Talk:Kardashev scale

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To-do list for Kardashev scale: edit · history · watch · refresh
  • NPOV Article
    • Literally too Earth centric, all 3 of Kardashev's proposals were centered around civilizations in general.
  • Check Grammar.
    • Dangling particples are almost as bad as hanging chads.
  • Split article after featured article candidacy.
  • Explain development diagram.

Contents

[edit] Outline of Intentions for Kardashev scale

I discovered this article and decided over the last few days to do a lot of work on it. Given that, I will list here what I think can be done, and other issues I noted:

  1. Since I just reworked large portions of the article, I hope someone can help me throughly NPOV this, because of course, remenants of my POV may be stuck in sections that I wrote.
  2. I put in information about civilization cycles, but can someone help me find a source that talks about this that doesn't proclaim the 'end of the world is 'nigh' or explain how 'alien gods will decend upon the Earth, angered by the human race, to destroy us all on December 21, 2012.' Well, maybe I am paraphrasing a little, but you get the point.
  3. If anyone enjoys to mercilessly criticize and correct grammar and spelling, be my guest, whatever makes the article better.

#With all the external references, I think this could be highly internalized, with large extentions of sections into subarguments and analysises. I disliked either referencing to sources that are not that accurate in POV, or better express information that I think is relevant, but must be phrased such that no copywrite issues are involved. I have already gone through the article and made sure that no single point comes from any one source, and that there is a lot of information behind any statement. #The scale was made with SETI in mind, if anyone can provide a section about SETI's applications of the scale and any information upon its other uses, or even popular references to the scale, that would be great. It seems to be prominent in science fiction community discussions, but I only have cursory involvement with that, so I only provided as much as I knew from discussions from other people, along with the literature that I have encountered. This also leads back to a POV issue, because of my limit on sources that I have access to. #If someone could either get an image/graph of global power production growth, that would be great because I had a tough time finding one, given by the fact that there is none on the page. #Extended section on current values, with fractional scale values pertaining to particular dates (ie. development of steam engine, light bulb, World War I, World War II, 1970's energy crisises, and numbers for the last three years (2002, 2003, 2004). Maybe a discussion of near term (20-100 years) predictions, along from predictions of time until crossing the Type I, and Type II barriers.

Thanks for anyone's help in advance. Ctrl_build\talk 20:01, Oct 22, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Help Request

I just hit the motherload in terms of references, can someone help me get together and compile all this information. From the article On the Inevitability and the Possible Structures of Supercivilizations Karadashev developed a second scale on possible outcomes of extraterrestial detection/nondectection.

--[[User:Ctrl build|Ctrl_buildtalk ]] 22:26, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Tasks

===NPOVing Article=== ===Internalize more information from referered external sources=== from: Talk:Kardashev scale#Further References : "Can anyone think of a way to integrate the information included here: Energy and Culture along with Detectability of Extraterrestrial Technological Activities? With the intergration, combination and references to the infromation provided there (without copyviolating) could bring this article much closer to featured article status, because then it wold be very relevant and very information filled. Basically both articles relate knowledge, energy, and development.

[[User:Ctrl build|Ctrl_buildtalk ]] 20:04, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)"

===SETI's applications=== ===Images=== ===Extended Current Values Sections=== ===Decrazyfying Civilization Cycles=== ===Grammar Check===

If there are no complaints I will remove this outdated content. ANONYMOUS COWARD0xC0DE 21:06, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Peer review text of Kardashev scale

I discovered this article and decided to do a lot of work on it. Given that, I will list here what I think can be done, and other issues I noted:
#Since I just reworked large portions of the article, I hope someone can help me throughly NPOV this, because of course, remenants of my POV may be stuck in sections that I wrote.
#With all the external references, I think this could be highly internalized, with large extentions of sections into subarguments and analysises. I disliked either referencing to sources that are not that accurate in POV, or better express information that I think is relevant, but must be phrased such that no copywrite issues are involved. I have already gone through the article and made sure that no single point comes from any one source, and that there is a lot of information behind any statement.
#The scale was made with SETI as in mind, if anyone can provide a section about SETI's applications of the scale and any information upon its other uses, or even popular references to the scale, that would be great. It seems to be prominent in science fiction community discussions, but I only have cursory involvement with that, so I only provided as much as I knew from discussions from other people, along with the literature that I have encountered. This also leads back to a POV issue, because of my limit on sources that I have access to.
#If someone could either get an image/graph of global power production growth, that would be great because I had a tough time finding one, given by the fact that there is none on the page.
#Extended section on current values, with fractional scale values pertaining to particular dates (ie. development of steam engine, light bulb, World War I, World War II, 1970's energy crisises, and numbers for the last three years (2002, 2003, 2004). Maybe a discussion of near term (20-100 years) predictions, along from predictions of time until crossing the Type I, and Type II barriers.
#I put in information about civilization cycles, but can someone help me find a source that talks about this that doesn't proclaim the 'end of the world is 'nigh' or explain how 'alien gods will decend upon the Earth, angered by the human race, to destroy us all on December 21, 2012.' Well, maybe I am paraphrasing a little, but you get the point.
#If anyone enjoys to mercilessly criticize and correct grammar and spelling, be my guest, whatever makes the article better.
*I have prepped my talk page for all discussions and commentary, talk, and I would prefer that editing discussions occur there or the article's talk page, while suggestion discussions occur here. I will be away/busy probably until Friday, but I will try to respond to any questions before then.

