Rim Transport System

<< From: kuyper RemoveThis @wizard.net (James Kuyper) >>


<< I'm not saying you're wrong, but I don't remember anything about it
being translucent, and I'd be rather surprised if it is. Could you
provide a citation? >>

I'd have to dig - I think it's in Throne, when they take the ship near the
wall, but I'm not sure. I remember it startling me, because I never thought of
scrith as being translucent before then.
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<< From: Erik Max Francis max.TakeThisOut@alcyone.com >>


<< But you can't see the width of the rimwall from the surface, so that's
irrelevant. From the point of view of someone standing on the surface
near a rimwall, it would look like normal, rugged mountains, which segue
into a wall going up infinitely high. >>

But we're not talking about the point of view of someone standing on the
surface. We're talking about Teela, looking from space:

"The rim of the ring expanded in their view. It was a wall, rising inward
toward the star. They could see its black, space-exposed outer side silhouetted
against the sunlit blue landscape. A low rim wall, but low only in comparison
to the ring itself."
Then:
" "I wonder what it looks like from the inside." Speaker heard, and he touched
a control point, and the view slid."
Then:
The view expanded. "Mountains," said Teela. "How lovely." For the rim wall was
irregular, sculptured like eroded rock, and was the color of the Moon.
"Mountains a thousand miles high."

I agree with your description of mountains segueing into a wall; I said:

At most the rim wall might look like a curtain. I agree the BASE is sculpted
to look like mountains, but the top is translucent gray scrith reaching 1000
miles up and terminating in a straight line.

I think the best answer is that, when the view expanded, it zoomed into the
base, that DOES look like mountains.

I don't see any way to picture it as "Mountains a thousand miles high" though.
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anim8rfsk.RemoveThis@aol.comNOSPAM (ANIM8Rfsk) writes:
 >But the top is a straight line, what, 30 feet thick? At most the rim wall
 >might look like a curtain. I agree the BASE is sculpted to look like
 >mountains, but the top is translucent gray scrith reaching 1000 miles up and
 >terminating in a straight line.

You saw my quote - It says "mountains 1000 miles tall". And where did the
"translucent" part come in? It's not in Ringworld. *
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Aidan Karley wrote:
> In article <9jx3d.21641$UZ.9710@newssvr27.news.prodigy.com>, T wrote:
>
>>Could you explain the notation?
>>
>> > ?1E6 miles?
>>
>
> It's short for "1 exponent 6", which actually means 10 raised to
> it's 6th power. Viz 10 X 10 X 10 X 10 X 10 X 10 = 1,000,000. This is a
> common computer-based representation for large (or small) numbers.
> You'll also often see it represented as 1.0x10^6
> You're familiar with units of measure such as kilograms and
> grams? A kilogram is 1000 grams (originally) and so the name was
> constructed from a Greek root for (something) and the original unit.
> Similarly kilometer and meter and millimeter. There's a list of
> standard multipliers at factors of 1000 so many times you'll see people
> expressing a preference for expressing large numbers at these
> particular powers. So you're more likely to see "radius of earth's
> orbit = 146 X 10^12 metres" than you are to see the exactly equivalent
> 1.46 X 10^14 metres.
> This is commonly referred to as "scientific notation".
>


Thx to 'A#1" & 'A#2'. It's funny because people on the other end of
email have no idea how much the given quester knows as ground work.

For a min. I almost got offended about being (re)introduced into Powers
of Ten & Scientific Notation. 8D

But then I realized you guys were being helpful and I appreciate it.
(Just for clarification the line It's short for "1 exponent 6", was
enough to catch a clue.)


Back on topic- re: The Ring Walls (above the Spill Mountains) looking
like walls. They prob. DO look like walls, but the inhabitants prob.
take it for granted that walls make up the World.

Maybe they are painted/etched a dark near black color and look like
starless space, or perhaps with the spill mountains themselves so high
the walls above them tend to disappear in the haze of atmosphere.


TBerk
around before the Internet
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<< From: David Lesher wb8foz RemoveThis @panix.com >>


<< I meant there was {many} miles between spill mountains. I can't recall
where that was said, however. So there was lots of wall sans mountain. >>

Oh. Well, the spill mountains are just big occassional cones. The wouldn't
help the general illusion of 'mountain' vs 'wall' at all.


<< As for their height; it looks like Larry changed his mind -- In RW,
they were as tall as the Rim Wall >>

Huh? The spill mountains don't appear in RW at all.

