Comparing Earth technology with alien civilizations | The Kardashev Scale

[Music]. do you believe there are alien. civilizations out there. and how do those civilizations compare. with us how do we even measure it. well we have no idea what an alien. civilization would look like. humans are evolved primates what if an. alien species is reptilian. or more like an insect or a hybrid of. these or maybe something completely. unique that we couldn't even imagine. there is only one set of universal laws. that every species must follow. physics specifically energy and one way. to measure a civilization is by its.

energy consumption. and this is done with the kardashev. scale by using the kardashev scale we. can address some big questions about. alien civilizations like fermi's paradox. which says if the universe is full of. advanced civilizations. where the hell are they right that's. fermi's paradox in a nutshell. it's estimated that there are 40 billion. earth-like planets in the milky way that. could support life. now certainly a few of these should have. given rise to intelligent life. and if so where is everyone a recent.

study done by researchers at jpl and. caltech states. that when a civilization finally reaches. a certain point on the kardashev scale. it destroys itself which is why we. haven't discovered any evidence. they're all gone that's depressing and. the kardashev scale addresses the most. worrisome theory of. all if there are advanced civilizations. in our universe. it's probably best if we don't make. contact with them. let's find out why. for hundreds of thousands of years human.

technology didn't advance very much. tools were useful discovering fire was a. big deal the wheel. super helpful breakthroughs in astronomy. mathematics and physics certainly. happened. but there was a lot of time in between. major discoveries then the industrial. revolution came along and everything. changed. and in the past couple of hundred years. the human race has experienced an. explosion of scientific progress. then the computer revolution accelerated. that progress. now think about it just over 100 years. ago nobody thought human flight was even.

possible about 50 years later we're. walking on the moon. and now we're flying drones on mars. things are moving along. and given this rapid advancement of. technology you can't help but wonder. what we'll be able to achieve in the. next hundred thousand or million years. if there are alien civilizations in our. universe who have achieved levels of. scientific progress beyond our own. how do we grade and compare them well. one of the most popular metrics for. doing this is the kardashev scale. in 1964 nikolai kardashev theorized that.

courtney's my favorite. what courtney carter chef love her no no. no no nikolai kardashev he was an. astrophysicist courtney's not an. astrophysicist. courtney what the is up with your. wi-fi you have this big-ass house. and you can't afford a wi-fi box out. here it's not about affording it's about. radiation you're gonna die anyway you. understand that right die with a good. snapchat going. she's the best anyway kardashev said.

that civilizations can be categorized by. the total amount of energy available to. them. and how much they use plugging how much. power a civilization uses into a formula. gives us a number that represents the. advancement of that civilization's. technology. and the formula is simple oh yeah real. simple. p is the total amount of power a. civilization is capable of using at a. given time. k is the number assigned to represent. their technological advancement. that's the kardashev number and. kardashev defined three levels. levels one through three and these have.

since been expanded by another four. so the levels are now zero through six. let's go through the levels and see. where we are on the scale. a type zero civilization is entry level. this civilization harnesses some of the. energy of its home planet but not to its. full potential. as you might have guessed that's us. we're currently about a 0.7 on the. kardashev scale. maybe 0.75 will reach type 1 in anywhere. from 1 to. hundred years now a type one.

civilization is capable of harnessing. the total energy of its home planet. think burning timber for cooking using. coal. building geothermal power plants using. hydroelectricity. dams even harnessing the power of the. atom to heat steam and move turbines. two kilograms of matter converted. entirely to energy. per second now this can even be extended. to collecting starlight coming down to. the planet so. solar panels or satellites that can. collect the sun's energy and wirelessly. beam it back down to the planet.

for use and this is where we're heading. now the good news is we'd be able to. control our environment entirely. as a type 1 civilization we could. control the weather volcanic eruptions. and earthquakes. we could influence the evolution of. plants and animals. now the bad news is we'd have more. energy demand than supply. so to keep advancing we'd have to leave. earth and start mining other planets and. asteroids for their resources. now if that sounds like sci-fi that's. because it is. actually the best way to describe. civilizations as they climb the scale.

is through science fiction so let's do. that. a type 2 civilization can harness all. the energy within their own solar. system still science fiction but. theoretically it could be done with. something called a dyson sphere. sometimes called a dyson shell and this. is a structure that completely. encompasses a star and captures all that. star's energy. the object does fit the general. parameters of dyson's theory. this is one of my favorite theories and. it needs its own video but the the gist.

