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Dyson spheres and rings have always held a special fascination for me. The concept is simple, build a great big structure either as a sphere or ring to harness the energy from a star. Dyson rings are far more simple and feasible to construct and in a recent paper, a team of scientists explore how we might detect them by analysing the light from distant stars. The team suggests they might be able to detect Dyson rings around pulsars using their new technique. Like their spherical cousins, Dyson rings remain for now, a popular idea in science fiction yet they are starting to appear more and more in scientific debates. The concept of the ring is similar to the sphere, a megastructure designed to encircle a star, harnessing its energy on a gargantuan scale. It might consist of a series of satellites or even habitats in a circular orbit with solar collectors and unlike the spheres, require far less resources to build. The concept of the sphere was first proposed by physicist and mathematician Freeman Dyson in 1960. Such structures might be detectable and reveal the existence of intelligent civilisations.  A Type II civilization is one that can directly harvest the energy of its star using a Dyson Sphere or something similar. Credit: Fraser Cain (with Midjourney) It’s fascinating to think about civilisations building such constructions. Our own civilisation currently consumes around 15,000 terawatts per hour and that number is only going to increase as our population grows and we become even more reliant on technology. To endeavour to quantify the energy usage from the level of technological capability, the Kardashev scale was developed. On this scale, we are currently at Type I which means our power usage is  4 × 1019 erg s?1 (4 terawatts) If a civilisation requires 4 × 1033 erg s?1 (400 trillion terawatts) then it is considered to be type II and it is these civilisations that may be capable and indeed it may be necessary to build Dyson structures.  To create either a solid sphere or even a sphere with orbiting satellites would require phenomenal amounts of material. A sphere which had a radius of 1 astronomical unit (the average distance between Earth and the Sun) would require more material than exists in the entire Solar System. It is far more likely that civilisations would create ring structures. Rings of this nature around a star would be able to harness significant amounts of energy but a ring around a pulsar would, if the pulse beam of the star could be tracked, be able to capture even more energy, of the order of 10 thousand trillion terawatts. There are Dyson rings and spheres and this, an illustration of a Dyson swarm. Could this or a variation of it be what we’re detecting around KIC? Not likely, but a fun thought experiment. Credit: Wikipedia In the paper written by Ogetay Kayali from Michigan Technological University and team, they propose further exploration of pulsar light curves to see if features that could reveal their presence have been missed. The features the team suggest arise from effects of the pulsar beam striking the ring structure. The beams travel at superluminal speeds which could result in multiple images of the pulsar spot on the Dyson ring appearing simultaneously. This may be visible in light curve analysis. A similar effect is seen when dust rings are illuminated with pulsar radiation. Source : Search for Dyson Rings Around Pulsars: Unexpected Light Curves  The post New Technique for Spotting Dyson Rings Unveiled. appeared first on Universe Today.

Oneness dates keep the guitarist and band on the road from spring through summer. Continue reading…

Seems like everybody's got Parker's back on this one. Oliver Anthony recently made headlines for a 15-minute rant on the music business in which he blasted everything from Nashville record labels to Beyonce's Cowboy Carter album...and seemingly called out Parker McCollum too. He didn't name Parker by name, but he did drop some clues about an artist he played with on a festival this year, accusing them of using "autotune modulators" and backing tracks: “A lot of these mainstream acts…everybody runs backing tracks. Like I’ll never forget, I won’t say who the act is, but I think it was at South Carolina at the Myrtle Beach one, the band who played after us, that dude had six autotune modulators on a pedal board on stage, just to help him with vocal pitch live. And they had backing tracks running, drum loops running. It’s like, for somebody to pay hundreds of dollars to go listen to like a fake performance…nobody talks about that stuff.” Well, it wasn't hard to figure out who he was talking about, assuming he was thinking of the correct festival. The only festival in Myrtle Beach is Carolina Country Music Fest, and the only artist who played after Oliver Anthony on the show was Parker McCollum. After the comments, Parker took to social media himself to set the record straight: “Hey guys, per the Oliver Anthony interview or whatever it was claiming that he saw drum loop modulator or whatever he called it, I don’t even know what that is…100% fabricated lie. Never ever, ever, ever one time have I ever used autotune or a drum loop or anything fake of any kind on stage. Me and my guys are ripping it the real deal every single night. There has never been any single part of our show, not one note, that was not live, raw, and in the moment. 100% fabricated story. That is 100% a lie. That will never change. We will always be out there swinging it as a real band, trying to do our best to respect country music. So, that’s all I’ve got to say on it, and that’s where it needs to end.” https://www.instagram.com/p/DDVTsS7SnKy/ And it seems like quite a few of Parker's fellow artists are ready to back him up on that one. Soon after posting his video, he had already received comments of support from several artists, including Koe Wetzel: "One more time for the folks in the back" And Kassi Ashton even said that she had heard his in-ear mix (which is what an artist hears when they're on stage) and can confirm that it's 100% authentic: "I’ve heard your in ear mix while you sang in the pouring down ass rain at red rocks. Sang like a mf angel." Of course if anybody would know what Parker is doing on stage it would be Corey Kent, who opened for the Gold Chain Cowboy on his most recent tour and spent much of the year sharing the road and the stage with Parker himself. And Corey released a video calling Oliver Anthony "out of touch." "Accusing Parker McCollum, of all people in country music, of running backing tracks and vocal tuning shows how uninformed you are and how out of touch with the country music world you are. That guy is one of probably 10 acts that I know that doesn't run any sort of vocal tuning and doesn't run any backing tracks. I would say what you're saying about 2024 country artists is pretty true. Most of them have vocal tuning, because they're not great live. Most of them have to have backing tracks because they're not willing to hire the right people to play those parts... But Parker is the exact opposite of that. This guy lives in Texas. Grew up in the Texas club scene. You get crucified out here if you do that stuff, and if there's one person who should never be accused of vocal tuning and backing tracks, it's Parker." And he also had a simple message for Oliver Anthony: "Know your stuff before you talk." https://www.tiktok.com/@coreykent/video/7446507516495793438 I think that's damn good advice. Oliver seems to like to talk about the music industry (which he claims to be proud to have never even been a part of) more than he actually likes making music. Yesterday, even Paul Cauthen unleashed on the singer from Virginia and advised him to talk less: "All you are is ruining relationships and you're hurting people that actually work in our industry... I love that you think you're holier than thou, but you're really hurting people out there." Of course, there's also plenty of video evidence we can turn to out there to know how Parker really sings: https://www.tiktok.com/@graciiehunt/video/7446255586964000043 Yeah, gotta think ol' Oliver Anthony was mistaken on this one.

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