<< He also changed his mind on the altitude of the Martian plateau,
and thus the Repair Center volume, and Teela's age... >>

Yeah. :-\
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<< From: pv+usenet@pobox.com (Paul Vader) >>


<< You saw my quote - It says "mountains 1000 miles tall". And where did the
"translucent" part come in? It's not in Ringworld. * >>

It's in one of the books . . . let's google . .

http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/scrith

Scrith is a milky-gray translucent material impervious to all weapons.

http://scrith.wikiverse.org/

Scrith is a milky-gray translucent material impervious to all weapons.

http://www.rahul.net/rootbear/graphics/ringworld/rw3.html

The Ringworld is composed of a mythical substance called scrith. Niven
describes scrith as being grayish and slightly translucent.

http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/dysonFAQ.html

(Niven uses the invented material scrith, a greyish translucent material with
strength on the order of the nuclear binding strength)

Drat. No cite, but SOMEBODY must have said it.
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ANIM8Rfsk wrote:

 > It's in one of the books . . . let's google . .

_Ringworld_, p. 135, as soon as they step off the _Liar_ after it
crashes:

  They were in an enormous, shallow gully. Its floor was
  translucent gray and perfectly flat and smooth, like a vast
  glass tabletop.

<font color=purple> > <a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/scrith</font" target="_blank">http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/scrith</font</a>>
 >
 > Scrith is a milky-gray translucent material impervious to all weapons.
 >
<font color=purple> > <a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://scrith.wikiverse.org/</font" target="_blank">http://scrith.wikiverse.org/</font</a>>
 >
 > Scrith is a milky-gray translucent material impervious to all weapons.

These are the same citation, by the way; both are simply copies of
Wikipedia's entry.

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<< From: Erik Max Francis max.DeleteThis@alcyone.com >>


<< _Ringworld_, p. 135, as soon as they step off the _Liar_ after it
crashes:

  They were in an enormous, shallow gully. Its floor was
  translucent gray and perfectly flat and smooth, like a vast
  glass tabletop. >>

Yay! Thank you!<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
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ANIM8Rfsk wrote:

 > << From: Erik Max Francis max.TakeThisOut@alcyone.com >>
 >
 > << _Ringworld_, p. 135, as soon as they step off the _Liar_ after it
 > crashes:
 >
 > They were in an enormous, shallow gully. Its floor was
 > translucent gray and perfectly flat and smooth, like a vast
 > glass tabletop. >>
 >
 > Yay! Thank you!

From looking more closely, "translucent" is actually mentioned twice
before: "shiny-flat and translucent" (p. 133) and "flat, grayish,
translucent material" (p. 134). The description on p. 135 was the first
one truly close-up, however.

It wasn't exactly hard to find, after all; they saw exposed scrith when
they first crashlanded. Just look for that part in the book, and boom,
three references in as many pages.

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Erik Max Francis <max DeleteThis @alcyone.com> writes:
  > They were in an enormous, shallow gully. Its floor was
  > translucent gray and perfectly flat and smooth, like a vast
  > glass tabletop.

I think we're talking about the kind of shiny silver finish where it looks
like the shine appears to be slightly below the surface. "Pearlescent"
would be a better description.

Translucence would mean that you can see light from outside shining through
it. That seems unlikely. *
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Paul Vader wrote:

 > I think we're talking about the kind of shiny silver finish where it
 > looks
 > like the shine appears to be slightly below the surface. "Pearlescent"
 > would be a better description.
 >
 > Translucence would mean that you can see light from outside shining
 > through
 > it. That seems unlikely.

Since Niven chose the word carefully and repeated it multiple times, I
think he knew exactly what he meant.

Besides, you're overanalyzing. By defintion translucent is a material
that lets some light through it -- which means some doesn't. By that
definition, shining a light on a translucent material will make it
appear to be shiny, since while some of the light gets through, some
gets reflected back to your eyes. There is no conflict.

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anim8rfsk RemoveThis @aol.comNOSPAM (ANIM8Rfsk) writes:



><< As for their height; it looks like Larry changed his mind -- In RW,
>they were as tall as the Rim Wall >>

>Huh? The spill mountains don't appear in RW at all.


The Map Room;

They were looking over the edge of the Ringworld.

[...]

They were looking down on thousand-mile-high mountains...


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<< From: David Lesher wb8foz.DeleteThis@panix.com >>


<< ><< As for their height; it looks like Larry changed his mind -- In RW,
>they were as tall as the Rim Wall >>

>Huh? The spill mountains don't appear in RW at all.


The Map Room;

They were looking over the edge of the Ringworld.

[...]

They were looking down on thousand-mile-high mountains... >>

Those are NOT the spill mountains. Niven hadn't even thought of the spill
mountains yet. The first we see of them is in ENGINEERS when Louis and Chmee
spot them from on top of the rim wall.
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