What could be done with unlimited time?

[cosmicalstorm]

I started reading the book 'Spin' yesterday, the basic plot of the book is that the planet is suddenly surrounded by a membrane that does a number of strange things.

Most importantly it slows down time on Earth to a point where every second on Earth amounts to 3.17 years in the outside Universe. The membrane can be penetrated from Earth so that rockets and such can be launched, one of the first ideas thrown around is that they want to try and terraform Mars by dumping bacteria on it.

What I was wondering is; would there be any other funny little projects that could be performed space with todays/near future technology if something like this was to happen?

[Samuel]

Dying. The Sun has about 4.5 billion years on it... and you just made that into a human life time. You have about 45 years until mankind gets extinct- shorter depending on how fast the Sun expands.

[Formless]

Most importantly it slows down time on Earth to a point where every second on Earth amounts to 3.17 years in the outside Universe. The membrane can be penetrated from Earth so that rockets and such can be launched, one of the first ideas thrown around is that they want to try and terraform Mars by dumping bacteria on it.

Hold on, hold on... why would they want to do that? The time differences between Mars ad Earth in this scenario means that even if they can colonize Mars or something, anyone who might go there would have problem communicating or interacting with Earth. It would be just like a relatavistic starship, the people on Earth would age slower then the outside universe.

I'm thinking that this would be a severe hindrance to any other project you can think of under this scenario.

[The Vortex Empire]

every second on Earth amounts to 3.17 years in the outside Universe.

That means that time in the outside universe goes incredibly fast, resulting in the death of the sun in a few decades on Earth. Perhaps you meant for every 3.17 years on Earth to equal 1 second in the outside universe.

[Formless]

Dying. The Sun has about 4.5 billion years on it... and you just made that into a human life time. You have about 45 years until mankind gets extinct- shorter depending on how fast the Sun expands.

Uh... that doesn't compute. There is still a whole order of magnitude (or three) difference between a human life, which is now about a few hundred years of outside time, and the remaining life of the sun, which is in the millions of years outside time.

Edit: error. I read that as every year on Earth equals 3 outside the Earth, not every second. My bad.

[cosmicalstorm]

Yes the sun would die within ~40-50 years of Earth time, it's a central part of the books storyline, they're planning to terraform Mars and hopefully be able to send humans there who could perhaps advance to a point where they could save the Earth or at least be able to continue the existance of the human race.

[cosmicalstorm]

The original question was perhaps a bit retarded. A better question to ask this board would perhaps be this; What would the best course of action be for humanity should something like this ever befall us?

(The membrane protects the Earth from asteroids and various forms of radiation and gravitational energy, while supplying 'fake' sunlight and gravitational influence.)

[Winston Blake]

The membrane can be penetrated from Earth so that rockets and such can be launched,

What happens if you nuke it?

[Samuel]

The original question was perhaps a bit retarded. A better question to ask this board would perhaps be this; What would the best course of action be for humanity should something like this ever befall us?

(The membrane protects the Earth from asteroids and various forms of radiation and gravitational energy, while supplying 'fake' sunlight and gravitational influence.)

... I'm pretty sure the temperature differential would get insane.

The human race doesn't have a prayer- you can't do enough in such a short time period, and if you send people on the outside, their best bet is space colonies... which soon will have more people than Earth and won't need to help you.

[Molyneux]

The original question was perhaps a bit retarded. A better question to ask this board would perhaps be this; What would the best course of action be for humanity should something like this ever befall us?

(The membrane protects the Earth from asteroids and various forms of radiation and gravitational energy, while supplying 'fake' sunlight and gravitational influence.)

... I'm pretty sure the temperature differential would get insane.

The human race doesn't have a prayer- you can't do enough in such a short time period, and if you send people on the outside, their best bet is space colonies... which soon will have more people than Earth and won't need to help you.

Uh...but if the (human) space colonies manage to escape the Solar System in time...wouldn't that mean that yes, the human race ends up doing just fine?

Earth doesn't, but extraplanetary humans are humans all the same.

[Sturmfalke]

(The membrane protects the Earth from asteroids and various forms of radiation and gravitational energy, while supplying 'fake' sunlight and gravitational influence.)

If that's the case, why is the death of the sun an important issue for the inhabitants of earth? Is the protection afforded by the membrane not enough to survive? I don't know the book, but the description would lead to the conclusion that earth would be totally isolated from the outside universe and not dependent on the sun in any way, if even the suns gravitational influence and its radiation is replicated by the membrane itself.

[Seggybop]

(The membrane protects the Earth from asteroids and various forms of radiation and gravitational energy, while supplying 'fake' sunlight and gravitational influence.)

