Talk:Dyson sphere

Semi-automatic Peer reviewer

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• Per Wikipedia:Context and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates), months and days of the week generally should not be linked. Years, decades, and centuries can be linked if they provide context for the article.^[?]
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See this pageAstronomy infoboxes or this Astronomical objects infobox for a potential infobox choice for the article.SriMesh | talk 05:06, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I wasn't able to find an infobox for this article. —Disavian (^talk/_contribs) 22:26, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

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• Please reorder/rename the last few sections to follow guidelines at Wikipedia:Guide to layout.^[?]
• There are a few occurrences of weasel words in this article- please observe WP:AWT. Certain phrases should specify exactly who supports, considers, believes, etc., such a view.
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• Please provide citations for all of the {{fact}}s. (error messages...)^[?]
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• The article will need references. See WP:CITE and WP:V for more information.^[?]
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You may wish to browse through User:AndyZ/Suggestions for further ideas. Thanks, SriMesh | talk 06:07, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for reviewing the article. Per your suggestions, I'm working on finding sources. —Disavian (^talk/_contribs) 04:19, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Re did the peer review as of this date and time, and placed checkmarks and nots on the above semi automatic peer review as to what the program still found. So if it has a checkmark added, the point has been looked after, and the peer review program does not bring it up again. There was one new point added with a new icon added for this point. Good work on the clean up!

• Regarding the citations.
• Cannot refer to another wikipedia article as a source - especially Larry Niven as the entire article contains not one primary source document, reference or citation within it. The entire Larry Niven article may just be made up until citations are used. You may wish to try to google Larry Niven and the associated fact of the Dyson Sphere section to see if any reputable, reliable WWW articles or use other primary source documents which discuss this aspect of your Dyson Sphere article.
• Instead of quoting 3 wikipedia articles in citation 24, it would be better to reword the section including these as wiki links in the prose, and using the WWW for citations on these 3 areas.
• This WWW page Dyson FAQ is used quite a lot with separate citations to various sections on the Dyson FAQ web page. See citation 1,4,5,8,12,20. Are thre any other WWW pages which could be used at these various places to help substantiate claims?
• The paper named "Search for Artificial Stellar Sources of Infra-Red Radiation has a reference at citation number 3, however the first time the article mentions the title of the paper is in section Origin of concept where the citation 3 should be referenced again please. SriMesh | talk 04:57, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Good article review

GA review (see here for criteria)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused): Dr. Cash 05:31, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   a (fair representation): b (all significant views):

5. It is stable.

   

6. It contains images, where possible, to illustrate the topic.

   a (tagged and captioned): b lack of images (does not in itself exclude GA): c (non-free images have fair use rationales):

7. Overall:

   a Pass/Fail: SriMesh | talk 21:13, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

The article is in very good shape. I think it meets the Good Article criteria with respect to the completeness criteria, as all significant points are covered by the article. However there are still other issues, based on the previous review, that the article falls short on. Specifically, the references could use more work; there are still some areas where referencing is lacking, or it's possible that it is being cited by a reference at the end of the paragraph, but due to other references in that paragraph, it's not evident that information at the beginning of the paragraph is backed up.

The prose is overall very good, although it gets very technical at times, and could be brought down into plain english a bit better.

The lead is good; it provides a decent summary of the article without going into too much detail.

The 'origin of concept' section could be written better. The second paragraph, citing specific publications, should probably be moved to the beginning, as an intro to the section. It's kind of awkward being mentioned second, after a relatively long first paragraph. The 1959 science paper has no citation on it -- it would help if this had a reference, since it is mentioning a specific publication (including the link to the paper in a footnote would also help the reader find the paper for further research as well).

In the 'other types' section, when talking about the Ringworld, the last sentence mentions, "... a fact recognized by Larry Niven and addressed in sequels to the original novel." However, the "original novel" was not mentioned previously in the section -- the paragraph simply starts talking about Niven's ringworld concept, not noting that it was the subject of a novel (actually about 3-4 novels, if I remember correctly). So the context here is inaccurate.

There are lots of wikilinks in the 'see also' section to links which were previously mentioned in the article text itself, which goes against the manual of style's recommendations. This section can be reduced by reducing it to only major related topics, and topics that were not previously covered by the article.

