Civilisations

The Kardashev scale divides civilisations in categories. But where are we on this list and on which factors depends this? This article will explain you how high the mankind is developed and what the next steps are.

The classification of civilisations by Kardashev

The Kardashev scale, developed by the Russian astronomer Nikolei Kardashev, categorises civilisations in three types. While a type 1 civilisation is only able to uses the whole energy of its planet, a type two civilisation can already use the whole energy of its
solar system. His list ends with the third type, that can us the whole energy of its galaxy.

But how much energy is that?

Well, the available energy on a planet normally is at almost 10¹⁶–10¹⁷ W, on our earth we have a bit more energy available (1,74·10¹⁷ W). One could say that we nearly use this performance if said that the world uses 10¹² W today. But one has to mention that this is only a ten thousandth of what we could use.

The second type in Kardashev’s list, which is able to use the total power of his central star would have an energy consumption of around 4·10²⁶ W.

The third type then would have a total power of incredible 4·10³⁷ W available which is 40 septillions times the energy consumption we have today.

So we can consider that this scale defines more or less higher developed civilisations pretty good but on the other hand it has some fundamental problems.

The first Problem is that in this scale we would have the value 0 because we don't have an energy consumption of 1,74·10¹⁷ W, which suggests that we also have an energy consumption of 0.

The second important problem is that in his scale are no steps for civilisations with an energy consumption higher than  4·10³⁷ W, which creates the illusion that there cannot be any civilisations with a higher energy consumption. Some years later the scientist Carl Sagan designed a formula to ascertain the Kardashev value much more precise and also for very high or low developed civilisations. In his formula the mankind has the value 0,72, which is quite high in comparison to the last century when we only had 0,582.

The next steps for us

Type I/II

So the first step we have to do is obviously to use the resources of our planet. But where do we find them and how can we use them? An important point will be the solar energy because 99,8% of our energy resources are powered by the sun. To use them we will need of course solar cells with a higher efficiency than today. To get efficiency values higher than 30% the only option is to use nanotechnology inventions like the Grätzel cell. This cell is flexible, 70 % transparent and very thin so we could place it nearly everywhere, even on windows.

When we start developing from type one to type two we have to think about a dyson sphere or another way to catch to power of our sun. But if we had these energy masses one day we would be able to research on areas like wormholes or other technologies we define today as science fiction.

Type III

Way more complicative will it get if we want to collect the whole energy of a galaxy in our case the Milky Way. This seems to be incredible because to do this we would have to have superfast (1 million times the speed of light) spaceships or wormholes to manage infrastructure of the civilisation and as this wouldn't be enough we would also have to be able to control black holes to exploit the central energy resource of our galaxy, the jet of a black hole.

But why should so high developed civilisations not start to use any other energy resources or even build their own stars, which we call today nuclear fusion. For example a tokamak can produce 10000 times the energy it needs to work, so a civilisation that builds a tokamak for every star or even for a jet of a black hole would have nearly ten times the energy resources available which brings this civilisation on a completely new level of research.

Type IV

These civilisations could convert into civilisations with the Kardashev value 4 which means that this civilisation would be able to use the energy of the whole universe. At first such a civilisation would be nearly importable because this civilisation would have technologies which we know from star wars or star trek(shields or lasers). The only problem this civilisation would have is the problem that also the universe is mortal.

Type V

This is no problem for the civilisation type V, which is capable of harnessing the energy of several universes/multiverses. And as this wouldn't be enough this type is also capable of creating new universes and manipulates them. Is there any space for more types?

Type VI

Well, there is! The last imaginable type is number six. A civilisation of this type is equal to a godhood. It can create and destroy universes/multiverses just as easily as it can build them. A civilisation like this has nearly infinite energy resources.

More (VII +)

Even if it seems impossible I don't want to end this list with naming a type. I don't want except that there are more types of civilisation which are just unimaginable for us. Why shouldn't there be a civilisation of type VII that can control every universe? There will always be a border that we can burst!

Conclusion

So as you can see we are only starting the development of ourselves but isn't it crazy that we thought hundreds of years that we are the centre of space?...