[ExI] Alien Civilizations May Only Be Detectable For A Cosmic Blink Of An Eye

[John Clark]

On Sun, Oct 19, 2025 at 9:23 PM Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com> wrote:

*> Current-day computers don't help that much in deciding how far out from
> the star you want to place a data center.*


*Why not?  Current-day computers, even gargantuan multi-billion dollar data
centers, work just fine, and yet just one small Blackwell chip, which has
an area of only 750mm^2, uses 1200 watts of electricity. Granted an
extensive cooling system is needed, but if you build it at Earth's distance
from the sun then no matter what you do you're not going to consume more
than 1360 watts of electricity per square meter, and that is 1333 times
larger than a Blackwell chip. And remember, today's technology is as lousy
as it's ever going to be.*

 * > Whatever is blocking light at Tabby's Star is 1.5 light seconds in
> diameter.*
>

*That can't be right. The sun has a diameter of about 5 light seconds, and
the diameter of Tabby's Star is 1.58 times that of the sun. *

*> If you care about communicating with other uploads without too
> much delay, then you want to be as close to neighbors as you can. *


*If you're worried about that then you want to make your Dyson sphere or
swarm as small as possible.  *

*John K Clark*





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