I think we're getting close here; clear up the citation issues and some minor prose & MOS issues, and I think it can be a GA. Please renominate this once the issues have been addressed. Cheers! Dr. Cash 05:31, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I believe I have largely addressed these issues; renominating. —Disavian (^talk/_contribs) 23:51, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

It looks like the issues above have been addressed. The article is now quite informative and interesting, and meets the Good Article criteria. It can be promoted now. Good work! Dr. Cash 05:11, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! :) —Disavian (^talk/_contribs) 05:18, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Oppose Oppose Oppose this article needs accomplish two things before I can consider a Support

• 1) It does need some help as far as it's prose, and writing style
• 2) But the biggest problem, and totally inexcusable problem is the citation of verifiable references. It sucks big time! Most of the references comes from two places. http://www.islandone.org.... trys to look legit, and might actually be, but the url link is not (See Freemann J. Dyson (1960). "Search for Artificial Stellar Sources of Infra-Red Radiation". Science. 131: 1667–1668. doi:10.1126/science.131.3414.1667.) this comprises 6 page citations, and http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/dysonFAQ.html which comprises 10 citations. These are enthusiast sites, but they make up 16 out of the 37 citations, and most of the actual content featured in this article. My primary interest is in the Kardashev scale and I would really like to link to the Dyson shell article but I find it's hard to justify the wikilink when nearly half of the "verified" resources are posted on unscientific credentialed sites. And there's no links to Dyson's original work:

Dyson, F. J., Search for Artificial Stellar Sources of Infrared Radiation, Science, vol. 131, pp. 1667-1668, 1959

Dyson, F. J., The Search for Extraterrestrial Technology, in Perspectives in Modern Physics (Essays in Honor of Hans Bethe), R. E. Marshak (Editor), John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1966

why aren't these cited??!?!? I'm complete baffled, to the direction the community has chosen to take with this page.--Sparkygravity (talk) 02:28, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I can't argue against the references needing work. However

1. Links to web publication of references are not a requirement.
2. If you examine the links to existing sources - specifically the island one site - it is reprinting material from the journal Science which is about as good as it gets for peer reviewed material. The material is valid, but if better links can be found they should be substituted, or the links can be removed completely and make them plain unlinked citations to the original paper, see point #1
3. Since you have located papers pertaining to the topic, why not add the references yourself, where you think the papers in question support (or possibly refute) points in the article? "The Community" which has apparently gone off in a direction you think inappropriate (and it may be) does include you.

--Vedexent (talk) - 03:55, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

You makes some good points but I do want to respond.

1. I can understand why web-linking publications isn't required. But I'd rather have information, not linked, than allow it's validity be called into question. Now this is a personal opinion, of course, but I would like to know how others feel about it.
2. I really like the information they've reprinted, and I actually trust it's content. However it's not from a media newsgroup, source, magazine, etc. So the question of whether the material has been altered can still be but into question. It's been reprinted by a group of POV enthusiasts(good natured, kind, rational, and well-meaning ofcourse, but still a high potential for POV), rather than a neutral source. Additionally it's unclear about what copyrights laws surround the work. I don't know if it's copyrighted, I have no idea what the laws are surrounding an example like this one... and I don't know if I want to encourage wikipedians to overlook that when citing reprinted material.
3. I can't argue with you on that point, I agree with you completely. I believe that if you see a problem, you should do your best to fix it... but currently I am up to my heels with Kardashev scale and finding and referencing a replacement for the possible 16 out of 37 questionable citations is a bit more than I can chew right now.... hopefully soon though. I would really like this article to be FA quality.--Sparkygravity (talk) 13:37, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

A really poor summary

The purpose of an encyclopedia article should be to present the facts. The facts are a "sphere" cannot exist and this was pointed out in letters to Dyson after his original Science article. He made a point of qualifying that he never intended it to be conceived of as a "sphere" but was instead a set of orbiting satellites, i.e. a "shell". This entire topic should be removed and a "Dyson Sphere" should be documented as a fictional construct of the Science News writer who misinterpreted what Dyson was saying. I have this literature online for anyone who would like to review it. A "Dyson Sphere" is entirely a *fictional concept* which cannot exist (at least using known materials) in reality. The entire contents should be moved to a "Dyson Shell" topic where it is made completely clear that a "sphere" cannot easily exist using known physics. A shell of orbiting satellites however is completely feasible. Any and all pictures portraying a "sphere" should be removed and the reasons why a true sphere using "classical" materials is not viable should be documented. The mistaken concept of a "Dyson Sphere" which is largely impossible should be replaced with more reasonable concepts, e.g. Dyson Shells or Matrioshka Brains. —Preceding unsigned comment added by RobertBradbury (talk • contribs) 09:18, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

