Dyson Spheres revisited

[Blue Ghost]

Cool. ISTR that you posted that link years back when a similar discussion came up. Informative as always.

I think mega-structures are interesting for gaming because they're unique environments. I had a concept in rough treatment form for a group of players to come across a super-high tech civ that cruised the galaxy in a colossal high-tech ship. Think of the "tree branch" object from the Stewart Cowley books ("Space Craft from 2000 to 2100").

Where that thing isn't a DS, it has the earmarks of good scifi. Traveller, as a game system, to me, even though the rules or outline for super-high tech worlds and civs is there, doesn't lend itself purely to the exploration of such things, but it's stuff I've always thought was on a gray scale of interesting to cool.

I tried reading the first in Niven's Ringworld series, but got caught up in something else. I seem to recall that the prose didn't grab me like Bradbury or Foster. I 'll try reading it again.

 

[DonaldH]

Ring

I vote Rings just the idea of so vast an area to play with, one side of the star could be having a full out nuclear war on the other side, "somebody hear a noise?".

 

[Ulsyus]

I think mega-structures are interesting for gaming because they're unique environments. I had a concept in rough treatment form for a group of players to come across a super-high tech civ that cruised the galaxy in a colossal high-tech ship. Think of the "tree branch" object from the Stewart Cowley books ("Space Craft from 2000 to 2100").

Are you familiar with Ian M. Banks Culture novels? They're in that direction, but possibly further than you imagined. If you haven't read any I strongly recommend them.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Isaac Arthur has done an update on Ring Worlds, and touches on Dyson spheres / swarms.

https://youtu.be/yk-Ivm9MhYs

The more I think about this concept, the more impractical I think it is, simply for the fact that you need to protect your occupants from full spectrum daylight. Earth's magnetosphere deflects a lot of stuff, with the atmosphere soaking up or refracting and deflecting the rest.

So even though a low tech society (TL5 to TL9) could build one in theory, it takes actual high tech to deal with the hazards of the system's central star, as well as just rogue worlds barreling through, or cosmic radiation.

Structurally I think a neutronium lattice is doable with a civ that's mastered cracking the atom and synthesizing elements. Such a lattice frame work would be more than strong enough to hold the whole thing together, and it wouldn't need to be terribly big either.

 

[aramis]

Isaac Arthur has done an update on Ring Worlds, and touches on Dyson spheres / swarms.

https://youtu.be/yk-Ivm9MhYs

The more I think about this concept, the more impractical I think it is, simply for the fact that you need to protect your occupants from full spectrum daylight. Earth's magnetosphere deflects a lot of stuff, with the atmosphere soaking up or refracting and deflecting the rest.

So even though a low tech society (TL5 to TL9) could build one in theory, it takes actual high tech to deal with the hazards of the system's central star, as well as just rogue worlds barreling through, or cosmic radiation.

Structurally I think a neutronium lattice is doable with a civ that's mastered cracking the atom and synthesizing elements. Such a lattice frame work would be more than strong enough to hold the whole thing together, and it wouldn't need to be terribly big either.

For a spin gravity ringworld, the required strength exceeds the Strong Nuclear Force on a 0.5 AU ring.

Isaac also discusses active support structures that could be used, and notes that they are absolutely essential for a shell or ring.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Wouldn't it depend on how big the material was, and how it was layered? I think an atomic strand of the stuff would bust apart under a lot of common everyday forces. But if you had something like "rods" or I-beams of the stuff, then I think you're talking something feasible, and ergo playable for a gaming session.

Another project for me to look into.

 

[aramis]

Wouldn't it depend on how big the material was, and how it was layered? I think an atomic strand of the stuff would bust apart under a lot of common everyday forces. But if you had something like "rods" or I-beams of the stuff, then I think you're talking something feasible, and ergo playable for a gaming session.

Another project for me to look into.

No material's tensile strength can exceed that of the atomic bonds it's comprised of.

Neutronium is merely an atom with an atomic mass in the (insert stupidly high number)

 

[Blue Ghost]

Embarrassingly enough I did take material science, and I should have a response. I might be confusing neutronium for something else ...

 

[sudnadja]

Embarrassingly enough I did take material science, and I should have a response. I might be confusing neutronium for something else ...

I think it's a bit of a simplification to say that neutronium is one big atom, I know that a free neutron with no attached proton was at one point considered element zero but I don't think that has stuck around as a thing.

The material that neutron stars are made of might or might not be neutron matter, but in any event it isn't a strong-force interaction that's binding the neutrons together, it's gravitation, so I'm not sure I would use the term "atom" to refer to a neutron star.

I do agree that the premise of a ringworld is hard to swallow, given the materials requirements.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Well, I think the reality is that the people conjuring tweaks for this idea haven't thought about all the practicalities of them. But they're still kind of interesting to contemplate for fiction.

I think I was confusing neutronium for dwarf star matter. They're not the same thing.