If that's the case, why is the death of the sun an important issue for the inhabitants of earth? Is the protection afforded by the membrane not enough to survive? I don't know the book, but the description would lead to the conclusion that earth would be totally isolated from the outside universe and not dependent on the sun in any way, if even the suns gravitational influence and its radiation is replicated by the membrane itself.

Assuming the membrane isn't a completely magical field that simply says "anything coming from the sun is blocked" the sun is going to expand beyond the position of Earth and then eventually blow apart. Doesn't seem very survivable if matter can pass through the field.

[Starglider]

What happens if you nuke it?

You know I specifically wrote a scene into 'Armageddon' (a fic I was contributing here) to answer exactly that question (about portals to hell).

It's such a healthy, wholesome kind of question though isn't it. Just think how much better Trek would be if every time they discovered a dangerous swirly space anomaly, they fired barrages of high yield weaponary at it.

[Dave]

I just finished reading (inhaling) the book today. Good book.

Everybody's asking questions here, and since the OP is not answering them, I thought I might.

Hold on, hold on... why would they want to do that? The time differences between Mars ad Earth in this scenario means that even if they can colonize Mars or something, anyone who might go there would have problem communicating or interacting with Earth. It would be just like a relatavistic starship, the people on Earth would age slower then the outside universe.

I'm thinking that this would be a severe hindrance to any other project you can think of under this scenario.

Why, you ask?
Spoiler

The alien race that created the membrane is hypothesized (it's written in first person from a human doctor's retrospective point of view, so they can't KNOW) to have been put in place in order to cause cataclysmic cultural change. This membrane is put around every planet that grows to a certain technological level to force them to 1) realize they aren't alone in the universe and 2) go about exploring it in the only logical method to anyone in their time-dilation situation -- through massively scalable von Neumann machines.


Because you can't seem to nest spoiler tags:
The alien race is, in fact, itself a collection of sentient von Neumann machines that is designed to assimilate other von Neumann machines.

And yes, your statement is correct.

That means that time in the outside universe goes incredibly fast, resulting in the death of the sun in a few decades on Earth. Perhaps you meant for every 3.17 years on Earth to equal 1 second in the outside universe.

No. The original statement is correct.

What happens if you nuke it?

Anything the size of a satellite or bigger can pass through the membrane in either direction without damage. The membrane is maintained by two massive constructs hovering directly over the north and south poles.

(before I continue, note that the effects of the membrane are not limited to time dilation. The membrane also blocks out all electromagnetic and particle radiation from the outside. No moon, no stars, no meteors. The sun is also gone, replaced with an artificial replica that is featureless (no sunspots or flares or anything).

The Chinese nuked both of these constructs simultaneously very early on, and the membrane allowed flickers of the night sky through. Snapshots, taken thousands of years apart. There were multiple distorted suns, as one might see through a mirage. This lasted roughly 12-24 hours of Earth time, before things returned to "normal", with the single faux sun rising on time the next day, and no stars out at night. (see pages 81-89)

I'm pretty sure the temperature differential would get insane

This problem is magiked away by the membrane (refered to as Spin by the people in the book.)

Uh...but if the (human) space colonies manage to escape the Solar System in time...wouldn't that mean that yes, the human race ends up doing just fine?

This was done with the terraforming of mars in the book. Spoiler

Which would have worked great if a Spin membrane hadn't eventually been erected around them, too.

If that's the case, why is the death of the sun an important issue for the inhabitants of earth? Is the protection afforded by the membrane not enough to survive? I don't know the book, but the description would lead to the conclusion that earth would be totally isolated from the outside universe and not dependent on the sun in any way, if even the suns gravitational influence and its radiation is replicated by the membrane itself.

Why care? The humans are not entirely sure that the Spin membrane will survive the expansion of the sun in it's red giant stage. Therefore, they may have only 50 earth years to leave their mark on the universe. Spoiler

But under the conditions stated in the book, yes, it is certainly theoretically possible to survive forever.

Assuming the membrane isn't a completely magical field that simply says "anything coming from the sun is blocked" the sun is going to expand beyond the position of Earth and then eventually blow apart. Doesn't seem very survivable if matter can pass through the field.

Your assumption is false. The membrane is treated as a "Clarke's 3rd Law" magical field that blocks or filters out whatever the fuck it wants to. It just so happens to filter the sun, allow satellites and other man-made objects through, and block everything else. Oh, oh yeah, and slow down time on Earth (or whatever other planet it forms around.)




Of course, when I first saw this topic, my first thought was xkcd.
Also, I had not finished the book when I first saw this, so I declined to read the thread until had finished it.

[cosmicalstorm]

This was a pretty stupid thread to start off with, I was a bit carried away when I made it, sorry.
And thanks for answering all those questions Dave!