Re: dyson sphere stability

From: Stirling Westrup (sti@cam.org)
Date: Sun Dec 10 2000 - 09:24:14 MST


Michael S. Lorrey wrote:

> Stirling Westrup wrote:
> >
> > What I came up with was to spin the sphere so as to cause pseudo-gravity
> > by centrifical force at the inside equator (and really make it hard to
> > image what substrate would be strong enough to build with). In order to
> > ensure that the inner pseudo-gravity was strictly normal to the surface
> > at all points, carefully sculpted masses would be added to the rotational
> > poles, so that the gravity felt on the inside would be the sum of
> > gravitational and centrifical vectors.
> >
> > The upshot of this would be that the dyson sphere would be stable on two
> > axes, but still unstable along its rotational axis. Its not a total
> > solution, but it does make the problem more managable.
>
> Note that stars typically emit more powerful jets of matter out their
> poles. Could these jets be controlled with pinching effects derived from
> the magnetic fields, to provide control along the rotational axis?

Possibly. But I think the stars that do the polar jets are not necessarily
the kind off star you want to put at the center of your shell. Then
again, there might be some solution involving either stellar engineering
or some sort of inner shroud to redirect some portion of the radiation to
the poles. (Of course, this would again cause excess heating problems.)

-- 
 Stirling Westrup  |  Use of the Internet by this poster
 sti@cam.org       |  is not to be construed as a tacit
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