Anyone out there

Orlun wrote:
> >
> > Anyone still subscribe to this group.
> >
> > Or am I alone.

I'm sure there's lots of other people out there like me, still
subscribed to this group, with nothing particularly interesting they
want to talke about, waiting for someone else to say something
interesting that they can respond to. Like this:

> No one left here 'cept us AI ghosts.
>
> So, Tunesmith headed out with the Ringworld and parked it around a new
> sun... without shadowsquares. How does he power the superconducting grid
> without beamed shadowsquare power? How does he keep the ringworld surface
> from baking dry under 24/7 sun?

The simplest solution I can come up with is that he has to deploy a new
set of shadow squares, and he has to do it before an unacceptably large
amount of irreversible damage is done. Considering the damage that must
have been done to the social structure by the large numbers of
susceptible people exposed to the Blind Spot, his standard for
"acceptable damage" is probably pretty high.

How does he come up with the resources he needs to deploy new shadow
squares? I have no idea - but since he's a Protector, I guarantee you
he's either made suitable arrangements, or he has and alternative
solution I haven't thought of. The one thing you can be sure of is that
he has some solution he considered acceptable.
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Peter Meharg wrote:
> kuyper RemoveThis @wizard.net wrote:
>
> >>So, Tunesmith headed out with the Ringworld and parked it around a new
> >>sun... without shadowsquares. How does he power the superconducting grid
> >>without beamed shadowsquare power? How does he keep the ringworld surface
> >>from baking dry under 24/7 sun?
> >
> >
> > The simplest solution I can come up with is that he has to deploy a new
> > set of shadow squares, and he has to do it before an unacceptably large
> > amount of irreversible damage is done. Considering the damage that must
>
> I would have just left the ringworld in an outer orbit while he built
> the shadow squares? No damage would be done in that way. But I dont
> think like a Protector...

The Ringworld was designed to circle a star; I very much doubt that it
can safely be put in orbit around a star. It's radius is 1 AU, so I
don't think you can really call it an orbit unless the Ringworld's
center of mass is more than 1AU away from the center of mass of the
star. Let's assume 1.5 AU?

So, how is it oriented? If the plane of the ring is parallel to the
orbital plane, then the inner side of the part of the ring closest to
the star will be facing away from the star, while at the same time
blocking the light from reaching the inner side of the part of the Ring
farthest from the star. The only thing that will be heated up is the
outer surface. Since that surface was designed to face empty space at
an average temperature of a few kelvins, I suspect that some aspects of
it are NOT designed to work properly when they spend one half of every
Ringworld rotation facing the star.

If the axis of the Ringworld's rotation is not perpendicular to the
plane of the Ringworld's orbit, then things could work a little better,
so long as that axis wasn't facing straight toward the star. The outer
parts would recieve some starlight. However, the part of the inner
surface that is best exposed to starlight is going to be about 1 or
even 2 AU farther away from the star than it was from the Ringworld
star. Given the inverse square law, that means that it will be exposed
to somewhere between 1/4 and 1/9 of the amount of light that it got
while in it's original location. Luckily, the equilibrium temperature
is proportional to the 1/4 power of the insolation, so the temperatures
will only be reduced by a factor of sqrt(2) to sqrt(3). Still, that's
the absolute temperature: Reducing room temperature (300K) by a factor
of sqrt(3) gives a temperature of 173K. Also, the temperature will rise
during a "day" that will last about 1/2 of a Ringworld rotation, while
it will drop during a night that will last roughly the same amount of
time. That's going to be pretty rough on the inhabitants!

Also, if the ringworld's rotation axis doesn't point straight at the
star, parts of it will be closer to the star than others. Scrith is
pretty strong, but even scrith is going to be pretty flexible when it's
shaped like the Ringworld. The forces on the Ringworld in it's designed
location are extremely symmetrical and uniform. In any other location,
it's shape is going to be deformed a bit. Even a small change in it's
shape could result in air flowing away from some parts of the ring, and
toward other parts. I don't know any easy way to estimate the size of
this effect, so I don't even know whether it would be big enough to be
measured, much less whether it would be big enough to be a problem.
However, it might be.
 >> Stay informed about: Anyone out there 

