Matrioshka brain

A Matrioshka brain is a megastructure in space based on the Dyson sphere, of immense computational capacity. It ranges in size from an asteroid to an entire universe, where it can hold the energy of trillions of stars to drive insane computational power that can run simulations of an entire virtual universe.

It is an example of a Class B stellar engine, employing the entire energy output of a star to drive computer systems. The concept of a Matrioshka brain comes from the idea of using Dyson spheres to power an enormous, star-sized computer. The term originates from matryoshka dolls, which are wooden Russian nesting dolls. Matrioshka brains are composed of several Dyson spheres nested inside one another, the same way that matryoshka dolls are composed of multiple nested doll components. The innermost Dyson sphere of the Matrioshka brain would draw energy directly from the star it surrounds and give off large amounts of waste heat while computing at a high temperature. The next surrounding Dyson sphere would absorb this waste heat and use it for its computational purposes, all while giving off waste heat of its own. This heat would be absorbed by the next sphere, and so on, with each sphere giving off less heat than the one before it. For this reason, Matrioshka brains with more nested Dyson spheres would tend to be more efficient, as they would waste less heat energy. The inner shells could run at nearly the same temperature as the star itself, while the outer ones would be close to the temperature of interstellar space.

The engineering requirements and resources needed for this would be enormous. This could be used to simulate various cosmological structures:

Matrioshka brains are way beyond yottascale computing:


 * 1.12×1036 FLOPS is its estimated computational power, assuming 1.87×1026 Watt power (possibly solar) and 6 GFLOPS/Watt efficiency. This is for Type I prototypes.
 * 4×1048 FLOPS is its estimated computational power where the power source is the Sun, with the ideal thermodynamic efficiency of a Carnot engine. This is for Type II.
 * 5×1058 FLOPS is the estimated power of a galaxy used by Matrioshka brains. This is for Type III.