"Michael S. Lorrey" wrote:
>
> Actually, Daimler-Chrysler is involved in inertial electrostatic
> containment fusion research, and there are functioning desktop reactors
> that DO, in fact, have fusion reactions.
How much do they cost? If it's just fifty bucks, I want one, just so I
can have a fusion reactor on my desk.
> Since a dyson sphere or niven ring would orbit at a velocity higher than
> orbital velocity, in order to produce a 1 g centrifugal gravity
> simulation, it is likely that the radial velocity differential between
> it and the solar corona would create its own magnetic field that might
> be used to stabilize the ring or sphere much as a magnetic bearing.
If you rotate a Dyson Sphere to create 1G, then only a thin slice of it
will be useful - you might as well build a Niven Ring (I like that term)
and be done with it. Actually, I believe the original Dyson Sphere *was*
supposed to be a cloudlet of asteroidish bubbles. The correct term for
what you're discussing may be "Dyson Shell" or "Double Dyson Shell".
All of that said, if you can get magnetic stabilization effects, then it
may make sense to mount, say, 12 concentric Rings on the interior of the
Dyson Shell, load them up with magnets / superconductors / monopoles, spin
them very very fast, and use them as magnetic bearings anchored to the
rest of the Sphere (which remains more or less constant). I doubt there'd
be significant extra mass usage; a ring the diameter of a Dyson Sphere,
but only a thousand miles wide, is scarcely a dent compared to the Sphere
itself.
Personally, I'll stick with a Solar-System-sized, Milky-way-massed
computer of interlaced negative and positive matter, so the whole thing
weighs three grams and doesn't collapse into a black hole. Wrap the whole
thing in a fractal Van Der Broeck warp so it fits in your pocket and
you've got the perfect living space.
-- -- -- -- --
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/
Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon May 28 2001 - 09:50:32 MDT