In article <eMudnXjS9Zf0oIveRVn-jQ.DeleteThis@midco.net>, Orlun wrote:
> So, Tunesmith headed out with the Ringworld and parked it around a new
> sun... without shadowsquares. How does he power the superconducting grid
> without beamed shadowsquare power? How does he keep the ringworld surface
> from baking dry under 24/7 sun?
>
Does the book actually say that he left the shadow squares behind? The
structure the nanomachines built to move the Ringworld had to be able to take
things they don't *completely* surround into hyperspace, so it's presumably a
function of the geometric form of the superconducting grid how far the
hyperspace field stretches.
Come to think of it, when Carlos and Elephant IIRC went to the
antimatter planet (can't remember the story name) and came back without a
windshield, they had to stay in their pressure suits to survive the vacuum.
Sooo ... the Ringworld in hyperspace had to have had some sort of region around
it which contained the atmosphere. It also had to have something like inertia,
so that the atmosphere would stay in the "Canyon" between the spill mountains.
So, the few metres of thickness of nano-engineered scrith can influence
to a height of around a thousand km tall (top of Fist of God, Spill mountains,
so top of effective atmosphere. That's a factor of a million or so in scale of
"reach". Another factor of about 100 in "reach". Eeeasy!
Actually, the book states that the nano-engineering can create a fusion
core as in a Bussard jet, so again, taking the shadow squares with them is on
the agenda.

--
Aidan Karley,
Aberdeen, Scotland,
Location: +57°10' , -02°09' (sub-tropical Aberdeen), 0.021233
Written at Thu, 01 Sep 2005 08:22 +0100
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kuyper.RemoveThis@wizard.net wrote:
>
> Orlun wrote:
> > >
> > > Anyone still subscribe to this group.
> > >
> > > Or am I alone.
>
Still here.
<snippety>
>
> > So, Tunesmith headed out with the Ringworld and parked it around a new
> > sun... without shadowsquares. How does he power the superconducting grid
> > without beamed shadowsquare power? How does he keep the ringworld surface
> > from baking dry under 24/7 sun?
>
> The simplest solution I can come up with is that he has to deploy a new
> set of shadow squares, and he has to do it before an unacceptably large
> amount of irreversible damage is done. Considering the damage that must
> have been done to the social structure by the large numbers of
> susceptible people exposed to the Blind Spot, his standard for
> "acceptable damage" is probably pretty high.
>
> How does he come up with the resources he needs to deploy new shadow
> squares? I have no idea - but since he's a Protector, I guarantee you
> he's either made suitable arrangements, or he has and alternative
> solution I haven't thought of. The one thing you can be sure of is that
> he has some solution he considered acceptable.

There's a LOT of scrith patches just sitting around in storage. They
could provide some shade and power-generating capacity until Tunesmith
manages to 'acquire' some material - presumably the new star had one or
more objects in orbit before he arrived with the Ringworld.

--

Bernie Dwyer
There are no 'z' in my email address
 >> Stay informed about: Anyone out there 

One thing I wish Niven had thought of was to use the ring shape of the
ringword as a massive 2au diameter superconducting supercollider. With
thousands of years of free shadowsquare power, he could have used the
collider to create enourmous quantities of antimatter. He could have used
stored antimater to power the ringworld while it was shadowsquare-less.
Or, a protector would have forseen the need for an emergency power source if
the shadowsquares failed or were attacked. Nivens own idea of using the
rim mounted bussard ramjet engines in magnetohydrodynamic generator mode
would have worked... thus, this solution would have been available long
before the fringe war.

(I would have simply wrote it so that Tunesmith had seeded the shadow
squares with the same QuantumII nanobots and designed a linking method for
having them stay in sync while in hyperspace)

Say! The shadowsquares were left behind right? wouldn't the fringe war
covet their secrets and still do battle? Or, use them as a power source
for a new spacebased system. hmmm
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kuyper.RemoveThis@wizard.net wrote:

>>So, Tunesmith headed out with the Ringworld and parked it around a new
>>sun... without shadowsquares. How does he power the superconducting grid
>>without beamed shadowsquare power? How does he keep the ringworld surface
>>from baking dry under 24/7 sun?
>
>
> The simplest solution I can come up with is that he has to deploy a new
> set of shadow squares, and he has to do it before an unacceptably large
> amount of irreversible damage is done. Considering the damage that must

I would have just left the ringworld in an outer orbit while he built
the shadow squares? No damage would be done in that way. But I dont
think like a Protector...

Peter
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