of it is this. imagine building a giant hollow sphere. in space. and the sun is actually at the center of. the sphere now the edge of the sphere. would be about as far. out as the earth is 93 million miles or. 150 million kilometers. now civilization would exist on the. interior surface of this sphere. now that's a lot of surface area in fact. it would be about 550 million. times the surface area of the earth so. plenty of room to move around. now even though a dyson sphere works in. theory this is just way beyond our.

current level of engineering. the biggest problem is there just isn't. enough raw material. available in the entire solar system to. build it but an intermediate step. could be a structure called a dyson. swarm a dyson swarm is a large number of. independent satellites orbiting in dense. formation around the sun. and these structures would use wireless. energy transfer that would beam energy. between swarm components. and ultimately back to earth now there's. actually a star where a dyson swarm. may exist it's designated.

eight five kic-8462852 also known as. tabby's star tabby's star emits such a. wildly changing and varying amount of. light and energy. that it can't be explained by our. current understanding of stellar physics. there seems to be some kind of ring of. matter orbiting the star. and some have hypothesized this could be. a dyson swarm. under construction that sounds crazy but. people are taking this seriously. in fact in 2018 scientists began. speaking of using the european space. agency's gaia mission.

to seek out dyson spheres and other. megastructures in the galaxy. now if they're there we should be able. to detect them. that is unless they don't want to be. found now what would a type 2. civilization be hiding from you ask well. a type 3. civilization and that's where things get. really scary. i mean if there are super intelligent. aliens out there. they're probably already observing us. that would seem quite likely.

and we just are not smart enough to. realize it. a type 3 civilization would span the. entire galaxy. colonizing and controlling numerous. systems it would be able to harness. store and use the energy output of all. stars in that galaxy. this civilization would use planets like. building blocks moving planets from one. solar system to another. they could merge solar systems merge. stars even create stars from scratch. the galaxy is their playground and. everything in it. is a toy now to reach type 3 the energy.

harvested would be. insane it's a huge number i mean we're. talking hundreds. if not thousands of dyson spheres. scattered throughout the galaxy. or alternatively tapping into a. supermassive black hole at the center of. a galaxy. now this civilization almost certainly. would use some form of faster than light. interstellar travel. utilizing wormhole technology to form. shortcuts between points in spacetime. or the ability to manipulate gravity to. twist and bend space-time to drastically. reduce the distances between two points.

now kardashev himself stopped at type. three he said that it was nearly. impossible for a civilization to reach a. galactic level of energy control. but he did think that in time mankind. could progress to a type 2. before we you know. now the clock is ticking and we're only. one meteor away from starting over. then there's the fact that our sun will. expand into a red giant in about five. billion years. and occupy the space we're currently.

living in but before that happens. the approaching solar mass will turn the. earth's surface into a scorched. wasteland boiling away all water and. atmosphere. and then it atomizes us so there are a. few problems to solve. nothing like a little existential dread. to ruin my mood. but let's say we do survive all of that. and make it to type 4. what does that even look like. there is some chance that in the next. few decades we will get. a signal from some spectacularly distant.

spectacularly exotic civilization and. everything on earth will as a. consequence change now there have been a. few add-ons to the kardashev scale in. subsequent years. and we covered type zero representing a. primitive civilization that doesn't. appear on the graph. going in the other direction a type four. civilization will be able to harness a. power. output equal to all of the galaxies in. the observable universe. that we can also assume that type 4. civilization would make use of the. energy from black holes and neutron. stars.

as well as regular stars now this is so. technologically advanced. that science fiction doesn't really. cover it because it's just too difficult. to wrap our minds around. now for reference star trek is about a. 2.2 on the kardashev scale. the asgardians and the mcu are about a. 3.2. did you farewell and good luck morons. marvel's masters of the mystic arts. 3.3 the star wars stories are considered. right around 3.6. this station is now the ultimate power. in the universe.

still not type 4. now if you're able to. control the energy of an entire universe. at type 4. what the heck do you do with type 5 well. say hello to interdimensional beings who. travel the multiverse. and probably through time yep this type. of civilization would be able to. manipulate all the matter and energy. within their own. observable universe and likely travel. beyond it. how do you travel beyond something if. you can't observe it. i i don't know it's too abstract for my. monkey brain.

but even more abstract is the type 6. civilization. they're capable of creating universes. and multiverses. and destroying them just as easily they. could step. outside the confines of time influence. future possibilities. branch infinite timelines all at will. now a type 4. civilization would seem like magic to us. but even a single being from a type 5 or. a type 6. would seem like a god no boy. and probably not a benevolent god this.

