"John Quinley" <jquinley@aros.net> writes:
> You know, I've never really thought about those big planets being brains of
> some sorts. This is really not my expertize, but a reason that these
> civilizations might have went with this design is that, due to the light
> cone, it was the best mechanism to maintain conscious coherence. Perhaps
> there are some cooling issues here, to. Spin the brain so that only part of
> it is actually soaking up sunlight and storing it, while the other part is
> pointed into space. Just some thoughts.
Overall, planet-sized computing systems ("brains") have their problems. The reason to build them is to get a lot of computing power for some project or to live in. And you want them compact, since the speed of light creates such lags relative to the speed of computing. Cooling is a problem, since the surface scales as the square of the size while the volume (heat producing) scales as the cube. You likely need orbiting cooling fins. For my 'Zeus' design I simply assumed a reflective heat shield in the direction of the nearest star.
Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y