Talk:Dyson sphere/Archive 2

message: Someone just added the point
:*If a Dyson Sphere had a penetrable shell simply by digging though the interior sufarce, then the atmosphere would be compromised and collapse within a matter of minutes. 
and then added a really big diagram to illustrate it. There are several problems with this edit, so - for now - I've commented it out. If we can resolve the problems, we can uncomment it.
#First of all - having a "diggable" shell is ludicrious, when one of the earler points shows that there is no known material with the tensile strength to construct a shell. For example, a solid diamond shell is not soft enough to dig through, and even that isn't strong enough. I can't envision a substance that has binding properties on a par with nuclear forces (see Niven Ring or Scrith), amd still be "cumbly" enough to dig. The point isn't totally wrong, as its possible that interstellar meteors or asteriod sized bodies could still puncture the shell.
#Secondly, the gravity is pointing the wrong way. As noted in an earlier point, gravity in the system is toward the sun. Even if you have the "nested dyson spheres" solution, punching a hole on the outside sphere does not cause the atmosphere to spew out into space; it would just sit there.
#The image is way to big! I have a monitor set to 1024x768, which I admit is low to middle sized for screen resolution, and it runs off the edge of the screen. Most of the diagram is empty space and could be "cropped" - that is, if the diagram was accurate, which according to point #2, it's not.
#The point is kinda vague. I'm not sure what "compromised" here means. The atmosphere would collapse? Where? Out the hole? Wouldn't that start instantly as soon as the hole is made? If this isn't what you meant, what did you mean, and why would it take minutes.
Given these, I've commented out the edit for the time being. If my take on these points is way out to lunch, by all means, it can be commented back in, but for now I think the points are "faulty logic". A real shame, because the editor obviously put a lot of work into the diagram, and it's a really good job. - Vedexent 02:33, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That was my diagram and point, and I can still put it up there. I understand the "diggable" part is potentially ludicrous, but what would happen to the atmosphere on the inner surface were the sphere to be actually punctured? Would you be able to crawl through the hole and walk on the outer surface? Of course not! The vacuum of space would kill you unless you crawled back inside. Oh, and the gravity produced by the star would not be strong enough to hold in about 1 billion sq. miles of atmosphere. The atmosphere's own pressure would push itself out into the vacuum of space. - Aidepikiw0000
I think you're misunderstanding the points in the article.
You can't put atmosphere on the inside of the sphere - at least not without extraordinary engineering. There is no net gravity to hold it to the surface of the sphere. See the divergence theorem applied to gravity. This is one of the major criticisms of the usual depiction of the Dyson sphere in fiction. Realistically, what happens is that anything on the inside of the sphere (atmosphere, people, rocks, etc.) just falls into the sun. This point is mentioned specifically in the article.
I'm not sure what you comment about the atmospheric pressure of a billion square miles of atmoshpere means. Are you proposing to pressurize the entire interior of the Dyson sphere? 
If so - apart from the problem of where you'd get all the air from - you now have a massive heat conduction problem. If not, then your argument doesn't hold; what keeps the Sun's own stellar atmosphere from blowing off into space under it's own "atmospheric pressure" if this is a valid point? Mass that is not in orbit of the sun, or moving away from it at escape velocity falls into it: rocks, planets, or gas molecules.
This is why the "double Dyson sphere" and the "putting the atmosphere on the outside scenerios are mentioned in the article. Usually in science fiction, Dyson spheres either ignore this, or have gravity generators to hold thing down (and those are not mentioned in this article, but are mentioned in the Dyson spheres in fiction article).
I am quite positive you will not be able to find any reputable reference work on Dyson spheres that will claim you can stick atmosphere on the inside with "air pressure" - but I've been wrong before. Still, I think for such a claim to be accepted in this article, you'd have to show a reputable external reference for it. - Vedexent 04:07, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I understand. But suppose the Dyson Sphere was rotating? Everything would be flung to the outer reaches of the sphere, creating gravity. -Aidepikiw0000 23:21, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Problem with the last bullet point on Dyson shell 

message: The article Matrioshka brain notes that "objections to the feasibility of a Matrioshka Brain are more thoroughly explored in that article [that is, this article, Dyson sphere as difficulties with the Dyson Sphere itself."
But then I read this article, and there's not so much material about objections to the feasibility of a Dyson sphere in this article, except for in the one Dyson shell section. In particular, I think this article should have a new section called "Objections to Dyson spheres" or "Problems with Dyson spheres" or something along those lines that sums up the issues with the existence (past, present, or future) of Dyson spheres, including engineering problems, issues with practicality and usefulness, likelihood of them being used, etc... 
Any ideas?
:zafiroblue05 | Talk 01:26, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Your point makes sense from an organizational point-of-view, but the information content of the article would not change a great deal. Feasability problems only really exist for the shell concept. There isn't anything inheriently technologically infeasible about creating a statite or an orbiting satellite. There are only problems of scale: creating billions of them (then again, how many do you need to "officially" make a Dyson sphere?). - Vedexent 06:01, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: A new section?

message: Need a image of the one featured on Star Trek: The Next Generation as well. Martial Law 08:46, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Need Image

message: ... although the original size was horrific :) - Vedexent 02:23, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cool new diagram... 

message: This is a quite stable article, well organized, somewhat well referenced - is there much interest in getting it peer-reviewed, tuned up, and pushed into Featured Article territory? - Vedexent 16:34, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  FAC Push? 

