Kardashev scale
The Kardashev Scale is a way of measuring how advanced a civilization is. Scientists measure how much energy a civilization uses and then group them into three categories.
Category 1 uses about 4x10^26 watts of energy. That's about 4 million million million million watts of energy. This would be like having a million billion people all using a light bulb at the same time!
Category 2 uses about 4x10^33 watts of energy. That's about 4 thousand million million million million watts of energy. This would be like each of those million billion people using a million light bulbs at the same time!
Category 3 uses about 4x10^44 watts of energy. That's about 4 billion billion billion billion watts of energy. This would be like each of those million people using a billion light bulbs at the same time!
So the Kardashev scale is a way of measuring just how much energy a civilization uses. The more energy a civilization uses, the higher up it goes on the scale.
Category 1 uses about 4x10^26 watts of energy. That's about 4 million million million million watts of energy. This would be like having a million billion people all using a light bulb at the same time!
Category 2 uses about 4x10^33 watts of energy. That's about 4 thousand million million million million watts of energy. This would be like each of those million billion people using a million light bulbs at the same time!
Category 3 uses about 4x10^44 watts of energy. That's about 4 billion billion billion billion watts of energy. This would be like each of those million people using a billion light bulbs at the same time!
So the Kardashev scale is a way of measuring just how much energy a civilization uses. The more energy a civilization uses, the higher up it goes on the scale.
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