Re: Interesting concultural ideas

Joe Hill wrote:
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Andreas Johansson" <and_yo@...>
>To: <CONLANG@...>
>Sent: Saturday, December 08, 2001 2:16 PM
>Subject: 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
> >
> >
>
>Why would they need that much energy?
>in 35 years, the world population will be 10,000,000,000 people, with the
>population going up about 100,000,00 per year.
>
>In 1971, the world population was only 4,000,000,000 people, with the
>population going up only 50,000,000 people a year. This means that in 65
>years, the population increase doubles.
>
>in 650 years, the population increase will be 51 billion people a year,
>maybe more.  If we take this, then in 650 years, the world population will
>be 6660 billion people, witha population growth rate of 51 billion people
>every year.
>
>Think how it would be in several thousand years.
If we could use all the solar energy reaching the earth, energy would become
a problem until way after we've used up all the carbon etc of the Earth for
making humans. In order to have sufficient with people to use up all the
energy output of a galaxy we'd have to ransack a bunch of other galaxies for
essential elements to make humans. If we have this sort of technology, why
don't we simply spread out over the universe instead? The number of galaxies
is infinite (or, just possibly, merely extremely large).

                                                  Andreas

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