Dyson Sphere

(Forwarding the discussion also to Conculture, answer where you prefer!)

Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...> wrote:

> Abrigon wrote:
> > The seasons I suspect would be wierd for us, after all, there likely
> > would be little change, or would there be? The Sphere moves around the
> > sun, perfect circle (or as close you can, since the moon was torn out of
> > the sky, not sure..
>
> I don't think that there WOULD be any seasons.  There'd probably be a
> constant climate.  And actually, I've read that a Dyson's sphere would
> be unstable without some sort of artificial stablizers, if one side, for
> whatever reason, became closer, it would tend to continue approaching,
What if it rotates at a high speed? I'm not really sure, but isn't
that how satellites were/are stabilized? The gyroscope effect?

But you're right, there could be no seasons, unless for some weird
reason the makers of the sphere decided to place its center of
gravity somewhere away from the geometric center, maybe making an
area of the sphere's crust denser or wider. You'd have a hell of
time calculating the exact CoG!

> Interesting idea of using moons to make night and day.  But, wouldn't
> the moons have a lot more space between them than their diameter, thus
> making the "night" be extraordinarily short?  Perhaps a better idea
> might just be 24 hours of daylight, with the sphere located far enough
> away to keep it from getting too hot.
What about huge plaques, as in _Ringworld_? But anyway some areas
near the poles wouldn't have proper nights... I'd prefer constant
daylight too, with some mechanism to darken a place easily (giant
polarizing fields?).


--Pablo Flores
  http://www.geocities.com/pablo-david/index.html
  http://www.geocities.com/pablo-david/draseleq.html