[edit] References for Kardashev scale

[edit] Current talk page begins here

Kardashev's original scale only had types I, II and III. Several "extensions" of types IV and up have been added to the article, but I'm a little dubious about how they're presented; as far as I'm aware these are all highly speculative and also generally idiosyncratic. Does anyone have solid sources for who proposed these extensions and whether they're used by anyone else? Bryan 06:32, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)

  • They are marginally represented in science fiction communities, if you would like to emphasize their fictional source, I thinkt hat would be appropriate Ctrl build 15:48, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Adding a section header to separate Kardashev's original three-point scale from the later extensions looks like the right way to go, IMO. Bryan 05:43, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Higher categories?

Could there be categories higher than those presented? EG harnessing energy from other universes? A transcendence to a higher form, to be able to manipulate energy/matter as needed in exact accordance to physical laws seems likely provided we don't kill ourselves off first.

  • This is exactly what Levels IV, V, VI, and VII indicate, it is just that due to us not being able to comprehend the technology, it is unpredictable what these levels really mean, as that level IV could mean control of the whole universe or just the whole Local Group of galaxys, V could mean multiuniverse powers, or it could mean control of the cluster, VI could mean control of the super cluster, or ability to change physical constants , and VII could mean god like powers, or the ability to contol anything, and we can define it both ways because having this type of energy control could mean that the abililites that come with them indicate these levels of control. Ctrl build 10:16, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Further References

Can anyone think of a way to integrate the information included here: Energy and Culture along with Detectability of Extraterrestrial Technological Activities? With the intergration, combination and references to the infromation provided there (without copyviolating) could bring this article much closer to featured article status, because then it wold be very relevant and very information filled. Basically both articles relate knowledge, energy, and development. --[[User:Ctrl build|Ctrl_buildtalk ]] 20:01, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

--[[User:Ctrl build|Ctrl_buildtalk ]] 22:22, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] verify cost of interstellar transmissions.

"the cost approaches $10,000,000 in energy. This is an infinitesimal fraction of the approximate GDP of the United States alone at the end of the 1990s through the begining of the 21st Century." I added the "infinitesimal fraction" bit myself; but I suspect the cost is a great deal higher than 10 million dollars. Can someone correct this bit? Ben Standeven

[edit] Survive the end?

the article says

"III.5 Ability to survive the end of the Universe."

how can that be true...does it mean

 III.5 Ability to extend the life of the Universe

I'm confused...[[User:BrokenSegue|BrokenSegue]] 22:47, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

  • Theoretically, if a civilization can harness that much energy, they can create minature black hole type gateways to other dimensional structures, possibly other universes, in such quantity that their civilization can choose to exit the universe into another one, or into an artificial one. It is the extention of theory to a a limit, and really does not have much current technological basis, but is theorertically possible if certain proposals about how to travel through the universe hold true when transfered to their realistic creation millenia after their first proposal. --[[User:Ctrl build|Ctrl_buildtalk ]] 21:59, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • One other question. Why is "Universe" sometimes capitalized and somtimes not? Is it because "Universe" is the proper noun and "universe" is the general term? or is it a mistake. [[User:BrokenSegue|BrokenSegue]] 03:12, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)
    • mistake --[[User:Ctrl build|Ctrl_buildtalk ]] 06:53, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)
    • well the mistake is everywhere..lots of articles do it. [[User:BrokenSegue|BrokenSegue]]
      • I will fix it now, making it consistently capitalized. --[[User:Ctrl build|Ctrl_buildtalk ]] 05:26, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)
        • I'm pretty sure that capital-U "Universe" refers to our Universe specifically, especially in contexts where this Universe is thought to be the only one. Lowercase-u "universe" is the general term for a universe, used in contexts where it is assumed or conjectured that there are multiple universes.Lebob 19:56, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Tables

Readding ludicrous over-precision in table -- value comparisions are difficult, and exact values to multiple decimal places gives a better sense of a logarthmic growth phenomena than anything else. Also several values are derived from more exact wattage numbers than the rounded exajoule numbers. --[[User:Ctrl build|Ctrl_buildtalk ]] 05:40, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Image overload

I just removed these images from the top of the article: Image:Spacemirrorandshuttle.jpg Image:Dysonspherediagram.gif Image:Spacecolony1.jpeg Image:Spacecolony2.jpeg Image:Spacecolony3.jpeg Image:Spacecolony4.jpeg Image:Spacecolony5.jpeg

They're all nice images and all, but they're only tangentally related to the Kardashev scale (the Dyson sphere one seems best, the others are just miscellaneous "space stuff") and the layout when viewed in the Classic skin was awful - they formed a big grid filling the whole first page, I had to scroll down to see any text. Bryan 09:08, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

  • Well I was yelled at by someone at Featured article candiates -- not enough images. Thanks though for looking it over, I was planning on someone weeding them out, one of them had to be good. --[[User:Ctrl build|Ctrl_buildtalk ]] 17:54, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

You're putting a lot of effort into this article, which is great, but I'm having a hard time figuring out the merit or even the meaning of some of the additions that are going on now. The image Image:Development-Diagram.gif is incomprehensible to me; what do those triangles and curvy red shapes actually mean? An image should be included because it clarifies or illustrates something, not just as eyecandy, so I'd like to request some further explanation of that one.