message: Without destroying a planet in the process that is Lengis 05:35, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: --Splarka (rant) 07:28, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is there enough matter in our solar system to make such a thing? 

message: I'm sorry, but it looks like I just added some original research to the article. The section on Dyson swarms stated that increasing complexity of the orbital configuration would be accompanied by a decrease in the amount of solar radiation captured. This is, of course a mistake. In reality, what would decrease would be the amount of energy gathered per construct, not the total amount. 
More constructs in orbit would certainly continue to increase the amount of energy intercepted, but the increasing chance of occlusion would lower the efficiency of the sphere. So, we'd have a situation of diminishing returns. Which means, there would be a limit to the usefulness of continuing to add more constructs. Though it would be a function of the builders' technological prowess, there would inevitably come a point where the amount of energy a new construct would be able to capture was of less value than the resources put into building the construct. The clear implication is that a Dyson swarm would never capture all of the available energy from its parent star. That would mean there would be occasional "windows" through which the star's light would continue to escape into space and so the whole structure would appear as a large body radiating in the infrared with occasional bursts of brighter light. It would look like a variable star. 
I'm not sure how to figure it out, but there must be some mathematical way of estimating the efficiency limit and therefore predicting the amount of observed variability. Does this make sense, or am I missing something? Aelffin 04:10, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Limits of Swarm Efficiency 

message: Centrifugal force? *tsk* 62.241.248.158 21:06, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There is a great deal to be said for being clear about what you mean - Vedexent (talk) - 23:35, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Centrifugal force 

message: Someone has added the Dorr Shell as a variant of the Dyson Sphere. Interesting idea, but neither this entry, nor the article on Dorr Shells has any references. Should this be included, or is this someone's original research? - Vedexent (talk) - 16:02, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I further question the notability of the Dorr Shell, as personally interesting as I think the idea is: neither Google's regular search, nor Google Scholar return any hits for "Dorr Shell" relating to hypothetical megastructures. It's looking like original research at the moment. Anyone have anything else on this? - Vedexent (talk) - 16:15, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  It sounds like someone has attached their name to something that has been around as an idea for a while.  Living on the outside of a solid Dyson shell has been floating around for a while -- Niven mentioned it in "Bigger Than Worlds," and there are essays around online you can find supporting the calculations -- so someone's either playing WP:OR games or is trying to get otherwise undeserved frame.  The entry should probably be removed and the Dorr Shell article deleted. Xihr 18:13, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

text: That is my suspicion as well. Niven even goes on in Bigger than Worlds to suggest the "Mega Dyson Sphere" englobing the core of a galaxy and using the rest of the galaxies mass to create a massive shell, and several light years of breathable atmosphere around it - so this isn't a new idea. Unless someone can produce a publication by "Dorr" (whoever they are) proposing the idea, I'd label this as original research and remove the references to the "concept". - Vedexent (talk) - 18:47, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Googling for "Adam Dorr," I don't see hits from anyone that might look remotely relevant.  Googling for "Dorr shell" and "Dorr sphere," I don't find anything at all.  Having heard of the concept before but never the name until just now, I conclude this is WP:OR (and/or someone just trying to get undeserved fame) and unsuitable for inclusion in Wikipedia. Xihr 18:58, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Looks like the both the article and the entry in the Dyson sphere article have been expunged. - Vedexent (talk) - 00:12, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Dorr Shell]] 

message: Hey, I was wondering about the case where a star on the verge of a black hole was in the middle of a Dyson shell and how the presence of the shell would affect the relativistic time dilation, so I got my questions answered on The General Relativity Talk Page.  It's doubtful to be of great enough significance to go in the article, but it should be of interest to anyone curious about particulars of the physics of Dyson shell or swarm (I think it works the same in both cases but I'm not an expert).  Happy editing. theanphibian 21:23, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: General Relativity Time Dilation Question Cleared up

message: I my have accidentally skimmed over it, or it may honestly not have been covered, but is there any information on exactly how all of this energy would be harnessed, and transferred to wherever the beings are living? I assume that for the Gaean version, we are still living on Earth, but unless we are living on the shell itself (a notion which the article shows is ludicrous), there must be some way to transfer the energy from the collectors to where it is used - is this going to involve gigantic cables, some sort of reflective array, or what?KrytenKoro 05:02, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think there's much discussion anywhere if you're talking about actual engineering details, no. You don't really need to worry about whether the Dyson shell is inhabitable, or how to send power over its surface, since it seems to be pretty much impossible under modern physics: there just isn't any known or theoretical material strong enough for its construction. The Dyson bubble, or Dyson swarm variants might be theoretically possible, and inhabitable, but there's not much need to transmit power from component to component in those cases. If you have a space habitat for population hovering over the star, they can gather their own energy. The same argument holds true for industrial installations, or the computer components of a Matrioshka brain. If power transmission was required between components, it would be possible to use laser or maser transmission through free space, as the swarm and bubble variants are mostly empty space (usually, they'd have to get awfully crowded for this not to be the case). - Vedexent (talk) - 05:33, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Actual Use? 

message: This would intercept the full 4x1026 watts of the Sun's output;
It would be interesting to make a comparison with the energy that currently falls on the earth's (small!) surface.
(Sorry, I don't have time to lookup a good reference for this myself.)
--Hamster128 14:57, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  How much of the sun's energy can we use now?