Ringworld Flub

Bernie Dwyer wrote:
> Jim Lillie wrote:
>>How about short pipes from sediment traps of up to 1000 miles; then a
>>Vesuvius with a digger tool inside the base. This would spray monatomic
>>dust up high to disperse in a fan downwind.
>
>
> Would you like to live in a constant fog of monatomic dust? No, me
> neither.
> Bernie Dwyer

But as the dust came down would it not nucleate condensation,
and arrive at ground level in raindrops?

Jim Lillie
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Jim Lillie wrote:
>
> Bernie Dwyer wrote:
> > Jim Lillie wrote:
> >>How about short pipes from sediment traps of up to 1000 miles; then a
> >>Vesuvius with a digger tool inside the base. This would spray monatomic
> >>dust up high to disperse in a fan downwind.
> >
> >
> > Would you like to live in a constant fog of monatomic dust? No, me
> > neither.
> > Bernie Dwyer
>
> But as the dust came down would it not nucleate condensation,
> and arrive at ground level in raindrops?
>
> Jim Lillie

On Earth, yes, sometimes. If atmospheric dust did that all the time
here, it would be raining a lot more - so there are times when such dust
does not arrive at the surface in raindrops. Whether the pak could
design rw's weather systems to make it happen is subject to speculation
- I think they could, but it would need a lot of airborne moisture.

--

Bernie Dwyer
There are no 'z' in my email address
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Jim Lillie wrote:

> The flub pipes to the rim and the spillmountains are hard for me to see
> as replacement mechanisims for erosion a million miles away.

Note the word used, at least in the American versions, is _flup_.

--
Erik Max Francis && max.DeleteThis@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 20 N 121 53 W && AIM erikmaxfrancis
The woman's movement is no longer a cause but a symptom.
-- Joan Didion
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Erik Max Francis wrote:
>
> Jim Lillie wrote:
>
> > The flub pipes to the rim and the spillmountains are hard for me to see
> > as replacement mechanisims for erosion a million miles away.
>
> Note the word used, at least in the American versions, is _flup_.
>
> --
> Erik Max Francis && max.TakeThisOut@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
> San Jose, CA, USA && 37 20 N 121 53 W && AIM erikmaxfrancis
> The woman's movement is no longer a cause but a symptom.
> -- Joan Didion

Perhaps he was thinking along the lines of a protector-stage "flowerpot
msn", i.e. "flub-a-dub" ?

Google "Bill and Ben, flowerpot men" if you *really* want to follow this
up
--

Bernie Dwyer
There are no 'z' in my email address
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Erik Max Francis wrote:
> Jim Lillie wrote:
>
>> The flub pipes to the rim and the spillmountains are hard for me to see
>> as replacement mechanisims for erosion a million miles away.
>
>
> Note the word used, at least in the American versions, is _flup_.
>

My typo - thanks.

Jim Lillie
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My bigger issue is the pipes dump out well above the atmosphere,
from what I recall. That means a loss of water vapor.

Without transmutation it will be hard to replace it...

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Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433
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David Lesher wrote:
> My bigger issue is the pipes dump out well above the atmosphere,
> from what I recall. That means a loss of water vapor.
>
> Without transmutation it will be hard to replace it...
>
But inside the Ringwall, thus contained with the upper atmosphere
and recycled.

Jim Lillie
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David Lesher wrote:
>
> My bigger issue is the pipes dump out well above the atmosphere,
> from what I recall. That means a loss of water vapor.
>
> Without transmutation it will be hard to replace it...
>
> --
I'd have thought it would freeze pretty quickly, thence flow/tumble
downhill. IIRC, the flup pipes are visible on the underside, so the flup
itself would already be pretty cold by the time it got to the exit
point, and would freeze very quickly.
--

Bernie Dwyer
There are no 'z' in my email address
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Jim Lillie <jimlillie RemoveThis @adelphia.net> writes:

>David Lesher wrote:
>> My bigger issue is the pipes dump out well above the atmosphere,
>> from what I recall. That means a loss of water vapor.
>>
>> Without transmutation it will be hard to replace it...
>>
>But inside the Ringwall, thus contained with the upper atmosphere
>and recycled.


Do we know that?

How high up do the pipes end? What's the atmospheric pressure there?

I'm no expert on the behaviour of water vapor in a vacuum. What will
drag it down into the lower atmosphere?

--
A host is a host from coast to coast.................wb8foz RemoveThis @nrk.com
& no one will talk to a host that's close........[v].(301) 56-LINUX
Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433
is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433
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David Lesher wrote:
>
> Jim Lillie <jimlillie.TakeThisOut@adelphia.net> writes:
>
> >David Lesher wrote:
> >> My bigger issue is the pipes dump out well above the atmosphere,
> >> from what I recall. That means a loss of water vapor.
> >>
> >> Without transmutation it will be hard to replace it...
> >>
> >But inside the Ringwall, thus contained with the upper atmosphere
> >and recycled.
>
> Do we know that?
>
> How high up do the pipes end? What's the atmospheric pressure there?
>
> I'm no expert on the behaviour of water vapor in a vacuum. What will
> drag it down into the lower atmosphere?
>
> --
It's not just water - it's flup - i.e. sea-bottom ooze, i.e. silt,
decomposed plants and animals, rocks (presumably nothing larger than
would cause blockage/damage to the pipe & pumping system), so what comes
out of the pipe is a very cold, slushy, muddy goop. It would tend to
fall down (towards the ringworld), and freeze on the way, with a bit of
freeze-drying happening while it was in vacuum/near vacuum.
--

Bernie Dwyer
There are no 'z' in my email address
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In article <ea0kpt$ok2$2@reader2.panix.com>, wb8foz DeleteThis @panix.com (David
Lesher) wrote:

> I'm no expert on the behaviour of water vapor in a vacuum. What will
> drag it down into the lower atmosphere?