A shell of orbiting satellites is no more feasible. In fact, it's physically impossible for any number of reasons. Let's pretend Earth is Satellite 1 in this system, and let's call the plane of Earth's revolution Layer Zero. Now imagine another layer, parallel to Zero, either "above" or "below" it (it doesn't matter). Can a satellite trace an orbit that makes this layer its plane of revolution? Shocking answer: no. Because it would be orbiting a point above or below the star if it did. That doesn't get into problems of gravitational attraction between the shell components, since we're not talking about a true sphere. It's a fictional concept either way. You're just defending your fiction at the expense of someone else's. --76.224.64.68 22:31, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

The concept is popularly known as a "Dyson sphere", despite the fact that the real idea was the Dyson shell or Dyson swarm. Thus, the article is at Dyson sphere. The lead paragraph clearly describes the variants, so I don't know what your problem with the article is. —Disavian (^talk/_contribs) 01:04, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Braided Dyson shells?

Has anyone explored the concept of a Dyson sphere in which the orbiting objects are allowed to push on one another? For example, as an object orbits it uses a superconducting magnet or the like to remain a constant distance from each continual stream of objects orbiting in a different plane that it encounters, weaving back and forth from the star. It would seem like such a scheme could ensure complete capture of all sunlight from the star with not very much waste over a solid shell, with minimal energy usage, but engineering it would be formidable (i.e. if you come up with something I'd love to read about it). Wnt (talk) 16:45, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

why did I revert edit http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dyson_sphere&oldid=187678049

Because it's not based on fantasy!! Freeman Dyson proposed that we could use the idea to look for unexplainable but high index infra red light. Observing such an phenomenon might lead to the discovery of a Dyson sphere and of extraterrestrials.

The concept is impossible because of either the laws of physics or material resource availability or technological limitations. ... Please add new section, I suggest the title Criticism and be sure to cite those sources ;) Thank you!

In response to It is also impossible given current or credible projected future human capabilities (even into the far distant future). This isn't cited, and it doesn't matter because whether we could build a Dyson's sphere is a moot point. You may be right, but it's about whether or not it's possible, the article is about whether or not a alien species could accomplish the task, or any advanced civilization could. This article is not Earth centered! Science does not exist fulfill humans POV (point of view).

Finally, there's a very important word in the first sentence of this article, a word that describes, a word that the article could not do without, a word that should calm all naysayers, that word is hypothetical. Thanks for reading--Sparkygravity (talk) 14:09, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

It's entirely based on fantasy.

Not a single shred of evidence currently exists for the existence of or theoretical physical possibility of such a structure, whilst the overwhelming weight of scientific knowledge and understanding voids its theoretical possibility upon multiple grounds.

The theoretical objection you are thinking of (ratio of gravitational attraction to pressure from sunlight with respect to currently known materials) only applies to Dyson Spheres located in our solar system. Other stars have different luminosities per mass. There is no theoretical objection to the idea of a Dyson Sphere itself. For further information and calculations, see How many people can our solar system support? --DouglasReay (talk) 08:10, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

One can propose just about anything way out and call it hypothetical, but in the absence of a detailed study let alone an even remotely comprehensive technical analysis showing how fundamental physical laws and problems can be overcome this concept remains fantasy and it needs to be stated clearly and upfront.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proofs. Where are the peer reviewed scientific studies? I can quickly think of literally dozens of physical limitations that would prevent construction, but feel free to include them in a new section yourself spelling out in detail for the intellectually or reality challenged. Its impossible given all we know about the world unless proven otherwise. Perhaps you could compose a message to be sent upon the discovery of one of these structures asking how the constructors managed to change the laws of physics to enable such a structure: your descendants will be waiting forever.

A technologically exponentiating human species, shifted to the far distant future, is for the purposes of determining possibility, essentially the same as any other 'advanced civilization' past current or future.

As for the word, well, my word or perhaps i should say my lord, because it can be used in a similar fashion to describe the fantasies about the existence of gods, and there is also no evidence for the existence or possibility of them either, except in this case divination of deities is being replaced with searches for fundamentally impossible structures. For all i know a new 'advanced civilization' may arise every second tuesday, but it seems to me that such hypotheses about dyson spheres are simply a pseudo scientific reforming of infantile religious delusion and fantasy existing to support an emotional need such as the denial of the reality of death.

