I knew that one, but it's very niche sci-fi nerd stuff, the concept is known as a "Dyson sphere", and it came about as a sort of thought experiment for how a spacefaring civilization might meet their energy needs. I don't know much else about the actual physicist in question (in fact, until 5 minutes ago, I didn't know his first name 😅) but apparently he came up with a lot of interesting concepts (most of which are wayyyy beyond me lol).

See, I didn't even know who any of those people were to even make a guess like that

Star Trek, Stargate, Doctor Who, Interstellar, The Last Starfighter, The Expanse....

The idea of Dyson Spheres gets brought up in basic science classes. I'd be more surprised if someone hadn't heard the term. It's a pretty short wikipedia trail between it & any interesting space mystery.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale

ha, you got em there dimbo 🙌

I'd heard of it because of a show called Pantheon

With supernovae, however big you think is plausible, they're bigger than that. To quote Randall Munroe (xkcd, What If?):

"Which of the following would be brighter, in terms of the amount of energy delivered to your retina:

A supernova, seen from as far away as the Sun is from the Earth, or

The detonation of a hydrogen bomb pressed against your eyeball?

Applying the physicist rule of thumb suggests that the supernova is brighter. And indeed, it is ... by nine orders of magnitude."

Haha same but I did it the other way round, ruling out the smaller numbers until the one too big for me to comprehend was the only one left XD

Really? Thanks!

I can only count up to 150 - thousand-million-billion-trillion-quadrillion? Don't know how to get to nonillion. I'll have to find a quiz :-D