Honestly, bulding a dyson sphere???

Sat Jul 19, 2003 11:51 am by Gung_Ho

Rotation would not suffice since obviously rotation is only along one axis. It might help create 'artificial gravity' along that axis, but would place great stress on the sphere as a whole, and I can't see it being a helpful feature. On a ring yes, but not when considering a sphere. Spin any sphere at high speed and things are going to stick to the inside wall along the axis of the spin, and no where else. And of course, if you only wanted to create a ring shaped strip of 'artificial gravity' you might as well scrap the sphere idea and just go with a ring.

'Solar wind' is going to be a negligable force unless the surface of the sphere is paper-thin. Yes there is a great deal of solar wind, but it pales in comparison to the mass we are talking about here. Even if the sphere is only 1/2 km thick, the small amount of force apon that mass (per square inch) from impacting particles is going to be pathetically small. We aren't talking about a thin solar sail here, we are talking about a structure of substantial thickness. At least we are talking about a stucture that wont tear when someone stands on it.

But could it could be done? Sure, I don't see why not. The society doing so would use their anti-gravity thingies (TM) to nullify the force of the sun's gravity apon the inner surface of the sphere. And they would have built it due to the little known bejoinkle effect, whereby a sphere around a sun not only captures its emitted energy, but also harnesses a feeling of spiritual well-being for all of it's inhabitants. Sound foolish? Well yes, it is. But my point is that we can't currently engineer a method to overcome the challenges involved in a contruction of this magnitude, nor is this kind of knowledge even on our immediate horizon. Even the question of 'why?' might be better answerable in the distant future, although I suspect the odds are in favor of there never being a good reason for it.

Mon Jul 21, 2003 8:11 am by Gregstar2k

I figure a dyson would be possible if we find a way to do two things:
1) build little nanobots that can self replicate as needed for thousands of years
2) give em technology that let em turn energy into matter

and let er rip. of course, you'd need overrides and very specific logic built in (such as, if this much time passes without any mission updates, request one, if no response, try again for 500 years, if no response, destroy sphere)
...it would really suck for the ppl of Freelancer if the Coalition meanwhile started doing this to some star, they got stupid, and the nanobots went 'cancerous', hehehe, continuing to build the sphere even after normal specs, completely consuming several systems as it exponentially grows and grows, only stopping when the star blows up inside of it and becomes a black hole... some pilot in Freelancer stumbles across a jump hole and finds this "dyson brownie" filled with lots of Coalition almond delicacies lodged in it... X-D

Mon Jul 21, 2003 4:55 pm by atomiccow

the people inside the dyson sphere would die from the suns heat. they would fry

Mon Jul 21, 2003 7:52 pm by TerraN

Uhh... Atomiccow...

Tell me: Why don't we currently get fried on Earth?? or of we where on Mars? Or why is it so cold on Pluto?

because the DISTANCE from the sun is large enough to not to get "fried"!

Sure, if we humanoids would build a sphere about the same distance from the sun as let's say Mercurius or Venus, you would have a nice big sphere full of baked humanoid... and THAT'S EXACTLY why we (if we would ever posess the technology and the desire to build one) WILL NOT build a sphere too close to the sun, but at an acceptable distance for us humans...

And btw: who the heck says these "Dom Kavash" have the same heat-tolerance as us humans?? I mean: if they where much more resiliant to heat, then they could build a much smaller sphere, wich would maybe make it much more affordable... (I think atleast... I am not a sientist lol

)

"In one dimension, I find existence. In two I find life, but in three, I find freedom..."

Edited by - TerraN on 21-07-2003 20:57:26

Mon Jul 21, 2003 11:52 pm by Chandrasekhar Limit

Actually, Atomiccow is right.

A sphere will keep all the energy in even at distances like Pluto's orbit. Pluto is very cold because it has VERY LITTLE surface area to absorb whatever sunlight reaches there. You build a whole sphere the diameter of Pluto's orbit, you will get a surface area that is a few gazillion times larger, and proportionately the energy absorbence increase a few gazillion-fold.

And if there is no way to get rid of the heat buildup over time, everything inside will indeed get fried.

As far as heat tolerance goes... I keep my Dom Perignon in a nice cool basement lest it gets spoiled. Maybe that's why Dom Kavash is such a crappy brand of wine.

Tue Jul 22, 2003 8:24 am by TerraN

Lol, yeah, I didn't saw it that way. I guess you're right.

In that case, I hope you accept my apologies Atomiccow

I suppose you could, if you got the tech and a transparant, heat-absorbing material, you could create a smaller sphere, like a sort of solid "ozon layer" and let the absorbed heat flow away through pillars to the outher sphere and into space...

Of course, you would first have to find this magical transparant and heat-absorbing material, not to mention extremely heat-resiliant superconductors to let the heat flow away

Unless you would have a need for really eanourmous amouts of energy and turn all or most of that heat into power... However, you would still have to find or create that special material...

"In one dimension, I find existence. In two I find life, but in three, I find freedom..."

Tue Jul 22, 2003 1:20 pm by Potatari

The necessity is to find a way to spin the sphere so that the entire thing is spinning about a higher dimensional axis, akin to a circle spinning on an axis through its centre. The sphere needs to spin about a 4th dim axis somehow....its got to be the way. Of course the effects might be a bit odd....

Wed Jul 23, 2003 12:42 am by Durbatuluk

Read Timothy Zahn's "Spinneret" book, despite the fact that its Science Fiction, it solves the problem of the material, and the reason for making the thing in the first place.

Wed Jul 23, 2003 6:20 am by Gung_Ho

The trick is that in space, there is an inefficient medium for the emission of heat. Heat will not come off of an object in ambient waves in space, since there is no air to act as a heat conducter. On the earth, the effect is balanced, since an excess of heat will prompt atmospheric changes that will reflect light away from the surface, thus keeping the planet cooler. With a dyson sphere, such a thing cannot happen, since reflected light would again strike the sphere at another point. In essence, it is a closed system.

Not only might the purpose of building a dyson sphere be to harness all of a star's emmited energy, it MUST do so, or be able to emit the energy in some way. A failure to maintain this balance would result in the heat continuing to build until portions of the structure vaporized and expelled the heat in the form of gases or light energy. Probably said gasses would fall immediately back to the surface compounding the problem, and causing an eventual collapse of the weakened structure inwards, whereby the sphere's mass would eventually combine with that of the stars, and we'd end up with a larger star.

Mon Jul 28, 2003 12:22 pm by Potatari

There is always the option to build a (at least partial) sphere around a star, much smaller than a dyson sphere, and simply live on the outside. There would be little light, apart from that which is maybe deflected somehow, but it would very warm, and energy from the star would be intense. The smaller sphere would be easier to build, though would be subject to a stronger gravitational field. If it was built at the right distance, the gravity (from the star)on the outside of the sphere would match that of earth....

Mon Jul 28, 2003 2:06 pm by atomiccow

i was wondering in the last mission inside the dyson sphere, why didn't the nomad city fry? it looked pretty close to that sun and so did you.

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