Re: Interesting concultural ideas

on 12/4/01 3:52 AM, Almaran Dungeonmaster at dungeonmaster@ALMARAN.NET
wrote:

> With a sun in the middle of the sphere,such as he proposed, the problem
> became even bigger, since than everything falls towards the center of the
> sphere ;-)
Scratch that idea.

> As to your idea of a rindworld: the feasibility depends for the greater part
> on the design. My advice is to keep it small! Greater rings are increasingly
> more unlikely as tidal forces will break up such a ring quite fast. Also
> look at the total population size and see if the size of the world will be
> big enough to support that many people.
Astrophysicists have shown that solar tidal forces are negligible compared
to lunar ones. As long as the ring was somehow kept at the exact same
distance from the sun along its entire length, there would be no force
differentials to cause shearing. In fact, I would think that the sun's
gravity would make the ring *stronger*, for the same reason that a
free-standing arch doesn't collapse inward under its own weight. Equal
amounts of force from all directions will cancel out to a net force of zero.

Besides, the level of technology required to even build a ring presupposes,
by necessity, the existence of some sort of super-strong building material,
capable of withstanding gravitational shear, asteroid impact, and the like.

Niven's Ringworld trilogy provide the most of the further practicalities,
like night and day, and atmosphere.

My idea involves having a relatively primitive society (medieval level, I
think) which was artificially placed on a ringworld at some point in their
distant past, perhaps 5,000-7,000 years ago. The builders (who also brought
humans to the ring) are long gone, remembered only in vague legends. The
"arch" formed by the ring, very visible at night and faintly so during the
day, is of central religious significance.

I'm thinking that I'll make the ring about 2,000 miles wide, maybe a little
more. It will be situated at a constant 1 AU from the sun. I haven't
bothered to calculate the surface area yet, because it's closing in on the
end of the semester, and I've got two 15-page papers to write.

I'll have more time to focus on this stuff in a week or two.


--
Daniel Seriff
microtonal@sericap.com
http://members.tripod.com/microtonal

I never worry that all hell will break loose. My concern is that only part
of hell will break loose and be much harder to detect.
                                -Carlin

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