--Theo Pardilla 09:12, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

There are many serious scholarly articles discussing the concept.[1].Ultramarine (talk) 10:15, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

There are many things that remain only hypothetical because we humans don't know everything, but scientists work on discovering the truth, they aren't trying to make up stuff. Just because we as humans study science doesn't mean we're experts at anything... we're utterly naive to the realities of the universe, in other words we don't know squatt. However, scientist do come up with models of the universe, and designs of industry that don't exist and do there best to prove, or build them. Currently we can't build a Dyson's sphere, so we look for one instead. We can't travel interstellar space so Seti scientists look for those that can. We theorize about Einstein-Rosen Bridges, even though they don't exist on anywhere but on paper. Hundreds if not thousands of physicists study string theory, but there are several obsticales and opinions that suggest string theory will never be proven with empirical evidence (you can look under the section labeled problems and controversy). It's great that you can think of a dozens of limitations from Dyson's spheres being a reality, but wikipedia isn't the place to prove us wrong. This isn't a place for personal opinion, it's not a place for OR. If you manage to do convince Freeman Dyson, John Barrow, Michio Kaku, and Nikolai Kardashev then by that time there will be enough evidence in science journals, and periodicals that you'll be able to quote yourself... but under an new section titled ' Critism ' because even at that point there will still be those that disagree with you.

Why don't you start a new section anyway, you can help the article quite a bit. Drum up some critical references, people that believe that Dyson's spheres are a crock, complete fantasy and contribute to the article?(one catch: they must be from reliable sources though... no blogs, or things like that)--Sparkygravity (talk) 14:04, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Star Trek reference

I'm sure this subject has been brought up before, and perhaps even deleted before, however I found no reference to it within the discussion or article. Fans of Star Trek The Next Generation might recall an entire episode based on the Dyson Sphere, including references to Freeman Dyson. While science fiction in nature, and not adding to the relevance of the topic, pop culture references such as these are often mentioned in Wikipedia articles as an anchor in 20th and 21st century vernacular for understanding. Why not mention it here? would there be any problem with that? 67.182.84.151 (talk) 07:34, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Because there's already a separate article dedicated to Dyson spheres in fiction, and it's prominently mentioned there.  Xihr  20:05, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

1 AU

Why are all the examples and calculations for a sphere of 1AU in radius? Who cares if the sphere gets the same isolation as the earth, you can't live on the inside what with the whole falling into the sun due to gravity thing. A sphere that was built closer would use less matter, and would enjoy an increasingly large ratio of solar radiation pressure versus surface area, which might help support the sphere. Could this force push the material requirements into the non hypothetical realm or does the increased gravity from being closer negate the gains from this approach?70.70.145.85 (talk) 06:19, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

just did some fast calculations, at 3 700 000 km from the center of the sun (roughly 3 000 000km from the surface) the gravity on the outside due to the sun would be roughly 1g, that would seem to be a good starting point, and likely much more useful if the Dyson sphere was being used for habitation as well as power generation. However, I'd assume that it would be pretty hot this close, so maybe we'd need a different magical material that is impervious to heat as opposed to impervious to pressure. Or really good active cooling. Well, its a thought at least. 70.70.145.85 (talk) 06:45, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Both gravity and radiation pressure vary as the inverse square of the distance from the sun, so that drops out of the equation for the mass per area that can be supported by radiation. One AU is arbitrary, but it's familiar, and it works well enough for the general concept. If you were developing a particular design, the optimal radius would probably different.

—WWoods (talk) 14:29, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Well wouldn't a civilization that actually had a working, efficient dyson sphere have the energy to cool/shield the inside to habitable levels, or as i imagine create and maintain an atmosphere on the outside. I mean the sun puts out a whole lot of energy and as needy as we biological creatures are we have managed to survive on a meager fraction of that. Plus the technology necessary to accomplish its construction is so far beyond our current capabilities that we have no idea how we would have changed or the biological needs of a different race that produced one.98.28.114.217 (talk) 05:16, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Dyson Sphere Diagram.svg

