Saturday, April 29, 2006

Kardashev Scale

Anyone know anything about the Kardashev scale? It sounds pretty interesting...

Type I - A civilization that is able to harness all of the power available on a single planet, approximately 1016 W. The actual figure is quite variable; Earth specifically has an available power of 1.74×1017 W. Kardashev's original definition was 4x1012 W. (It was identified as a Technological level close(st) to the level presently attained on earth, "presently" meaning 1964.)

Type II - A civilization that is able to harness all of the power available from a single star, approximately 1026 W. Again, this figure is variable; the Sun outputs approximately 3.86×1026 W. Kardashev's original definition was 4x1026 W.

Type III - A civilization that is able to harness all of the power available from a single galaxy, approximately 1036 W. This figure is extremely variable, since galaxies vary widely in size. Kardashev's original definition was 4x1037 W.

1 Comments:

Blogger Fifth said...

I thought there were two more levels to the scale.

9:06 AM  

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