Also, the big table in the "Hypothetical futures" section seems to have a lot of unwarranted specifics in it. Here's just some of the problems I'm having:

  • Why is the only point where civilization could "self-destruct" at the end of K-0, and only via a world war, when there seem to be plenty of opportunities scattered throughout?
  • Why is space colonization placed way before asteroid mining, and illustrated by an Island Three space habitat that would likely require vast amounts of asteroidal or lunar material to construct? Asteroid mining can be done before space colonization.
  • Why is "fragmentation of a civilization due to large size" only listed after Ringworld construction (something which isn't even possible according to known physics), when our own meagre K-0 civilization is already quite thoroughly fragmented to begin with?
  • "Type II civilizations will in general have slower expansion rate due to the distances involved" - this statement appears to be both unsupported and quite counterintuitive, I would think a K-II civilization would be able to expand faster due to the vast amounts of energy available to it.
  • Development of a "Star Trek style civilization" is the only cell that's noted noted as being debateable, which IMO is pretty misleading.
  • "II.9 Fleet of Von Neumann machines released into rest of galaxy. (if civilization fragmentation doesn't occur)" - why only at the end of K-II, and why only if civilization fragmentation doesn't occur? A von Neumann machine is well within the capabilities of a large K-0 nation to pull off, if it wanted to.
  • Ability to survive the end of the Universe is listed before colonization of Andromeda galaxy. We don't even know how the universe will end yet, let alone how a civilization might go about surviving it.

Anyway, I guess my basic overarching problem here is that the Kardashev scale was originally designed to be a highly simplified way to measure extraterrestrial civilizations purely in terms of their power consumption, since when you reduce it to that fundamental you can make predictions and observations without actually having to worry about all these detailed far-out speculations about what they're actually using that power for. I'm thinking that a lot of this stuff might be better suited to inclusion in some other article related to futurology. I'll start looking around and see if there's any currently existing articles that look promising and make further proposals for shuffling stuff around then, but in the meantime I hope you can see where I'm coming from with these concerns. Bryan 06:33, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

    • I do. I really should make a couple of things clearer, like the diagrams indicate that there is an increasing likely hood of colapse with increases within each type. --[[User:Ctrl build|Ctrl_buildtalk ]] 15:53, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
But why is there an increasing likelyhood of collapse with increases within each type? There can't possibly have been any studies done surveying various post-K-I civilizations to determine the likelihood of their collapse, and most of these details about what these civilizations are doing seems to be pure speculation combined from a variety of unnamed sources. It's all being presented in a very assertive fashion, though, which I think is quite misleading. I've searched through the futurology articles and didn't find any that were obvious good places for this stuff, perhaps a new article called something along the lines of future of civilization in science fiction or predictions of future civilization? Bryan 18:38, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
    • sources explaining speculation on nature of civilization added. Kardashev, Sagan, and Dyson all worked on this. During the mid seventies into the early 1990s, SETI and CETI was trying to figure out what they were looking for and also, looking into the development of these civilizations. See the beining section of hypothetical futures. --[[User:Ctrl build|Ctrl_buildtalk ]] 20:30, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Much improved, thanks. I can't think of any more major complaints about those tables now, which I guess is an endorsement. (Though I may eventually come up with more quibbles over time, which I'll bring up or deal with as it occurs. Every Wikipedia article is an eternal work in progress. :) Bryan 22:09, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

There's still one remaining issue, though; I still have no idea what Image:Development-Diagram.gif is supposed to be saying. What do those spinning black triangles, white spirals and curvy red things actually signify? What is the "shape" of a culture or the "delta" of its technology? Bryan 22:09, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

  • I will provide a better explaination by wenesday, but right now I have a lot of work to finish. It is based off of two of kardashev's articles and one of dyson's. --[[User:Ctrl build|Ctrl_buildtalk ]] 07:40, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I hate to pressure, but it's been a couple of weeks and the article's intro is still dominated by an image I find incomprehensible. I'm thinking I should temporarily remove the big image at this point, putting it in here for now so that it doesn't detract from the article for passers-by. As an interim measure, could you perhaps toss in a caption that would at least allow readers to look up what this image means themselves? Bryan 07:07, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)
If you could give me two days, that would be great, I have finals, that was why I was unable to work on the caption. Basically, it shows how as a civilization develops, its able to produce more, using more energy, but if its increase in technology, but with an increasing change of self-destruction up until the last little bit of each level of the kardashev scale. --[[User:Ctrl build|Ctrl_buildtalk ]] 18:09, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Image description is done! See linking The shape the red curve is representative of the advancement path of a civilization, within each stage. The rotating triangles represent the possible technology levels on the left side, and the possibilities of collapse on the other. As the civilization surpasses approximately level X.95 in each cycle the possibility of collapse returns to zero. This coincides with a technological singularity on the opposite side. At the beginning of the stage technology possibilities are zero. The technology development occurs logarithmically versus exponential energy growth around the beginning of a stage. Around 0.8, from empirical evidence from our stage, energy development seems to match pace with technology development. Once this point is surpassed it has been suggested by the works and statements of Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking, and Freeman Dyson, and the design of the Kardashev Scale and the civilization lifetime variable of the Drake Equation that a collapse point can either occur, or entrance to a period of unprecedented technological change. The image is a rough diagram of the changes over each type, but is used as a visual reference through the rest of the article. Real civilization changes cannot be simplified to this level, where wide variations will occur within type, but mathematically and historically this diagram seems to hold true.--[[User:Ctrl build|Ctrl_buildtalk ]] 01:27, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Nicely done article!

It's been a while, but it occurs to me that I still don't really understand what this diagram is supposed to signify, even with all that explanatory text. Am I just missing something, or is everyone else having difficulty with this too? Some specific concerns:
  • "The shape of the red curve is representative of the advancement path of a civilization, within each stage" - what is an "advancement path" of a civilization? If this is a graph of some sort, what are the axes?
  • "The rotating triangles represent the possible technology levels on the left side, and the possibilities of collapse on the other." - again, what are "technology levels", and what are the axes of these graphs?
  • "As the civilization surpasses approximately level X.95 in each cycle the possibility of collapse returns to zero." - where is this coming from, how can anyone know what the probabilities of a civilziation collapsing considering we haven't even seen one civilization at this level?
  • "This coincides with a technological singularity on the opposite side. At the beginning of the stage technology possibilities are zero." - what does "zero technological possibilities" mean, and why does it occur at the transition from one Kardashev level to another?
  • "Around 0.8, from empirical evidence from our stage, energy development seems to match pace with technology development." - what unit does one use to measure "technology development" in a way that it can be compared directly to energy development? Energy is a physical quantity with well-defined units, I don't see how one can treat "technology development" the same way.
If this is just one particular conception of how future civilizations may play out, it needs to be more clearly referenced as such (and it might not really belong in this particular article, either - the Kardashev scale is focused entirely on a civilization's energy usage, "technology development" seems tacked on). Bryan 04:42, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Lacking any further discussion on these issues, I've removed the images in question from the article for the time being. This set of graphs as it currently stands is not verifiable as far as I can tell, since its meaning and sources aren't clear. Bryan 2 July 2005 20:08 (UTC)
Sorry about that, I have been on a semi-break from Wikipedia for a long time. I have uploaded and inserted, a new, much more logical image at top, a graph. As for the rest of the images, I would agree on keeping them out, because a friend with a nonbroadband connection complained to me about the load time of this page around a month ago. Also, I may ask for assistance in clarifying this image's description. The image was originally from a research document of mine, but I would like to know if I have expressed the information susinctly enough, because the image has over 12 data sets graphed upon it, and I have not addressed any of their meaning. --Ctrl buildtalk 7 July 2005 19:19 (UTC)
I would also like to tack on, I just realized I am very long winded. This is probably why so many articles I have contributed to have at one point or another been anointed with the too technical tag. (example Ultrahard fullerite) --Ctrl buildtalk 7 July 2005 19:23 (UTC)
I'm leaving tomorrow on a week-long vacation myself, but once I get back I'll make sure to ask all sorts of questions about it. :) Bryan 8 July 2005 03:13 (UTC)
I think sometime soon this talk page should be archived, but I think that review you have refered to should probably go first. Enjoy your break. --Ctrl buildtalk 8 July 2005 18:38 (UTC)

[edit] Progress?

How is the progress towards renominating going? I fixed notes and see alsos. Notes were a mess - I hope I didn't scramble them, but there were in two sections and at least one symbol had 2 notes...perhaps more advanced notes from Wikipedia:Footnotes would be better then numerals I used. They are not in order anyway. It reads good, although I cannot understand the diagram - even after reading a caption (Image:Development-Diagram.gif#Description). This needs to be properly explained so a laic can understand this. Oh, references must be formatted properly accordingto Wikipedia:Cite sources - i.e. giving last access date. Are there no printed references for this? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 18:03, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Overrated Civilizations?

There seems to be a tendency to rate civilizations higher on the Kardachev scale then they probably shold be rated. A type 1.0 civilization should be able to harness all of the energy of a planet, or instead harness a large portion of the enery available from multiple planets. A type 2.0 civilization should be able to use all of the power output of a star or, seemingly more likely, should be able to utilyse a significant amount of power from each of many different star systems. A type 3.0 should then have a full galaxy's power, or have a lot of power coming in from many different galaxies.

Instead a lot of people seem to be automatically calling civilizations type II if they have colonized other star systems, and calling civilizations type III if they have occupied most of the galaxy, even if they do not use all of the energy in the area that they occupy. For instance, there is a claim that Star Trek is around type 2.5, the Borg are claimed to be a type III, and Star Wars is also claimed to be in the type III range. Howerver, the power output of these civilizations should only make Star Trek a type I, while the Borg and Star Wars should be either type I or type II.

Other events also seem to be higher on the scale than they should be: near space colonization is given as type 1.0-1.3, first interstellar travel is given as type 1.4-1.7, first interstellar colony is type 2.0-2.3, and colonization of Andromeda Galaxy is type 3.4-3.7. I think that it is likely that near space colonization and the first interstellar probes will occur in late type 0, the first interstellar colony should happen sometime during type I, and the colonization of Andromeda should begin during type II.--Todd Kloos 03:06, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

All good points, I agree these things need tweaking. About six months back user Ctrl build did a heck of a lot of expanding of this article and I've been meaning to go through it all with a bold-toothed comb for a while now; there are a lot of things stated with confidence in this article that I suspect aren't really so certain. Not to dis build's effort, of course, I just worry that it's not quite encyclopedia-style. Bryan 04:11, 15 May 2005 (UTC)
If you need any help I am willing to give it. I agree, some of my original ratings were high, especially since once one has reached a type status, it is logical that they should have already begun explorations leading to harnessing energy in the next type (ie. if one has harnessed energy of an entire star, one has logically already probably travelled to other stars). --Ctrl buildtalk 8 July 2005 18:36 (UTC)
  • Dunno about the Borg, or the Federation; but the Star Wars civilization is about 2.5 by my calculations; they control several million (i.e. 10^6 or 10^7) star systems, but presumably only receive a small portion of the energy from each one. Colonizing Andromeda is especially overrated; a civilization at 3.4 on the scale must have colonized thousands of galaxies. Ben Standeven 23:07, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

On this point, it is discussion time:

As per the amount of energy harnessed Star Wars:
Assumptions:
Energy to power/build massive starships/death star must come from somewhere
Energy to aquire and explore for needed materials
Energy to develop such technology
Given this:
Death Star = size of small moon
E=mc^2
E = 1/4 mass moon*c^2
P = E/T
Assuming that the death star is the largest project of the star wars civilization, if one assumes 1% of the energy budget goes into the building of the death star, then the answer is?
As per the amount of energy harnessed in star trek
Find number of solar systems in the star trek federation
assume 1/20th of each solar systems total energy is being used
answer is?

--Ctrl buildtalk 22:27, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

I meant to ask if that sounds like a reasonable method? --Ctrl buildtalk 22:32, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
Those methods look reasonable to me; the needed data can probably be found on stardestroyer.net Ben Standeven 22:30, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

Unless the Star Wars civilisation is getting power from someplace other than these millions of planets it controls (Dyson spheres, extra-planetary power collection, The Force, particles of the week, or other facts not in evidence), I don't see how it can possibly be even a Type II civ. This would require access to all the power of about a billion earth-like planets. Naturally it's possible to speculate that they're getting power from places never seen on-screen, and using it for things it's impossible to quantify, but that doesn't really get us anywhere. The same would broadly likewise be true for the 'Trek civs. Alai 05:34, 24 September 2005 (UTC)


The problem with some of these fictional universes is that they possess contradictory technology. StarWars is considered type 3 with its galactic republic, and their planet wide city of Coroscant. But yet they don't even have nuclear power, and they wage war with technology that is barely better than our own, and in some cases worse (giant lumbering starships fighting with piddly projectile based lasers at point blank range, weak metal aloys, star fighters are not noticably more effective than current day atmospheric fighters, no nuclear weapons, etc).Malamockq 18:29, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Kloos - the literature examples should be chosen with a little more care, and a little more accuracy. I've done a little research on each of the examples listed, and removed the ones which don't seem to qualify. Note that I've only done this for types I-III - I'm not sure enough about the definition of type IV to have edited that bit.
The ones I left for type I are Gaia from the Foundation series, which was a world-sized organism, and the Mars trilogy, because terraforming seems to be type I by default. For type II, 'The World Is Round' includes a variation on a Dyson Sphere, 'Accelerando' involves Matrioshka brains, and 'Ringworld' contains exactly what it says - all three of which are star-enclosing structures that use a notable fraction of their energy output. For Type III, I've left in the Culture, because it apparently includes multiple Dyson Spheres and Ringworlds, although I'm not sure if that's enough of them to really qualify for Type III status.
If anyone decides to reverse any of these changes, could they please mention which features of those pieces of literature they believe qualify them for the relevant level of the Kardashev scale? --Random wikipedia user
I've been wanting to do a culling like this myself for quite some time, but I've been putting it off because I don't want to be known as "the guy who does nothing but cut stuff out of the Kardashev scale article." :) I think the key policy to keep in mind that will keep this list under better control in the future is no original research; if we have to do any significant work ourselves to actually "figure out" what level a fictional civilization is at then we shouldn't include it. So for the Galactic Empire of Star Wars, for example, it would simply be a question of finding a good source that works out the energy output of the Death Star for us and then footnoting it. If there are widely differing estimates out there from equally good sources we could end up with the same civilizations listed on multiple levels, but that's life when you're working with stuff that people just made up out of thin air. Bryan 19:48, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Magic tech scale?

Is it possible to speculate about a civilazition utilising magic? It seems to me that that would qualify such a civilazition as type II or above. (Type III or above if they use both.) --Auric The Rad 04:18, July 17, 2005 (UTC)

The Kardashev Scale seemingly only refers to a technology/energy relation, but if one wanted to by pass that, and calculate the energy/matter relation needed to accomplish an action, one could also refer to the Kardashev scale, but likely not in the same way as it quanitifies the technological level of a civilization. It probably would be rather useless for comparison to technological civilizations the "magic level" of a fictional civilization. That said, it could take a similar form to energy/strength levels in shows like DragonBall, games like Magic or Dungeons and Dragons, or thought experiements. So you could compare the "gross magical energy level" of perhaps the Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter universes, but it would likely not draw good comparision to a technological civlization. In actuallity, this brings up a good point about Star Wars's usage as an example, but since the civilization is mainly technologically based, with "The Force" a biological caveat, it probably its effect is irrelevant. That said, you may want to see the third of Clarke's three laws. --Ctrl buildtalk 18:39, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] 7800 Years?

In the article it says that "According to Kaku, Kardaschev has estimated the development of such a civilisation at the year 7800." for a type III civilization. A type three civilization is supposed to encompass a whole galaxy in some way, perhaps Dyson Spheres around every star. Now I believe the Mily Way is about 100,000 light years across, so how is it possible for a civilization to travel this kind of distance in just a few thousand years?

Am I missing something? Wormholes? Warp Drive?

I am as confused as you are. I am not quite sure what that means. --Ctrl buildtalk 23:10, 14 September 2005 (UTC)
Given that the "early" stage of a Type III civilization is characterized by "colonization of nearby galaxies," the nearest of which is over 2 million lightyears away, I'm going to say that FTL travel is assumed. --noösfractal 23:45, 14 September 2005 (UTC)
But the definition of "Type III" is not dependant on the colonization of other galaxies. It looks like this bit of the timeline is unreferenced, so I don't know where that "continued colonization of other galaxies" bit comes from. I'm still pretty leery of the type VI and above stuff, too; Wikipedia shouldn't be making up Kardashev numbers for them unless we can point to external sources that use those numbers independantly. Bryan 00:46, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Let's not be too hasty with our criticism, fellows.

7800 is the year that was produced by Michio Kaku, an internationally recognized physicist. A simple search was all that was needed to yield substance. Please follow the link for the citation: http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/printer_advanced_civilization_become.html

Thanks, Aaron 8.12.2006

Kaku says in that interview: "In fact, growing at a modest rate of 1% per year, Kardashev estimated that it would take only 3,200 years to reach Type II status, and 5,800 years to reach Type III status." So the reasoning appears to be just a plain old "compounded interest" calculation with no physical basis provided for how a civilization could possibly expand that fast. Internationally recognized physicist or no, he still needs to explain why this is remotely plausible. Bryan 18:18, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

I guess.

We can speculate (and I agree that it *appears* to be a compounded interest yield) as to Kaku's mathematical logic, but ultimately we must realize that the basic substance for this article is steeped in sugary scientific projection with very little consideration for technological singularities that could reduce/elongate Kaku's continuum (see Outside Context Problem). This is not to suggest that we ought to resign our judgment to greater minds (Kaku, Kardashev), but to instead embrace the concept that there are bound to be fuzzy logical corners in a theory that is akin to something of a cosmic crystal ball. Maybe wormholes / hyperspace / whatever is the vehicle upon which interstellar travel is possible (and, consequently, the central variable that circumvents our little time paradox) within this equation.

It seems as if we are still at square-one. I'm not sure that we can ever leave it.

[edit] Asimovian spoilers

I'm removing the punch line to Isaac Asimov's short story.

Wikipedia contains spoilers. If they're significant a spoiler warning might be warranted, but this doesn't seem like it warrants one to me. Bryan 00:33, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
I added a spoiler warning. Is there a way to make this warning stronger? Most spoilers just give you a vague idea of the ending, the punchline to The Last Question is arguably one of the best of any short story, and I think it really takes away from the story if one has heard it before.

[edit] Calebans

The Caleban Race from Frank Herbert's novels, The Dosadi Experiment and Whipping Star, actually are stars (or are represented by stars). Where in the Kardashev scale would they be located? Does the phrase usage of the power of a star apply to a race that actually are (for all intents and purposes) stars? --Guthrie 20:38, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Added a link in Civilizations

Added a small link in the Civilizations page to the Kardashev scale, under See More.

[edit] Spoken Article

I'm in the process of creating a spoken version of this article.Kazhivlad 03:36, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Environmental control and active energy production

If a well developed civilisation has full control of its environment, why must its main energy source be passive, i.e. light emitted from stars? You could easily imagine humanity as a type II civilisation utilising the hydrogen on Jupiter or a type III civilisation taking control of galactic chemical evolution in order to increase the energy output of the galaxy. If a type III civilisation is able to prevent stars from forming, they can use the matter in a galaxy for energy production in their own fusion plants at will and perhaps increase the energy production of the galaxy greatly. The ratio of the sun's effect and mass is about 0.0002 W/kg, for a car(Opel Astra) it is 72.6 W/kg, so the sun isn't all that effective. This line of thought is not discussed at all in the article, but it could have massive implications for the Kardashev scale, if it is possible. Narkogrib 12:39, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

It looks like the scale is a function of sustained power consumption over a period of time. So I see no reason to differentiate based on how that power is produced. For example, completely harvesting the output of a supernova could, for a few days or weeks, boost a civilization into the type III range. Harvesting the gravitational energy of an entire galaxy might keep a civilization in, oh, the type IV range for a period of time.
Incidentally, since I'm on the subject, is there any measure of peak power for a civilization? For example, the Tsar Bomba (the largest nuclear bomb ever detonated) is estimated to have generated power of roughly 10^24 watts over a period of roughly 40 nanoseconds which I calculate is Type 1.8, if it were somehow sustained and the power used. There are physical processes (like fusion, various particle interactions) that could only occur at sufficiently high temperatures (which can be produced by a burst of power). -- KarlHallowell 15:17, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fictional extensions

I just removed the following section from the article. It's unreferenced and I requested citations for its major claims back on April 8. If anyone knows where these extensions came from, feel free to fill in the blanks and restore it. Bryan 00:05, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

(This was later re-added and then removed again on 17 September 2006, the version below was updated with a copy of the material as of that date)

These extensions are mainly used in science fiction. They are not "official" and may differ from source to source.[citation needed] For example, some authors would class a "Type IV" civilization as Type V instead, reserving Type IV for a civilization that controls a single supercluster (superclusters vary in size, but this would represent roughly 1042W). [citation needed] Further examples of extensions of the scale follow:

  • Type VI: Energy control over multiple universes; a power level that is technically infinite.[citation needed] Energy uses would typically start around 1066W, if one would keep with the pattern of previous extensions (Types IV and V, for example).
    • The civilization may have gained the ability to alter physical laws across multiple universes
    • These civilizations can escape a dying universe, and thereby become eternal; it is possible that less advanced civilizations can do so as well.
  • Type VII: Hypothetical status of a deity, able to create universes at will, using them as an energy source.[citation needed] Energy output would be virtually infinite, limited only by the number and size of universes created, possibly starting at roughly 1076 or even 10100W. This type of civilization would most likely be eternal, as creating universes would probably require the civilization in power be outside of the universe(s) they are creating.


Well, Type VII is already listed as being in Isaac Asimov's short story, "The Last Question", as shown. the others appear to be created as intermediate steps from Type V to Type VII, however, they ARE fictional, and have been in the page for quite some time. I'd think that would be criteria for inclusion. User:Raccoon Fox - Talk 00:50, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
Doesn't matter how long it's been in the page if it violates the "no original research" rule, in fact if it's original research then having had it in the page for a long time is worse. My basic problem is that I have no idea who's making up the designations "type VI" and "type VII". Editors here on Wikipedia aren't allowed to make up new Kardashev levels, so they must be from some other source. But the source isn't actually given anywhere. Since you're the one who most recently re-added the contents to the article, do you happen to know what the source is? If so, please provide it. Otherwise I'll have to take it out again. Bryan 00:05, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
It's been a week now since I re-requested citations for this section. Eventually I'm just going to remove it again if none are provided, does anyone know of any? Bryan 18:20, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

This article used to have a lot more on hypothetical types IV-VII. I am assuming that they were quasi-referenced before and I think that the article would be more enjoyable and informative if they were put back. (It's still generally a very good article, though.) --JD79 01:41, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

You don't need to assume, though, the article's history is available. If there used to be references present for these facts I'd gladly include them, but I've been watching and contributing to this article for quite a long time and I'm not aware of any. I just did a quick browse through old versions and found that the only external reference that's ever been associated with this section is [2] (see this version from 1 January 2005, for example: [3]) didn't contain any mention of types above III and was therefore useless as a reference for this stuff. I've also found that this material has actually been sitting here in the article for two years now; this is the edit where the meat of it was added back on October 17 2004, [4]. I hate having to be a hard-ass about removing material from articles like this, but frankly two years is far more than enough time for material that appears to be completely made up to be sitting in a Wikipedia article. I'm taking the section back out again. If anyone wants to restore it, please dig up some sort of supporting reference for it before you do. The material can sit safely here in talk or the article's edit history until then. Bryan 06:09, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] TYpe 2 and subtlety

A type 2 civilisation might also have grown in subtlety, and thus not need shouting at with the power suggested. As our ability to generate loud signals has grown, so to has our ability to distinguish signal from noise and detect quiet signals. Midgley 14:39, 22 July 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Kardashev scale and nuclear power

I guess the assumption is advanced civilizations would require external sources of energy to tap into in order to grow. But doesn't nuclear power invalidate that assumption? It's stand alone. There could be a million fission reactors some where, and one could get tons of energy from them. From that, one could assume that it's entirely possible that similar reactors could be created in the future that produce more energy, and are smaller. Meanwhile, none of this requires naturally occuring phenomena like planets, stars, or galaxies. So a civilization could become so powerful to the point of having complete control over an entire galaxy without having to rely upon it for energy. Malamockq 16:46, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

