On the other hand, if you want a huge laser for some other purpose (such as vaporizing distant planets), then a Dyson Sphere is the ideal way to create one. [LINK]
Cites throwaway_bad · 2019-10 · on “Humans will not 'migrate' to exoplanets, Nobel winner says”
In sci-fi, the next step is usually to move to living on a dyson swarm harvesting the sun's energy first. Not another planet or different solar system. [this video]
Cites solarengineer · 2020-01 · on “The Caplan Thruster – approach to move an entire solar system”
Extracts: The machine would use a Dyson sphere to collect mass, separate out helium to push the sun, and fire hydrogen at the sun to avoid crashing into the sun. It could push the Sun at a speed of about 50 light years per one million years. Matthew Caplan from Illinois State University designed the machine at the behest of Munich-based YouTube channel Kurzgesagt. The channel then created a stunning video to illustrate the device, which it dubbed the Caplan Thruster, and a paper Caplan wrote describing the machine has also been published in the journal Acta Astronautica. Video links: Kaplan thruster: [LINK] Dyson sphere: [this video]
Cites db48x · 2021-01 · on “The Culture War: Iain M. Banks’s Billionaire Fans”
And yet the capability is there within the technologies on display in various books. In Use of Weapons a Mind replaces one character with a machine duplicate that exactly replicates her personality and physiology, complete with memory dumps before and after so that when she gets back she will remember having been in both places. In the same book, the main character is a non-Culture mercenary who got the Culture to make him immortal as his first payment. He can be killed, but he’ll never age. Everyone in the Culture thinks that he’s really weird for doing so. Everyone in the Culture uses their drug glands to consciously tweak their mood and mental capabilities, and when they sleep many of the
Cites mdaniel · 2022-11 · on “Dyson Sphere FAQ”
heh [LINK] made me think of the recent Universal Paperclips thread, to which I will not hyperlink in order to spare the audience from the productivity virus :-) But, in the spirit of fun productivity degradation, I love, love, love this game: [LINK] Also relevant, from Kurzgesagt: [this video]
Cites solardev · 2024-03 · on “Ask HN: Dyson Sphere”
Pewpew it as lasers? That YouTube K-animation channel I can't spell (Kurdurkistan?) has an episode on it: [this video] There's also the great engineering/factory game Dyson Sphere Program: [LINK]