In 1960, British theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson published a one-page paper in the journal Science that offered perhaps the most hopeful vision ever conceived of humanity’s technological future.

In 1960, visionary physicist Freeman Dyson proposed that an advanced alien civilization would someday quit fooling around with kindergarten-level stuff like wind turbines and nuclear reactors and ...

We’d need an astronomical amount of resources to construct a Dyson sphere, a giant theoretical shell that would harvest all of a given star’s energy, around the Sun. In fact, as science journalist ...

There are three ways to look for evidence of alien technological civilizations. One is to look out for deliberate attempts by them to communicate their existence, for example, through radio broadcasts ...

The gargantuan artificial construct enveloping your local star is going to be rather difficult to miss, even from a few light years away. And given the literally astronomical costs of resources needed ...

There are three ways to look for evidence of alien technological civilizations. One is to look out for deliberate attempts by them to communicate their existence, for example, through radio broadcasts ...

The Sphere would not gravitationally bind to its star in a stable fashion. This is perhaps counterintuitive; you might think that a perfect sphere around a star would be stable. But if any part of the ...

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links. All of our planet's energy — whether it's gained from food, fossil fuels, or renewable sources — ultimately comes from the sun. Solar ...

👨‍🔬 I'm a Nuclear Engineer with 10+ years of experience in nuclear power — from engineering ⚙️, operations ⚡, maintenance 🔧, emergency response 🚨, to capital projects 💰. I don’t know everything, ...

Side note: if we can build a structure around the sun, we won’t need local energy storage for said structure. Also, I’m with others in thinking a swarm is the way to go. Though I don’t think that ...

Time to update you on the hunt for galactic empires. On our search for alien lifeforms we scan for primitive biosignatures, and wait and hope for their errant signals to happen by the Earth. But that ...

Simon Goodwin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond ...