Kardashev scale

The Kardashev scale is a method of measuring an advanced civilization's level of technological advancement. The scale is only theoretical and in terms of an actual civilization highly speculative; however, it puts energy consumption of an entire civilization in a cosmic perspective. It was first proposed in 1964 by the Soviet Russian astronomer Nikolai Kardashev. The scale has three designated categories called Type I, II, and III. These are based on the amount of usable energy a civilization has at its disposal, and the degree of space colonization. In general terms, a Type I civilization has achieved mastery of the resources of its home planet, Type II of its solar system, and Type III of its galaxy.^[1]

1 Definition
2 Current status of human civilization
3 Energy development
4 Civilization implications
5 Extensions to the original scale
6 Examples in science fiction
7 Connections with sociology and anthropology
8 Criticism
9 See also
10 References
11 Further reading
12 External links

Definition

In 1964, Kardashev defined three levels of civilizations, based on the order of magnitude of the amount of power available to them:

Type I: "technological level close to the level presently [1964] attained on earth, with energy consumption at ≈4×10¹⁹ erg/sec.^[2] Guillermo A. Lemarchand stated this as "a level "near" contemporary terrestrial civilization with an energy capability equivalent to the solar insolation on Earth, between 10 to the 16 power and 10 to the 17 power Watts."^[3]
Type II: "a civilization capable of harnessing the energy radiated by its own star (for example, the stage of successful construction of a "Dyson sphere"); energy consumption at ≈4×10³³ erg/sec.^[2] Lemarchand stated this as "a civilization capable of utilizing and channeling the entire radiation output of its star. The energy utilization would then be comparable to the luminosity of our Sun, about 4 x 10 to the 26 power Watts."^[3]

Type III: "a civilization in possession of energy on the scale of its own galaxy, with energy consumption at≈4×10⁴⁴ erg/sec."^[2] Lemarchand stated this as "a civilization with access to the power comparable to the luminosity of the entire Milky Way galaxy, about 4 x 10 to the 37 power Watts."^[3]

Current status of human civilization

Further information: World energy resources and consumption

Michio Kaku suggested that humans may attain Type I status in about 100–200 years, Type II status in a few thousand years, and Type III status in about 100,000 to a million years.^[4]

Carl Sagan suggested to define intermediate values (not considered in Kardashev's original) by interpolating and extrapolating the values given above for types 1, 2 and 3, by using the formula

$K = \frac{\log_{10}{MW}} {10}$ ,

where value K is a civilization's Kardashev rating and MW is the power it uses for interstellar communication, in megawatts. He calculated humanity's civilization type (in 1973) to be about 0.7, with respect to this extrapolation (apparently using 10 terawatt (TW) as the value for 1970s humanity).^[5]

Energy development

Type I civilization methods

Large-scale application of fusion power. According to mass-energy equivalence, Type I implies the conversion of about 2 kg of matter to energy per second. While there is no known method to convert matter (by itself) completely into energy, an equivalent energy release could theoretically be achieved by fusing approximately 280 kg of hydrogen into helium per second,^[6] a rate roughly equivalent to 8.9×10⁹ kg/year. A cubic km of water contains about 10¹¹ kg of hydrogen, and the Earth's oceans contain about 1.3×10⁹ cubic km of water, meaning that this rate of consumption could be sustained over geological time scales, discounting the protium-deuterium imbalance.
Antimatter^[7] in large quantities would have a mechanism to produce power on a scale several factors above our current level of technology. In antimatter-matter collisions, the entire rest mass of the particles is converted to kinetic energy. Their energy density (energy released per mass) is about four orders of magnitude greater than that from using nuclear fission, and about two orders of magnitude greater than the best possible yield from fusion.^[8] The reaction of 1 kg of anti-matter with 1 kg of matter would produce 1.8×10¹⁷ J (180 petajoules) of energy.^[9] Although antimatter is sometimes proposed as a source of energy, this is currently infeasible. Artificially producing antimatter according to current understanding of the laws of physics involves first converting energy into mass, so there is no net gain. Artificially created antimatter is only usable as a medium of energy storage but not as an energy source, unless future technological developments (contrary to the conservation of the baryon number, such as a CP Violation in favour of antimatter) allow the conversion of ordinary matter into anti-matter. There are a number of naturally occurring sources of antimatter ^[10]^[11]^[12] we may theoretically be able to cultivate and harvest in the future.
Solar energy through converting sunlight into electricity by either solar cells and concentrating solar power or indirectly through wind and hydroelectric power. Currently, there is no known way for human civilization to successfully utilize the equivalent of the Earth's total absorbed solar energy without completely coating the surface with man-made structures, which is presently not feasible. However, if a civilization constructed very large Space-based solar power Satellites, Type I power levels might be achievable.

Type II civilization methods

A Dyson sphere or Dyson swarm and similar constructs are hypothetical megastructures originally described by Freeman Dyson as a system of orbiting solar power satellites meant to completely enclose a star and capture most or all of its energy output.^[13]
Perhaps a more exotic means to generate usable energy would be to feed a stellar mass into a black hole, and collect photons emitted by the accretion disc.^[14]^[15] Less exotic would be simply to capture photons already escaping from the accretion disc, reducing a black hole's angular momentum; known as the Penrose process.
Star lifting is a process where an advanced civilization could remove a substantial portion of a star's matter in a controlled manner for other uses.
Anti-matter is likely to be produced as an industrial byproduct of a number of megascale engineering processes (such as some of the Star Lifting above).
In multiple-star systems of a sufficiently large number of stars, absorbing a small but significant fraction of the output of each individual star.

Type III civilization methods

Type III civilizations might use the same techniques employed by a Type II civilization, but applied to all of the stars of one or more galaxies individually.^[16] They may also be able to tap into the energy released from the supermassive black holes which are believed to exist at the center of most galaxies.

Civilization implications

There are many historical examples of human civilization undergoing large-scale transitions, such as the Industrial Revolution. The transition between Kardashev scale levels could potentially represent similarly dramatic periods of social upheaval, since they entail surpassing the hard limits of the resources available in a civilization's existing territory. A common speculation^[17] suggests that the transition from Type 0 to Type I might carry a strong risk of self-destruction since, in some scenarios, there would no longer be room for further expansion on the civilization's home planet, similar to a Malthusian catastrophe. Excessive use of energy without adequate disposal of heat, for example, could plausibly make the planet of a civilization approaching Type I unsuitable to the biology of the dominant life-forms and their food sources. If Earth is an example, then sea temperatures in excess of 35 °C would jeopardize marine life and make the cooling of mammals to temperatures suitable for their metabolism difficult if not impossible. Of course, these theoretical speculations may not become problems in reality thanks to the application of future engineering and technology. Also, by the time a civilization reaches Type I it may have colonized other planets or created O'Neill-type colonies, so the amount of waste heat could be distributed throughout the solar system.

Extensions to the original scale

The state that human civilization currently occupies was originally Type I in the Kardashev scale, but has a K value below 1 using Sagan's logarithmic formula (described above).

Zoltan Galantai has defined a further extrapolation of the scale, a Type IV level which controls the energy output of the visible universe; this is within a few orders of magnitude of 10⁴⁵ W. Such a civilization approaches or surpasses the limits of speculation based on current scientific understanding, and may not be possible. Frank J. Tipler's Omega point would presumably occupy this level, as would the Biocosm hypothesis. Galantai has argued that such a civilization could not be detected, as its activities would be indistinguishable from the workings of nature (there being nothing to compare them to).^[18]

However, Milan M. Ćirković has argued that "Type IV" should instead be used to refer to a civilization that has harnessed the power of its supercluster, or "the largest gravitationally bound structure it originated in."^[19] For the Local Supercluster, this would be approximately 10⁴² W.

Dr. Michio Kaku has discussed a Type IV civilization, which could harness "extragalactic" energy sources such as dark energy, in his book Parallel Worlds.^[20]

In contrast to simply increasing the maximum power level covered by the scale, Carl Sagan suggested adding another dimension: the information available to the civilization. He assigned the letter A to represent 10⁶ unique bits of information (less than any recorded human culture) and each successive letter to represent an order of magnitude increase, so that a level Z civilization would have 10³¹ bits. In this classification, 1973 Earth is a 0.7 H civilization, with access to 10¹³ bits of information. Sagan believed that no civilization has yet reached level Z, conjecturing that so much unique information would exceed that of all the intelligent species in a galactic supercluster and observing that the universe is not old enough to effectively exchange information over larger distances. The information and energy axes are not strictly interdependent, so that even a level Z civilization would not need to be Kardashev Type III.^[5]

Examples in science fiction

Type I

The humans from Stargate Universe use the power of the planet Icarus, with a crust containing massive amounts of a power-generating element, to route enough power to the Stargate to encode or dial the ninth chevron, in contrast to normal intragalactic, seven-chevron addresses and intergalactic eight-chevron addresses. This allowed the gate to open to the Ancient's ship Destiny, which had been travelling for many millennia under solar power and had travelled through hundreds of galaxies other than our own.

Type II

In the Ringworld series by Larry Niven, a ring a million miles wide is built and spun (for gravity) around a star roughly one astronomical unit away. The ring can be viewed as a functional version of a Dyson sphere with the interior surface area of 3 million Earth-sized planets. Because it is only a partial Dyson sphere, it can be viewed as an intermediary between Type I and Type II. Both Dyson spheres and the Ringworld suffer from gravitational instability, however -- a major focus of the Ringworld series is coping with this instability in the face of partial collapse of the Ringworld civilization.
The territory of Eelong in the Pendragon Series by D. J. MacHale utilizes all power from a belt of suns known as the Skaa.^[21]
In the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Relics", the Enterprise discovers an abandoned Dyson sphere.^[22]
In Bob Shaw's 'Orbitsville', the giant sphere which encases a sun is presumed to have been built by using the output of the star itself. In the sequel, 'Orbitsville Departure', more spheres are confirmed and may escalate the builders to Type III.
In the Halo universe, the United Nations Space Command (UNSC) and the hostile alien society known as the Covenant have both attained type II status. The UNSC is shown to be able to induce a star to go supernova and have colonized more than 800 planetary systems.

Type III

In Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon. The stellar energy output of the whole galaxy is utilized by the Galactic Community of Worlds.^[23]
The Tyranids of the Warhammer 40k Universe allegedly travelled to the galaxy after consuming their own, making them a Type III civilization.
Galaxia, the ultimate destiny of humanity in Isaac Asimov's Foundation series, interconnected all human minds with the material of the galaxy, enabling them to utilize all its resources.
In the movie Men in Black, agent J and K must recover a galaxy stored inside a small ball as an energy source.

Above Type III / "Type IV"

The backstory of The Dancers at the End of Time series by Michael Moorcock describes a civilization which consumed all the energy in all the stars in the universe, save Earth's own sun, in order to fuel an existence in which the inheritors of Earth lived as near omnipotent gods.^[24]
In a rare mention of the scale within a work of fiction, the Doctor Who novel The Gallifrey Chronicles, a Time Lord named Marnal asserts that "the Time Lords were the Type-4 civilization. We had no equals. We controlled the fundamental forces of the entire universe. Nothing could communicate with us on our level."^[25]
The Priors in the House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds could be placed as a Type IV, being surmised by one of the characters for being responsible for the apparent emptiness of the Boötes void some 250 million light years distance.
The Xeelee in the Xeelee Sequence by Stephen Baxter. They modified their own history and have spread across the universe, typically being concentrated in the heart of galaxies where they use the black holes for their own purposes.
During Grant Morrison's run on New X-Men, one character placed the Shi'ar alien empire as a Type V civilization.
In Star Trek: The Next Generation, the god-like Q Continuum could be considered above Type III.
The Players of The New Cosmogony, a fictional Nobel Prize oration in A Perfect Vacuum by Stanisław Lem, are altering the laws of physics for their own purposes.^[26]
In Lexx a character named Mantrid uses exponential growth to make copies upon copies of his constructor arms called "Mantrid drones", eventually using all the matter in the light universe, which ends up destroying the universe when too much matter accumulates in one place, "unbalancing" it.

Connections with sociology and anthropology

Kardashev's theory can be viewed as the expansion of some social theories, especially from social evolutionism. It is close to the theory of Leslie White, author of The Evolution of Culture: The Development of Civilization to the Fall of Rome (1959). White attempted to create a theory explaining the entire history of humanity. The most important factor in his theory is technology: Social systems are determined by technological systems, wrote White in his book, echoing the earlier theory of Lewis Henry Morgan. As measure of society advancement he proposed the measure energy consumption of a given society (thus his theory is known as the energy theory of cultural evolution). He differentiates between five stages of human development. In the first stage, people use energy of their own muscles. In the second stage, they use energy of domesticated animals. In the third stage, they use the energy of plants (which White refers to as agricultural revolution). In the fourth stage, they learn to use the energy of natural resources—such as coal, oil, and gas. Finally, in the fifth stage, they harness nuclear energy. White introduced a formula P=E×T, where P measures the advancement of the culture, E is a measure of energy consumed, and T is the measure of efficiency of technical factors utilizing the energy.

Criticism

It has been argued that, because we cannot understand advanced civilizations, we cannot predict their behavior; thus, Kardashev's visualization may not reflect what will actually occur for an advanced civilization. This central argument is found in the book Evolving the Alien: The Science of Extraterrestrial Life.^[27]

Robert Zubrin uses the terms to refer to how widespread a civilization is in space, rather than to its energy use. In other words, a Type I civilization has spread across its planet, a Type II has extensive colonies in its respective stellar system, and a Type III has colonized its galaxy.

References

^ Zubrin, Robert, 1999, Entering Space — Creating a Spacefaring Civilization
^ ^a ^b ^c Kardashev, Nikolai (1964). "Transmission of Information by Extraterrestrial Civilizations" (PDF). Soviet Astronomy 8: 217. Bibcode 1964SvA.....8..217K.
^ ^a ^b ^c Lemarchand, Guillermo A. Detectability of Extraterrestrial Technological Activities. Coseti. http://www.coseti.org/lemarch1.htm. .
^ Kaku, Michio (2010). "The Physics of Interstellar Travel: To one day, reach the stars.". http://mkaku.org/home/?page_id=250. Retrieved 2010-08-29.
^ ^a ^b Sagan, Carl (October 2000) [1973]. Jerome Agel. ed. Cosmic Connection: An Extraterrestrial Perspective. Freeman J. Dyson, David Morrison. Cambridge Press. ISBN 05-21-7830-38. http://books.google.com/?id=lL57o9YB0mAC&pg=PA156. Retrieved 2008-01-01.
^ Souers, P. C. (1986). Hydrogen properties for fusion energy. University of California Press. pp. 4. ISBN 978-0520055001. http://books.google.com/?id=I2K6DKA1IMwC&printsec=frontcover.
^ "discover.positron.edu.au/fact-or-fiction/solving-the-energy-crisis/". http://discover.positron.edu.au/fact-or-fiction/solving-the-energy-crisis/.
^ Borowski, Steve K. (1987-07-29). "Comparison of Fusion/Anti-matter Propulsion Systems for Interplanetary Travel" (PDF). Technical Memorandum 107030. San Diego, California, USA: National Aeronautics and Space Administration. pp. 1–3. http://gltrs.grc.nasa.gov/reports/1996/TM-107030.pdf. Retrieved 2008-01-28.
^ By the mass-energy equivalence formula E = mc². See anti-matter as a fuel source for the energy comparisons.
^ http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/08/110810-antimatter-belt-earth-trapped-pamela-space-science/
^ Adriani; Barbarino; Bazilevskaya; Bellotti; Boezio; Bogomolov; Bongi; Bonvicini et al. (2011). "The discovery of geomagnetically trapped cosmic ray antiprotons". The Astrophysical Journal 736 (29): L1. arXiv:1107.4882. doi:10.1088/2041-8205/736/1/L1.
^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12158718
^ Dyson, Freeman J. (1966). "The Search for Extraterrestrial Technology". Perspectives in Modern Physics (New York: John Wiley & Sons).
^ Newman, Phil (2001-10-22). "New Energy Source "Wrings" Power from Black Hole Spin". NASA. Archived from the original on 2008-02-09. http://web.archive.org/web/20080209231442/http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/20011015blackhole.html. Retrieved 2008-02-19.
^ Schutz, Bernard F. (1985). A First Course in General Relativity. New York: Cambridge University Press. pp. 304, 305. ISBN 0521277035. http://books.google.com/?id=qhDFuWbLlgQC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Bernard+Schutz+%22A+First+Course+in+General+Relativity%22.
^ Kardashev, Nikolai. "On the Inevitability and the Possible Structures of Supercivilizations", The search for extraterrestrial life: Recent developments; Proceedings of the Symposium, Boston, MA, June 18–21, 1984 (A86-38126 17-88). Dordrecht, D. Reidel Publishing Co., 1985, p. 497–504.
^ Dyson, Freeman (1960-06-03). "Search for Artificial Stellar Sources of Infrared Radiation". Science (New York: W. A. Benjamin, Inc) 131 (3414): 1667–1668. Bibcode 1960Sci...131.1667D. doi:10.1126/science.131.3414.1667. PMID 17780673. http://www.islandone.org/LEOBiblio/SETI1.HTM. Retrieved 2008-01-30.
^ Galantai, Zoltan (September 7, 2003). "Long Futures and Type IV Civilizations" (PDF). http://longfuture.inno.bme.hu/long_futures_article1.pdf. Retrieved 2006-05-26.
^ Milan M. Ćirković (February 2004). "Forecast for the Next Eon : Applied Cosmology and the Long-Term Fate of Intelligent Beings". Foundations of Physics (Springer Netherlands) 34 (2): 239–261. arXiv:astro-ph/0211414. Bibcode 2004FoPh...34..239C. doi:10.1023/B:FOOP.0000019583.67831.60. ISSN (Print) 1572-9516 (Online) 0015-9018 (Print) 1572-9516 (Online).
^ Kaku, Michio (2005). Parallel Worlds: The Science of Alternative Universes and Our Future in the Cosmos. New York: Doubleday. p. 317. ISBN 0713997281.
^ "Afro - Hallawiki". Hallawiki.a.wiki-site.com. http://hallawiki.a.wiki-site.com/index.php/Eelong#Technology. Retrieved 2010-09-19.
^ "Star Trek: The Next Generation Relics (TV episode 1992) - IMDb". IMDB. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708764/. Retrieved 2011-11-21.
^ Stapledon, Olaf Last and First Men [ 1931 ] and Star Maker [ 1937 ] New York:1968—Dover Chapters IX through XI Pages 346 to 396
^ Moorcock, Michael: Tales From the End of Time, page 121. Berkley Publishing, 1976.
^ Parkin, Lance (2005). The Gallifrey Chronicles. BBC Books. p. 56. ISBN 0-563-48624-4.
^ Swirski, Peter (2006). The art and science of Stanislaw Lem. McGill-Queen's Press. p. 147. ISBN 0773530460.
^ Jack Cohen and Ian Stewart: Evolving the Alien: The Science of Extraterrestrial Life, Ebury Press, 2002, ISBN 0-09-187927-2

External links

Extraterrestrial life

Events and objects	ALH84001 Close encounter Murchison meteorite Radio source SHGb02+14a Shergotty meteorite Wow! signal

Extraterrestrial bodies	Solar System Europa Mars Titan Enceladus Extrasolar Goldilocks planet Gliese 581 g (unconfirmed) Gliese 581 d HD 85512 b Kepler-22b

Communication	Active SETI Allen Telescope Array Arecibo message Arecibo Observatory Bracewell probe Communication with Extraterrestrial Intelligence Interstellar communication Lincos (language) Pioneer plaque Project Cyclops Project Ozma Project Phoenix SERENDIP SETI SETI@home setiQuest Xenolinguistics Waterhole

Related topics	Astrobiology Astroecology Biosignature Brookings Report Exopolitics Exotheology Extraterrestrials in fiction Hypothetical types of biochemistry Life on Mars Noogenesis Planetary protection San Marino Scale Shermer's Last Law Xenoarchaeology

Hypotheses	Ancient astronauts Aurelia and Blue Moon Back-contamination Cosmic pluralism Drake equation Fermi paradox Great Filter Kardashev scale Mediocrity principle Neocatastrophism Panspermia Planetarium hypothesis Rare Earth hypothesis Sentience quotient Zoo hypothesis

Missions	Darwin space mission ExoMars Mars sample return mission Mars Science Laboratory

Exhibitions	The Science of Aliens

Planetary habitability	Habitability of red dwarf systems Habitable zone Planetary habitability Natural satellite habitability List of potential habitable exoplanets Extraterrestrial liquid water Catalog of Nearby Habitable Systems Earth analog Most Earth-like exoplanets

Misidentified signals	CTA-102 (misidentified quasar) PSR B1919+21/LGM-1 (misidentified pulsar)