Shouldn't this be moved out of the lead position, as the article itself indicates that a shell is physically impossible, a fact of which Dyson himself was well aware. (No less than Cosmic Variance appears to have been thrown off by this.) Surely Image:Dyson Swarm.GIF would better illustrate the concept, no? --99.225.218.183 (talk) 04:01, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Pity Party

Sorry to throw a lot of dirt on the fire here, but outside of the stability argument, another aspect to the infeasibility of a D sphere is the null gravitational field on the inside of the shell. No thing could be on the inside, assuming near perfect symmetry. All things standing on teh surface would fall to the star. Sorry, just thought that it should be mentioned in the article, as did not see it, also, sorry that i cant document this or myself correctly to save my life. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.4.180.192 (talk) 07:17, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Best reference

Perhaps the best reference discussing in detail the math behind why a sphere doesn't work but why a shell of orbiting "satellites" or "habitats" will is:

K. G. Suffern, "Some Thoughts on Dyson Spheres", [i]Proc. Astronomical Society of Australia[/i], 3(2):177-179 (1977).

If someone wants to modify the Dyson Shell page to include this and needs a copy of the article for review, please send me an email request (robert.bradbury@gmail.com).

The "solid" sphere image should be thrown out entirely because it leaves a misimpression that a "sphere" would actually work when it will not. Anders Sandberg's pages, some I have had created, and a print by M.C. Escher's "Concentric Rinds" print all are better examples of what a Dyson shell would look like.

One cannot have the orbiting shells too close to the sun because the laws of physics involving blackbody radiation (Wein's law & the Stefan-Boltzmann law) would require that they have very high temperatures (witness all the discussion regarding "hot Jupiter" exoplanets that orbit very close to their stars). You have to remember that a complete shell has to get rid of ~3.86 x 10^26 W of energy (for our sun) and it is the surface area of the shell (tied to the distance from the sun) that determines the temperature. A smaller shell equates to a higher temperature. If you shield a near-sun shell using mirrors, you run the risk of heating up the sun, presumably making it hotter and causing it to expand and/or reflecting the energy back onto other satellites. I don't know at what point this process would run amok, but I suspect it wouldn't take very long.

It is generally agreed among physicists that a solid sphere will not work. Dyson himself even knew this because in the letters in response to his original article someone complained that a sphere, even a rotating sphere, could not support itself against gravity. Dyson's response was that he knew this and that his and that he was envisioning a large number of orbiting satellites (or O'Neil type habitats though the concepts for those would be developed by O'Neil much later). If you carefully review Dyson's original article he *never* uses the word "sphere", he always uses the word "shell".

It might also be useful to add a reference to the Wikipedia discussion of Matrioshka_brain, in which the Dyson shell concept is expanded to include nested Dyson shells which can operate from very near the sun out to beyond the orbit of Pluto.

Robert (talk) 17:13, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

---

I don't know whether it is appropriate to mention this on the talk page, but I was at a small reception for Dr. Dyson Thursday 3 December 2009, where he was asked about the so-called Dyson sphere. He said that he originally posed the concept of anomalous infrared sources as a signature of advanced civilizations. The later observation of many natural infrared sources ( stars in the early stages of formation, or in gas clouds) made that an unreliable detection method. He attributed the ideas of spheres or shells (as unitary objects) as misinterpretation by careless science fiction authors. BTW, at 85 he is still charming, intelligent, and lively.

KeithLofstrom (talk) 08:52, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Dyson Effect on the Heliosphere

Any kind of Dyson Ring/Sphere/Nutcase (lol) will significantly reduce the heliosphere or probably weak it too much for the sun protecting its surrounds. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.140.33.63 (talk) 17:44, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

"To put this in perspective[...]"

...Fail. Just fail.

To put this in perspective, the statement in the text is about as effective as comparing a purple ostrich bonnet to a snizzlemork of hundybat paste.

That reminded me of the possessed accountant's meaningless boasts in Ghostbusters. Anyone got a way we can discuss the difference in power requirements and the power that would be gathered by a Dyson shell in more meaninful terms? That is, for all practical intents and purposes, it should not include "x10" or any exponents for any reason.

J.M. Archer (talk) 20:23, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Bow shock

"Lastly, the shell would be vulnerable to the material in interstellar space that is currently being deflected by the Sun's Bow shock." Really? The bow shock is still practically vacuum to what people would call 'materials'. (physical objects) 88.159.72.240 (talk) 18:15, 26 March 2010 (UTC)