Ice

[barfoo]

No, things don't heat up from sunlight alone in orbit. The sun is giving a mere 1.4 kW / m2, so the BG would aborb the same amount. The energy dumped into a black hole would have to be vented through flickering (the cooling ability of a starship must be on par with its powerplant power so this should be no problem. If the BG was on at all times the heat buildup would eventually be troublesome, but not nearly as much as the heat buildup from the powerplant itself. The heat from the PP cannot leave the BG when it is on either, right?
IMTU BGs work like perfect blackbody radiators and will heat up when irradiated and have a temperature. When ships try to overload a BG they can measure their success by the IR temp of the BG, hot enough and the BG will explode.

 

[barfoo]

The Mote in Gods eye by Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven has a blackglobeish device detailed, with similar capabilities as my BG (mine cannot change their radii though).

 

[Andrew Boulton]

Not read the books for years, but aren't they more like white globes?

 

[barfoo]

They become white globes when hot enough (I haven't read them in years either so I might be mistaken).

 

[aramis]

Traveller BG's do not have a temperature; if they did, they would not double as cloaking devices. They do serve as cloaking devices when in full-on mode. They are effectively 0K. Detection is the same as visual for a black hole: it blocks out background stars, but is not directly detectable.

They are clearly inspired by Niven and Pournell's, but are as clearly NOT the same thing.

Yes, thermal buildup is an issue; it does, however, return said IR as useable energy! So, you get limited entropy inside the globe.

 

[mike wightman]

[aside]the Black globe as presented in first edition High Guard was even more similar to the Niven/Pournelle model.
They could be penetrated by a high weapon factor.[/aside]

 

[parmasson]

No, things don't heat up from sunlight alone in orbit. The sun is giving a mere 1.4 kW / m2

"The standard unit of current flow used in physics is the joule, but since a joule is only equivalent to one watt-second, kilowatt-hour has become a much more convenient standard."
From: http://www.energyvortex.com/energydictionary/kilowatt_hour.html

So how many joules per hour per square meter are we talking about?

Perhaps I don’t understand, that sound like quite a bit of energy if you have hundreds of square meters being exposed. Then again as I have said before the amount I don’t know about physics could fill volumes.

 

[Rossoneill]

Aramis
I finally checked my t20,Mega and CT books and i cant find the reference that i thought i had seen on Bg energy being unusable .
I also found the T20 reference it says that as long as the BG is flicked off it can then use the energy.
So i was wrong .

 

[Duke]

Am I the only one seeing a turret with a robotic arm holding a BIG icepick?