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A serious futurist links to Wong's site
Posted: 2002-12-28 04:38am
by Rathark
http://www.aeiveos.com/~bradbury/Matrio ... smbly.html
In one of many essays concering the possibilities of the far future, Robert Bradbury discusses the logistics of dismantling the planet Jupiter in order to create a Dyson shell. Click on the highlighted words "gravitational binding energy", and you'll find a link to Mike's "Death Star Firepower" page.
While we're at it, does anyone think this guy's ideas (planetary dissassembly, Dyson structures, planet-sized AIs) are plausible? Personally, I find them far more plausible than Star Trek. We should have a Dyson sphere and superintelligent AIs long before we have transporters and warp drive (assuming these ever come to fruition).
Re: A serious futurist links to Wong's site
Posted: 2002-12-28 04:49am
by The Duchess of Zeon
Rathark wrote:http://www.aeiveos.com/~bradbury/Matrio ... smbly.html
In one of many essays concering the possibilities of the far future, Robert Bradbury discusses the logistics of dismantling the planet Jupiter in order to create a Dyson shell. Click on the highlighted words "gravitational binding energy", and you'll find a link to Mike's "Death Star Firepower" page.
While we're at it, does anyone think this guy's ideas (planetary dissassembly, Dyson structures, planet-sized AIs) are plausible? Personally, I find them far more plausible than Star Trek. We should have a Dyson sphere and superintelligent AIs long before we have transporters and warp drive (assuming these ever come to fruition).
We'll find some way to exceed the speed of light before we achieve an engineering project on that scale, I suspect. Not that humanity won't get around to doing it: Assuming we last that long we have a great ability at Megaprojects, and we'll probably find a way to overpopulate whatever we're habiting by that time, too. But I suspect our innovation is sufficiently heavily oriented towards how the universe works, rather than the sort of brute force engineering like that, that we'll get there first. We'd need that sort of knowledge to crack a planet, anyway.
Posted: 2002-12-28 04:51am
by Sea Skimmer
I don't think a gas giant would have even a tiny fraction of the material needed for a Dyson sphere.
Posted: 2002-12-28 05:03am
by The Duchess of Zeon
Sea Skimmer wrote:I don't think a gas giant would have even a tiny fraction of the material needed for a Dyson sphere.
Rather, though the actual Dyson sphere was more like a "Semi-Dyson Ring".
Posted: 2002-12-28 01:57pm
by Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi
Sea Skimmer wrote:I don't think a gas giant would have even a tiny fraction of the material needed for a Dyson sphere.
I believe Mike calculated the Dyson Sphere to mass a solar mass.
Posted: 2002-12-28 02:07pm
by XaLEv
Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi wrote: I believe Mike calculated the Dyson Sphere to mass a solar mass.
That Dyson was a solid structure, and not what Dyson originally envisioned, IIRC. The original idea was a large number of smaller structures orbitting a star at the same distance. Such a structure would require alot less mass than one which is a single solid object.
Posted: 2002-12-28 02:43pm
by Exonerate
Erm, isn't Jupiter mostly gas? Not much minerals to work with...
Posted: 2002-12-28 03:41pm
by RedImperator
If you can build a Dyson sphere, I'd assume you could transmute hydrogen and helium to iron (and power your equipment at the same time). You still wouldn't have enough mass for a solid Dyson sphere, though.
Re: A serious futurist links to Wong's site
Posted: 2002-12-28 07:47pm
by Enlightenment
Rathark wrote:We should have a Dyson sphere and superintelligent AIs long before we have transporters and warp drive (assuming these ever come to fruition).
His ideas are much more plausible than the technologies of Star Trek. Trek technologies would require a complete rewrite of most physics from relativity onwards. In contrast, Dyson spheres (the swarm definition proposed by Dyson, not the
unbuildable solid shell definition from Trek) and hyperintellient AIs are merely questions of engineering.
Posted: 2002-12-28 08:17pm
by kojikun
Dyson spheres are pointless. Mike I believe already made note of this when he said that the only gravity from rotation would come from the equatorial regions. granted, theres plenty of surface area for solar panels, but if you can build a dyson sphere you can easilly out power the sun, I have a feeling.
A far better idea is a Niven Ringworld or Banks Orbital. The ringworld was one solar diameter in width (from edge to edge of the band) and about 1 AU in diameter giving it some 2.6e19 square miles of surface area. The earth has about 2.6e11 square miles of surface area (i believe). Ringworld is, then, equal to ten MILLION earths. The earth is less then 1% covered by human constructions, so ringworld can hold a phenomenal number of people.