2 things will:-
1) Inertia
Its orbital path will send it to the Ringworld floor and if that isn't
enough
2) The solar wind
will always be there to impart its radial momentum to whatever is trying
to escape. However its pressure will be very low and can be easily
overwhelmed if rotational velocity is lost.


Stephen

http://www.cix.co.uk/~sforbesa
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In article <x4-dnfdYTMX61SPZnZ2dnUVZ_r2dnZ2d.TakeThisOut@adelphia.com>, Jim Lillie
wrote:
> The flub pipes to the rim and the spillmountains are hard for me to see
> as replacement mechanisims for erosion a million miles away.
>
A thousand mile high hill seen form the centre of the Ring (as
"ribbon" would appear inv.tan(1000/500000) = 0.114.... degrees above the
horizon. That's not a steep slope for sediment, even extremely weak
sediment / water slurry to flow down. Never has been.

The Slaver tool as a redistribution method is interesting, but the
difficulty is getting the atmosphere to efficiently catch and decelerate
the "monatomic dust" while maintaining a reasonable spacing. Mind you,
you only really need to worry about the thousand-mile deep atmosphere
near the edges. If you're a half-million miles from the edge of the ring,
then you can cheerfully squirt debris up to (say) 100,000 miles in the
confidence that the very large majority of the material would land
somewhere on the Ring.
I think the basic idea would be workable, but you'd need to vary
the spacing of flup-Vesuvii with distance from the Ring-edge, and maybe
to angle them towards the ring centre. Say, angled inwards by 10 degrees
and to spinward at 1000 mile spacings five hundred miles from the
Ring-edge and squirting up to 500miles above the surface; a thousand
miles further in from there the pipes could be at 1500 mile spacings,
squirting up to 1000 miles from the surface, and less inclined to
off-vertical and spinward.

I don't know how long the Slaver dust would remain monatomic. That
would be pretty damned reactive stuff. The atmospheric consequences could
be severe at any significant mass flow rate. That'll need some more
consideration. High rising plumes and long times of flight would allow
some reactions to re-form silicates etc, but I fear you'd have to do your
chemistry in the Vesuvii, somewhat diluting the ideas initial simplicity.

--
Aidan Karley, FGS
Aberdeen, Scotland
Written at Sun, 30 Jul 2006 19:32 +0100, but posted later.
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In article <44C2DD96.80E37555 DeleteThis @yahooz.comz.auz>, Bernie Dwyer wrote:
> I'd have thought it would freeze pretty quickly, thence flow/tumble
> downhill. IIRC, the flup pipes are visible on the underside, so the flup
> itself would already be pretty cold by the time it got to the exit
> point, and would freeze very quickly.
>
There's a common school experiment you may remember (though it's
probably been banned on safety grounds since I woz at skewl). Take a
round-bottomed, short-necked flask about 1/3 full of water, a rubber bung
that fits closely into it, a thermometer that fits through the bung, and
some sort of pressure-equalising device (I don't remember Mr Woodside
having one, which could have made his clean-up /interesting/ after hours).
Boil the water in the flask, vigourously with the bung loosely fitting
(pressure equaliser open), expelling the air from the flask and replacing
it with water vapour. Water in equilibrium in liquid and vapour phases,
temperature close to 100dC at normal atmospheric conditions.
Now, remove the heat source and close the pressure-equalising
valve. Seat the bung into the flask's neck. Observe.

I don't actually recommend doing this at home - the flask could
implode, and various other nasty things could happen. So I'll tell you
what happens.
As the temperature of the liquid and vapour drops, the pressure
falls. But since the *vapour pressure* of the liquid is lower at lower
temperatures, then the liquid can continue to boil in the flask while
vapour condenses at the walls, moving heat around. The pressure and
temperature in the flask will decrease, more or less following the
equilibrium vapour pressure - temperature curve for the fluid in the
flask. And it continues for some time - 15 minutes at least when I saw it
being done - leading to the startling observation of water boiling in the
lab at 25dC.
(This actually used to be a method for determining altitude for
explorers - good thermometers being more robust than barometers. It also
lies behind "heat pipe" technologies for moving heat around in computers
etc.)

The point of this demonstration is that boiling is nothing special
- it is only the state where the vapour pressure of a fluid matches the
ambient pressure.
In your flup pipes, water could readily freeze in the pipes but
still have a vapour pressure high enough to allow significant mass
transport through what would otherwise be a vacuum.


A friend of mine nearly had several of his workers killed by a
methane-hydrate plug in some oil equipment a few months ago. It's not
clear yet if he's going to be prosecuted and/or fired (and evidence is
still being gathered by the prosecuting authority, TTBOMK). But the
physics and physical chemistry involved are quite closely associated with
this example - they just happen up at a few tens to a few hundreds of bars
pressure.

--
Aidan Karley, FGS
Aberdeen, Scotland
Written at Sun, 30 Jul 2006 19:49 +0100, but posted later.
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