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"The point sticks in your head: physics rules. Virtue does not triumph unless the physics allows it."
- Larry Niven

Light Traps (Dyson Sphere)  
  Surrounding a sun, a set of devices to capture or focus solar power.  

Resolved to pursue the adventure of life and of spirit in the cosmical, the widest of all spheres, it was in constant telepathic communication with its fellows; and at the same time, conceiving all kinds of strange practical ambitions, it began to avail itself of the energies of its stars upon a scale hitherto unimagined. Not only was every solar system now surrounded by a gauze of light traps, which focused the escaping solar energy for intelligent use, so that the whole galaxy was dimmed...
Technovelgy from Star Maker, by Olaf Stapledon.
Published by Methuen in 1937
Additional resources -

Compare to Ringworld from Larry Niven's Ringworld (1970).

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Star Maker
  More Ideas and Technology by Olaf Stapledon
  Tech news articles related to Star Maker
  Tech news articles related to works by Olaf Stapledon

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Science Fiction in the News

JAXA Int Ball 2 Coming Right Along As Star Wars Remote
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