Remember Tabby's Star? Remember how some people seriously thought it was aliens?
That's all down to Freeman Dyson.
Dyson was born in England, but spent most of his working life at the Princeton University Institute for Advanced Study.
And he envisioned a high-tech civilization building a huge structure enclosing a star. The structure would harness 100% of the star's energy and provide a huge living area. You would presumably get in and out through some kind of lock.
This concept spread out through science fiction and became known as a Dyson sphere. Many people now use the term without even, in some cases, knowing it was named after a person.
But Freeman Dyson also had all kinds of other ideas.
He worked on the Orion concept (powering a spaceship with nuclear bombs). He suggested that the best solution to global warming is to, well, plant trees (except he suggested genetically modifying them).
And he did a lot of work on the interaction between light and matter, resolving the problem of quantum electrodynamics. On top of that he was a mathematical genius who had two mathematical tools named after him.
But he was beloved for his weird ideas which, in addition, to Dyson spheres included growing trees on comets as a habitat (did this inspire Niven's Integral Trees? One day I'll actually get to ask him).
He died on February 28 at the age of 96...after a long and no doubt highly fulfilling life. He's one of those scientists who had a major influence on science fiction.
I may just have to write a Dyson sphere story now.
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