Posted: 2002-12-28 09:43pm
by Eleas
RedImperator wrote:If you can build a Dyson sphere, I'd assume you could transmute hydrogen and helium to iron (and power your equipment at the same time). You still wouldn't have enough mass for a solid Dyson sphere, though.
I see no problem physics wise in performing that operation. After all, the default lowest energy state (bar matter-antimatter annihilation) would seem to be iron.
Posted: 2002-12-28 10:01pm
by Howedar
kojikun wrote:A far better idea is a Niven Ringworld or Banks Orbital. The ringworld was one solar diameter in width (from edge to edge of the band) and about 1 AU in diameter giving it some 2.6e19 square miles of surface area. The earth has about 2.6e11 square miles of surface area (i believe). Ringworld is, then, equal to ten MILLION earths. The earth is less then 1% covered by human constructions, so ringworld can hold a phenomenal number of people.
Width is 997,000 miles, for a survace area of 6e14 square miles.
The Ringworld Engineers, page 355
Posted: 2002-12-28 10:46pm
by Enlightenment
kojikun wrote:Dyson spheres are pointless. Mike I believe already made note of this when he said that the only gravity from rotation would come from the equatorial regions. granted, theres plenty of surface area for solar panels, but if you can build a dyson sphere you can easilly out power the sun, I have a feeling.
Solid Dyson spheres are an SF brainbug and are very much unbuildable under the laws of physics as we know them. Freeman Dyson's original concept, however, was not for a solid shell but rather for a very large swarm of independantly orbiting collectors--worldlets--packed densely enough to capture a majority of the star's radiated energy.
It's not possible to out-power the sun over the long term without finding either a power source more energetic than fusion (antimatter will
not work--think about it) and/or a supply of hydrogen larger than the sun.
See the
Dyson sphere FAQ for more details.
Re: A serious futurist links to Wong's site
Posted: 2002-12-28 10:55pm
by Pablo Sanchez
The Duchess of Zeon wrote: We'll find some way to exceed the speed of light before we achieve an engineering project on that scale, I suspect.
Assuming that such a thing is even possible.
Posted: 2002-12-28 10:57pm
by Coyote
It was never to clear to me why anyone would want a Dyson sphere in the first place-- is there supposed to be some great advantage to them, beyond collecting 100% of the sun's energy? What could someone do with that much energy?
Posted: 2002-12-29 12:12am
by GrandMasterTerwynn
kojikun wrote:Dyson spheres are pointless. Mike I believe already made note of this when he said that the only gravity from rotation would come from the equatorial regions. granted, theres plenty of surface area for solar panels, but if you can build a dyson sphere you can easilly out power the sun, I have a feeling.
A far better idea is a Niven Ringworld or Banks Orbital. The ringworld was one solar diameter in width (from edge to edge of the band) and about 1 AU in diameter giving it some 2.6e19 square miles of surface area. The earth has about 2.6e11 square miles of surface area (i believe). Ringworld is, then, equal to ten MILLION earths. The earth is less then 1% covered by human constructions, so ringworld can hold a phenomenal number of people. :)
Unfortunately, both structures are also SF brain-bugs. Granted it's not the giant cerebrum-muncher that is the Dyson Sphere, more like a modest (more like fairly large) irritation wrapped about the medulla. Both structures require incredible amounts of material, and material with astonishing tensile strength. A Dyson swarm is a much better idea than any solid structure. And it's actually doable with materials that don't violate physical principles.
Posted: 2002-12-29 01:55am
by Enlightenment
Coyote wrote:What could someone do with that much energy?
The answer is as unforseeable to us now as the use for 1GB of RAM would be to someone who had only ever used a computer with 1KB.
640K is
not enough for anybody.
Posted: 2002-12-29 04:07am
by Coyote
I suppose "If you build it... they will find a way to waste the power"... Probably uber-video games, the way the tech is being pushed now...
Posted: 2002-12-29 09:51pm
by russellb6666
Coyote wrote:It was never to clear to me why anyone would want a Dyson sphere in the first place-- is there supposed to be some great advantage to them, beyond collecting 100% of the sun's energy? What could someone do with that much energy?
Make some really good marshmellows i expect
Posted: 2002-12-29 11:37pm
by XaLEv
Coyote wrote:It was never to clear to me why anyone would want a Dyson sphere in the first place-- is there supposed to be some great advantage to them, beyond collecting 100% of the sun's energy? What could someone do with that much energy?
You could mess with the aliens; They'd see the relevant star's brightness drop in the visual wavelengths but rise in infrared. They'd be all like, "WTF?"