Re: Interesting concultural ideas

John Cowan wrote:
>Lars Henrik Mathiesen wrote:
>
>
>>However, the point of a Dyson sphere is not primarily to provide
>>livable area, but to catch as much of the energy output of the star as
>>possible.
>
>
>For which you don't need a single physical object: lots and lots of
>asteroid-sized objects in random orbits will do the job fine.
>
>>So all this discussion about providing gravity and atmosphere to the
>>inside of the sphere is a bit off track, really --- people who can
>>make a Dyson sphere also have the technology to live in bubbles on the
>>outside, where the star's gravity points the right way and they can
>>watch the pretty lights of the universe all the time.
>
>
>Or for those who think REALLY, REALLY big:  Tear the spiral arms off
>some galaxy or other, and build a sphere around the core.  The surface
>gravity (on the outside) will be small, but the
>gravitational potential will drop off soooo slowly that you should be
>able to retain an atmosphere several hundred parsecs deep.  Objects
>orbiting the sphere will have periods of revolution in the megayears,
>so in practice they will stand still, and you can fly to them using
>stork chariots.
Some SETIite (Kardashev?) proposed the following classification of
technological civilizations:

Type I Civilizations have mastered the energy resources of their planet
(we'd belong to this category).

Type II Civilizations have mastered the energy output of their star (and
would parhaps build a Dyson sphere).

Type III Civilizations have mastered the energy output of their galaxy (and
might try John's idea).

The unanswered question is - what the heck to they need that amount of
energy for??

Also, why wipe the arms of a spiral galaxy, then the universe teems with
elliptical galaxies that're basically spiral ones without arms? As a bonus,
elliptical galaxies are found in a much wider variety of sizes that spiral
ones (from much much smaller than the smallest spiral ones to several times
bigger than the biggest spiral ones).

                                               Andreas

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