131- The Kardashev Scale of Civilisations

How do you quantify how big a civilisation is? In the 1960s, Nikolai Semenovich Kardashev came up with a scale based on how much energy hypothetical civilisations can exploit- which has been modified by others to stretch all the way from multiverse levels of energy usage down to the fabric of spacetime itself. Let's return to astrobiology!

Sources for this episode:

• Byrne, P. (2007), The Many Worlds of Hugh Everett. Scientific American 297(6): 98-105.
• Cirkovic, M. M. (2016), Kardashev's Classification at 50+: A Fine Vehicle with Room for Improvement. Serbian Astronomical Journal 1(15): 10.2298.
• Gray, R. H. (2020), The Extended Kardashev Scale. The Astronomical Journal 159: 228.
• Hooper, R., New Scientist (2009), Hugh Everett: The man who gave us the multiverse (online) (Accessed 10/09/2026).
• Raikar, S. P., Encyclopedia Britannica (2025), Kardashev scale (online) (Accessed 10/09/2026).
• Smith, J. (2022), Review and viability of a Dyson Swarm as a form of Dyson Sphere. Physica Script 97(12): 122001.

• Vidal, C., Fields, B. L., Sowinski, D. R., Elowitz, M., Bartlett, S., Terrile, R. J., Ellery, A., Bibas, D., Mastrogiovanni, A. M., Dobler, N., Singla, M., DeMarines, J., Fisher, T., Uno, Y., Turner, J. D., Sneed, E. L., Huggahalli, A., Li, M. G., Li, Z. (C.), Huston, M. and Saide, R. (2026), The Search for Technosignatures: A Review of Possibilities. arXiv: 2605.21093.
• Wright, J. T. (2020), Dyson Spheres. Serbian Astronomical Journal 200: 1-18.
• Zhang, A., Yang, J., Luo, Y. and Fen, S. (2023), Forecasting the progression of human civilization on the Kardashev Scale through 2060 with a machine learning approach. Nature Scientific Reports 13: 11305.

• Author unknown, Homo Deus Lab (date unknown), Galaxy Colonization: How Long Would It Take? (online) (Accessed 10/09/2026).