Re: Dyson shell redux

From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Sat Mar 17 2001 - 23:06:12 MST


On Sat, 17 Mar 2001, Ken Clements wrote:

> Here is my shot at shell design:
>
> I base this on what I call Hyper Orbital Velocity Mass or HOVM.

Cool name. I'll start by pointing out that this is a variant
on the Pohl and Williamson "The Saga of the Cuckoo" (aka
"The Farthest Star" + "Wall Around a Star"). In that design
I think they were circulating very high velocity fluid streams.

> I suggest mag lev mass drivers in place of the particle beams because
> subatomic particles radiate photons like mad when you turn them, but
> it is the same idea.

I know electrons do this, do protons do it as well? Are their any
loses when you turn something magnetic using a magnetic field?
(e.g. do you slow the turning particles down so they have to be
reaccelerated? If so where does that energy go?)

I had considered this approach before to "sustain" a hyper-heavy JBrain.
HHJB's are JBrains constructed in such a way that they would melt
or crush into atomic homogeneity their interiors. I thought momentum
transfer of the type you describe could provide loopholes to squeeze
though to expand the size of the JBrain but I was worried about heat
production (that costs a lot to radiate in a JBrain).

You get into an interesting problem constructing the "fiber-core" for
the JBrain architecture that Anders has proposed in that as you add
additional material on the outside the pressure on the fibers goes
up significantly -- at what point does your fibers start to
deform and intermix with each other? Can you construct
it slowly enough and construct fibers with sufficiently low
losses that heat doesn't build up in the core? Or do you
simply ignore these issues and support all of the outer
mass on momentum "fountains"?

Robert



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