A Dyson sphere around a black hole

A well done data-driven thought experiment, but I do have to ponder why the scientific community has settled on Dyson Spheres, as opposed to more exotic, "alien" ideas. I mean, do we really think a thirty-five million year old civilization is going to settle on an idea some simian came up with in a civilization ~150 years post-harnessing electricity, which amounts to "really big solar panels?"

I'd speculate that power sources used by such civilizations would be so exotic to us, we would need new physics to fully describe them.

Also consider that the electromagnetic force is on the order of 10^36 times stronger than gravity. The electromagnetic force is what keeps your butt from falling through your chair, and gives all materials their macroscopic and chemical properties. And it sort of sets a soft limit on the sizes of rigid structures, animals, etc. Note that there are on the order of 10^30 atoms in a blue whale or Sequoia tree, and ~10^33 in a cargo ship.

No one has settled on anything. It’s just that one approach involves solving a tractable problem to reduce the search space and the other does fuck all.

I’ve lost my keys, and these guys are asking me to retrace my steps while you’re asking me to consider the machinations of hitherto sleeping whimsical gods. I’ll try your thing next, but first I’ll do the other guys.

Nice strawman. Either way, you need new physics (to build a structure that large), so why not have a little more creativity while you're in the process of blatant speculation?

> why not have a little more creativity while you're in the process of blatant speculation?

Bayes’ Theorem and the fact that probabilities exist smoothly from zero to one on hypotheses.

For the same reason that you consider checking your kitchen table for keys before you contemplate their disappearance into the quantum froth.

Alternatively, “show me the code”. Let’s see what you’re talking about in specific instead of hiding in generalities.