dyson sphere
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.15 in modern English
20
Scrabble Score
11
Letters
2
Syllables
9
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A hypothetical system of orbiting solar power satellites meant to completely encompass a star and capture its entire energy output.
Example Sentences
- "To the public, he’s more famous for giving science fiction the “Dyson Sphere,” a hypothetical structure a future civilization could build to harness the entire power of its sun."
- ""But there's more to a Dyson sphere than collecting solar power. "Say you make the sphere one astronomical unit in radius. You've got to clear out the solar system anyway, so you use all the solar planets in the construction. That gives you a shell of, say, chrome steel a few yards thick. Now you put gravity generators all over the shell. You'd have a surface area a billion times as big as the Earth's surface. A trillion people could wander all their lives without ever meeting one another.""
- "Aye, an actual Dyson sphere. Can you imagine the engineering skills needed to even design such a structure?"
- "You could even extend the argument to say why, on purely selfish grounds, a benign intelligence might remain benevolently engaged with the rest of the universe, rather than hiding away in a Dyson sphere and literally wireheading itself - because the payoff for expansive engagement will necessarily eventually exceed any possible payoff accompanying solitary self-reconstruction."
- "Meridian is a construct akin to a Dyson sphere: a vast, hollow shell encompassing a power source that provides heat and light to lush green biomes in the interior."
Etymology
Named after American theoretical physicist and mathematician Freeman Dyson, who originally described the concept in 1960.