is why many theorists would prefer we. never make contact with anyone. because if we do find an advanced. civilization it would probably mean the. end of our own. the aliens don't have to be evil in. order to be dangerous to us. they might not care they just may not. care about us and in the process pave us. over. if we look at the kardashev scale the. next logical step for us. a move from type 1 to type 2 requires. space exploration.

it's likely any extraterrestrials we. encounter are at least a type 2. if not type 3. there's no guarantee. they'd be friendly. there's a strong possibility that if we. get the attention of an intelligent. civilization. they might not be interested in our. friendship but they certainly be. interested in our resources. first contact could be something that. accelerates our own advancement. and improves the quality of life on. earth or. it could be the end of our species we. really have no way of knowing. still there are plenty of people. searching for life the european space.

agency broadcasts. 3 700 text messages toward polaris. oh boy and breakthrough initiatives is a. program founded in 2015. and funded by billionaire yuri milner.

its mission is to search for. extraterrestrial intelligence using. various approaches breakthrough listen. is an effort to search over 1 million. stars for artificial radio or laser. signals. a parallel project called breakthrough. star shot will send a swarm of probes to. the alpha centauri system at about 20. percent the speed of light. now what do you think is this a good. idea now some scientists. most notably stephen hawking are. convinced the answer is a firm. no many scientists have compared. discovering alien life.

to columbus or cortez coming to the new. world. and fyi in that comparison humans are. the natives. and things didn't work out that well for. them. when any of us explored the world. with high technology ships and and. came upon a civilization less advanced. it was bad for the less advanced. civilization the kardashev scale. is just one measurement of civilization. but there are others. in 2010 john barrow mathematician and.

theoretical physicist. proposed an alternative theory for. measuring civilization. he called it micro dimensional mastery. nabarro said that humans are currently. more cost oriented and that it's more. economical. to manipulate smaller scale environments. than venturing to the cosmos. so his scale is one of decreasing value. now type one would be the ability to. manipulate objects on the same scale as. ourselves like. breaking down rocks to mine ore or to. make building materials from trees. a type 2 is capable of manipulating dna.

altering the development and function of. living organisms by replacing. or inserting new genetic code a type 3. is a civilization capable of. manipulating molecular bonds directly. to create entirely new and non-naturally. forming materials. a type 4 can manipulate actual atoms. themselves. nanotechnology that can create. artificial life forms from base matter. now type 5 is the power to change the. atomic nucleus. and stitch it together from subatomic. particles to create designer elements.

then a type six can customize most basic. forms of matter. quarks leptons and organize them into a. complex system. this isn't just understanding quantum. physics it's controlling it. and a type omega civilization well they. have complete control over space and. time. now currently we sit somewhere between. types 3 and type. 4 in the micro dimensional mastery scale. that means our next step. is artificial life yep we always end up. here don't we.

the good old rise of the ai no boy. [Music]. if humanity collectively decides that. creating digital super intelligence is. the right move then. we should do so very very carefully. um very very carefully. okay so back to fermi's paradox which. simply states. if there's so much life in the universe. why can't we find it now a response to. this is in a paper released just last.

year by researchers at caltech and jpl. the basic idea of the paper is that the. universe is full of civilizations. dead civilizations that through. technological advancements. eventually killed themselves off this is. why no one's answering our calls. but given our own path and the ominous. presence of apocalyptic weapons. this scenario seems plausible i mean. we're not even close to going. interstellar. but we're certainly capable of. self-annihilation right now. i think this is why we want there to be. advanced life out there.

because if another civilization is able. to overcome the risks of technology and. finally travel the stars. then that means we could do it too i. think this is also a reason why people. like science fiction stories that take. place in the far future. not just positive futures like star trek. but darker futures like ender's game or. the matrix or terminator the future may. be dark in these stories. but at least there's a future there's. security and a sense of peace and. knowing that. even though our individual time on earth. is short life. does go on our species will continue.

but will it when we finally do find. evidence of intelligent alien life. will that discovery motivate the human. race to use technology to address. problems here on earth so that we can. join the larger community. yeah i wouldn't count on it or if we. find evidence of an extinct civilization. that too should motivate us right. because if we can't evolve past our. selfishness and tribalism. we could share the same fate our future. may be.

just like many scientists believe no. future at all. thanks for hanging out with us today my. name is aj that's hecklefish this has. been the y-files if you had fun or. learned anything today comment like. subscribe share. it really helps out the channel fun i'm. terrified. over here sorry about that anyway until. next time be safe. be kind and know that you are. [Music]. appreciated.

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