The earth is troubled by many disasters, such as wars, famines, floods, epidemics, and environmental destruction... Fortunately, there are also many good things to accompany it, such as the popularization of electricity and the Internet, the exploration of celestial bodies such as the moon and Mars , large and powerful The discovery of the Higgs boson by the collider allows us to understand the world better than ever before.
Power has always been linked to resources. The abundance of resources determines the foundation of a tribe, a country, and a civilization. As the pioneer of the great geographical discovery at the end of the 14th century, Columbus's voyages not only brought mankind a new understanding of the world, but also brought about a desire for resources and wealth.
In 1955, 10 years after the end of World War II, the two super political entities of the United States and the Soviet Union began a tug-of-war over aerospace capabilities. On April 12, 1961, the Soviet Union first launched the Vostok 1 spacecraft carrying the world's first astronaut Yuri Gagarin into space orbit. On July 20, 1969, the United States' "Apollo 11" successfully landed on the moon. As astronaut Neil Armstrong set foot on the desolate surface of the moon, he realized the dream of mankind for thousands of years.
It is not certain whether aliens exist, but the resources must exist. Scientists and entrepreneurs are very optimistic about mining resources on asteroids. The resources in the universe are beyond human estimation, especially if you can find a "carbonaceous asteroid." According to Silicon Valley Iron Man Musk’s plan, 1 million people will go to Mars before 2050 to build a colony. However, the technology and energy levels of Earth's civilization are unable to support his far-fetched plan.
How to measure the current energy utilization of the earth and the level of civilization on the earth today?
If there are other civilizations besides humans in the universe, they must be strong and weak. In 1964, Soviet astronomer Nikolai Kardashov proposed a hypothesis known as the Kardashev Scale. He classified the degree of development of alien civilizations according to the energy level that each civilization can control. Kardashov Type I civilization can harness all the energy of its planet, Type II civilization can harness all the energy of its star, and Type III civilization can harness all the energy of its galaxy.
American astrophysicist Carl Sagan calculated the energy level of human civilization: from 1973 to 2015, from level 0.7 to level 0.72 civilization, humans only increased by 0.02 level in forty years; the earth is still at level 0 civilization.
The famous theoretical physicist Michio Kaku believes that it took 3 million years for human beings to be born, and the explosion of science and technology only took 200 years. The speed of development has long exceeded millions of years of effort. It is possible for humans to reach level I civilization in about 100 to 200 years, level II civilization in a few thousand years, and level III civilization in about 100,000 to 1 million years.
Nobel Prize winner in physics, American physicist and mathematician Freeman Dyson proposed the concept of a "spherical energy source" in the 1960s and discussed how civilization should deal with this problem. An increase in energy demand.
He believes that in the future, humans can build orbital structures that can intercept and collect all the energy emitted by the parent star. This device that collects energy is the Dyson sphere . According to his idea, Jupiter was dismantled, and all the material was used to build a huge spherical shell surrounding the entire sun. The solar radiation was completely or partially absorbed by this spherical shell. People living on the inner wall of the spherical shell will be in eternal daylight, with the sun hanging high above their heads, and every "day" is the summer solstice; if you want to see stars, just turn to the outer wall of the spherical shell, and the sea of stars will immediately appear to you. right in front of you and there is no light pollution. This method maximizes the use of the sun's energy.
The energy of the sun is huge. The solar energy that can illuminate the earth only accounts for one 2.2 billionth of the entire solar energy, and the solar energy that humans can use and convert is very small.In many science fiction movies, being able to build a Dyson sphere has become an important watershed for secondary civilization. Whether Dyson spheres are feasible is highly controversial. Avi Loeb, a theoretical astrophysicist at Harvard University , believes that there is no need to collect stars. It is much easier to be a nomad than to move land. A super civilization should be able to move freely between galaxies. Areas beyond the horizon of the universe can also be reached by bending space and creating wormholes. In other words, the idea of "searching for habitable planets" has changed. It has become that as long as there is a planet, you can live on it, and you just don't want to be dissatisfied with the transformation.
creates artificial planets, changes the existence form of human beings, and exists in the form of energy bodies. Machines capable of "self-replication" will spread throughout the galaxy, occupying stars one after another and building Dyson spheres, eventually forming an energy network to power the parent star . Under normal circumstances, the maximum human beings can reach the third level of civilization is the limit. Civilizations above level three can be called god-level civilizations and can create and destroy galaxies. The gods in mythology are such people.
To the entire universe, humans are nothing but ants. In the eyes of advanced civilizations, we are nothing. They have no interest in understanding the thinking wisdom that humans are proud of, because it is too low-level. Just like when we see a primitive man cutting fruit with a knife-shaped stone tool, this is a great improvement in the practical tools of primitive man, but it is something that modern people take for granted. Top civilizations will not be afraid of all the things that humans are afraid of now. Their spaceships should already be "super-light speed" and can reach any corner of the universe at will. Civilization breaks away from the limitations of the body and only needs consciousness to "live". High-level civilization is a dimensionality reduction attack on low-level civilization. It can easily defeat us with civilization and technology at a level that is incomprehensible.
The biggest threat to human development is not an asteroid hitting the earth. The current level of science and technology is sufficient to provide early warning of asteroids that pose a threat to the earth. Even if we collide with it in a few thousand years, we will have the technology to destroy the asteroid by then.
Humanity's biggest enemy is actually ourselves. We use limited earth resources for internal consumption instead of developing science and technology. If we could peacefully develop to a civilization above level one, our thinking might be different from what it is now. By then, humans will spread across the universe, occupy dozens of planets as living bases, build various transfer stations in space, and fly farther into deep space.