If nuclear reactors are all you use to get to Kardashev I status they'd be producing as much energy as falls on Earth from the Sun and as a result they're doubling the amount of waste heat that will need to be radiated away into space to keep the planet at its original temperature (which I assume would still be an important consideration at the K-I level). Seems like a lot of trouble to go to to avoid using solar energy that's falling on the surface for free anyway. As for higher Kardashev levels, which will probably be using space habitats and might not even be biological any more, the heat rejection problem is the same either way but I still don't see any good reason not to use solar energy in addition to the local reactors. Stars are just big naturally-occuring fusion reactors themselves, after all, and their output is just going to be wasted otherwise. Bryan 00:25, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Another point is that the civilization might not have a viable star nearby. For example, maybe they're well away from galaxies or a trillion years into the future (though most fissionable material would be gone by then). -- KarlHallowell 03:32, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
One way to generate large amounts of energy in the post-stelliferous era might be to feed matter into black holes. It won't matter what sort of matter it is at that point. But we're getting into OR territory here, and farther away from what the talk page is supposed to be for. We'll probably need some external sources. Bryan 06:16, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Citation not needed

If you visit the link in this sentence "An example in science fiction of beings with energy usages in the range of Type VII is in Isaac Asimov's short story The Last Question.[citation needed] " the article states "It therefore decides to implement the answer and reverse entropy, creating the universe anew" (as of 2006-08-24), and thus is already cited. This citation requests a reference to an outside source which verifies the statements in another wiki article. Therefore this request must be removed or moved to the The Last Question article to verify that the discussed events do occur. ANONYMOUS COWARD0xC0DE 21:11, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

I've read the full text of the story in question, an online copy is at [5]. It doesn't provide the actual amount of power required by Cosmic AC to create a new universe. Indeed, it says shortly before the end that "matter and energy had ended and with it space and time" so I don't see how the question can even be meaningful under the circumstances. It also doesn't use the term "Type VII" or "Kardashev level VII" or any similar variation. Those are the things that need a source backing them up, and if there are no sources then this is original research of the most speculative kind. Bryan 23:33, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
"[...] I don't see how the question can even be [...]" I don't know what question you are referring to.
"It also doesn't use the term 'Type VII' or 'Kardashev level VII' or any similar variation." It is not necessary for the story to define it as 'Type VII' or use any related terms in the story in order for the story content to satisfy the definition of 'Type VII'. ANONYMOUS COWARD0xC0DE 22:58, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
The question I was referring to was the implied "how much power is Cosmic AC using?" It is necessary to know this to determine whether a civilization (or individual computer in this case) qualifies as any given Kardashev level, since power usage is the sole determining factor of this classification system. As for the use of the words "type VII" or some variant, the problem here is that there's no citation anywhere that verifies that anyone else other than the authors of this Wikipedia article actually uses that term. "No original research" can be paraphrased as "don't make stuff up." If nobody else uses it then that means we've made it up. Bryan 07:09, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
I misunderstood the phrase "[...] creating the universe anew." to mean literally creating a new universe, the entire phrase actually describes altering the universe by reversing entropy. Therefore it does not satisfy the definition of 'Type VII' ANONYMOUS COWARD0xC0DE 22:58, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
Even if it is "creating a new universe", who knows how much energy such a process requires? Unless the author explicitly states it there's no way to tell, the physics involved are fictional. Bryan 07:09, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

I provided a link to the story. If that enough? First link on google.--Planetary 01:28, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately no, as I said a few paragraphs up when I provided my own link to the story the text of the story doesn't support Cosmic AC being "Kardashev type VII." It has nothing in it that indicates what sort of power sources Cosmic AC has access to and there's still no source indicating that anyone outside of Wikipedia even uses the "Type VII" designation. Bryan 04:11, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
I'll just remove the sentence then.--Planetary 05:57, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] moon radiation protection?

"Weakness by supposition?"'s: "unique conditions on Earth allow for specific technologies to develop (faster)" mentions "The Moon produces tides, and offers some protection from asteroids, comets, and radiation." in this article.

  • never heard of the moons radiation protection, higly sceptical there is any significant to speed up progress, citation needed!
  • why doesn't it mention the moons gravity, stabilisating the earth axial tilt, causing more stable climate.
  • why doesn't it mention the moons influence on callendars for agriculture?
  • why is the supposition-segment not more astrological/universal?

--Ollj 14:29, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure why we're mentioning this stuff anyway. The scale doesn't make any assumptions about how fast a civilization will develop; the only assumption I see is that (in theory) it assumes only renewable resources will be used. Ben Standeven 13:42, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

This article has long contained a lot of material that IMO isn't really appropriate for this specific topic, belonging instead in some more general article on xenology or futurology. Now that I've finally put my foot down on that troublesome "fictional extensions" section I'll start looking at this bit tonight and perhaps find a better home for it. Bryan 03:52, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
There, I've moved most of the section over to astrosociobiology instead. That article seems to be more appropriately into specifics like this. Bryan 23:51, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Moorcockian extrpolation

The "Dancers at the End of Time" doesn't specify where or how much power they have, I think, merely that they can appear to make the stars move. Rich Farmbrough, 14:35 2 November 2006 (GMT).

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