Hello, SFIA audio listeners. In this month's Nebula exclusive, big alien theory,

we're asked at the reason alien civilizations might be rare is because most aliens are huge.

To hear it and every episode early and add-free, plus hours of bonus content, check out

go.nebola.tv slash Isaac Arthur and use my code, Isaac Arthur. In a universe stretched thin by eons, where stars have long faded and even atoms face

their end, a single question remains, can intelligence find a way to outlast time itself?

Imagine a universe, countless eons from now, stripped of starlight and emptied of warmth.

The galaxies have drifted apart into isolating silence, and even the fundamental particles

that once danced in radiant complexity have begun to fade.

Yet, in this boundless dark, a spark remains, a glimmer of

intelligence that has adapted, persevered, and evolved to endure beyond time itself.

This is the realm of Dyson's eternal intelligence, a vision where civilizations,

pushed to the very edge of existence,

defy the universe's slow decay, not merely surviving but flourishing.

These minds stretch beyond the limits of entropy, grasping at eternity, refusing to be swallowed

by the inevitable cold darkness. What would it take to persist in such

an unforgiving cosmos, and what would life be like in a world where thought must outlast the

stars themselves? Welcome to Science and Futurism with Isaac Arthur, and I am your aforementioned host,

Isaac Arthur, and today we're asked what it takes to survive in a dark era at the end of time,

where even the most basic elements of matter itself might have decayed and entropy over it in all.

This is not our first venture into civilizations at the end of time.

It's a series we've been revisiting about once a year since our early installments,

Black Hole Farming and Iron Stars, back in 2016 and 2017, respectively.

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