Smart's MTH predicts civilizations retreat into inner space over ~600 years post-singularity. As STEM compression proceeds, each signal channel goes dark sequentially. Compute when OC would have become undetectable ā and whether it already has.
Each card shows when the channel goes dark ā in years since singularity (left scale) and translated to how many Gyr ago that was, given the assumed singularity timing.
John Smart's MTH posits that post-singularity civilizations compress their STEM (Space, Time, Energy, Matter) footprint at an accelerating rate, driven by computational efficiency gains. The compression halving time maps to a power budget that decreases roughly as: P(t) = Pā Ć 2^(āt Ć rate/100) where rate is doublings-per-century and t is years since singularity. When P(t) falls below a channel's detection threshold (at OC's distance of 17,900 ly), that channel goes dark.
Radio EIRP: starts at ~10^(10Kā) W (Kardashev-level scaling), detectable above ~10Ā²āµ W at 17,900 ly with current radio telescopes. Optical: laser power ~10% of radio EIRP, detectable above ~10Ā²Ā² W. IR waste heat: proportional to total power throughput; a Kā„1.7 civilization leaves a detectable stellar-luminosity IR excess. Neutrino: high-energy neutrino beams from civilizational-scale accelerators; detectable above ~10Ā³ā° W at IceCube-Gen2 sensitivity.
Smart 2012 (Acta Astronautica 78:55) Ā· Kardashev 1964 (Soviet Astronomy 8:217) Ā· SETI Institute radio surveys Ā· IceCube Collaboration neutrino SETI limits