[ExI] Will Advanced Civilizations Ever Build Dyson Spheres?

[Ben Zaiboc]

On 10/11/2024 21:54, Keith Henson wrote:
> Uploaded biological creatures would need data centers.  The centers
> need energy from their star and radiation heat sinks, both favoring
> large areas.  This conflicts with the presumed need to communicate
> with minimal delay due to the speed of light.
>
> I don't think free-floating computation nodes are a reasonable
> engineering solution.

Maybe I used the wrong word. I didn't mean individual nodes in a larger 
computing system, like neurons in a brain or something similar. I meant 
the same as you when you say 'data centres'. Each one would represent 
something in the range from a single individual to an entire 
civilisation, but not smaller than a single brain.

So what does 'large areas' mean, when it comes to energy collection and 
heat dissipation?
And what is an acceptable minimal delay in communications?

A balance between these two would determine the size and shape of the 
individual data centres.

It would seem to indicate a structure like a small spider in the middle 
of a large web, or a marble embedded in the centre of a large circular 
membrane. The marble would be the data centre, maybe on the metre scale, 
and the membrane the energy collection/dissipation part, on the km scale 
(10s, 100s, or 1000s of km).

Processing speed, or 'thinking speed' would determine the range of sizes 
needed, and I think at some time you mentioned a one-metre sphere sunk 
in the deep ocean as being suitable for a data centre for minds running 
at 1 million times biological thinking speeds. I'd assume that something 
similar in free space would be like I describe above.

Slower speeds would mean larger structures.

So how large do you think one data centre (including its energy 
collection and heat sink) would be likely to be?

I'm guessing something between 10km and 1000km in diameter, and very 
thin. So trillions of these could be spread out round a star, and 
probably be fairly invisible from a distance.

Or do you think the data centres would be humungous?

As you say, this conflicts with speed-of-light delay, and I'm wondering 
what would be the point of connecting individual collections of 
computing substrate with solid mass rather than empty space? Would this 
be necessary for the energy collection etc? So you'd have a huge plate 
of solar collectors and heat sinks, with individual processing centres 
dotted about in it? Or something else?

I'm not a numbers guy, and I know that you (and others here) are, and I 
know better than to argue with the numbers, so what do the numbers say? 
Lots of small (relatively small, on a solar-system scale. Say no bigger 
than 5000km) units spread out around a star, or one (or a few) 
ginormously huge structures*, hundreds of times bigger in area than the 
surface of earth, easily detectable from a distance?

Or are there other options that make more sense?

And how does what we see at Tabby's star etc., fit in with this?

-- 

Ben

* Interesting question: How big could a huge flat (or curved) continuous structure be? There must be factors that limit the size
(gravitational forces, tensile strength, perhaps other things)?

Ben
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