the biggest drawback for both the Niven ring and the Dyson sphere is there is no gravitational attraction inside the ring or sphere to the sphere - only towards the sun, or only on the outside....
On Mon, Sep 26, 2016 at 1:09 PM, Russell Coker via luv-main < [email protected]> wrote: > On Sunday, 25 September 2016 12:34:12 PM AEST Robin Humble via luv-main > wrote: > > On Fri, Sep 23, 2016 at 01:59:16PM +1000, Russell Coker via luv-main > wrote: > > >Is there a good free orbital simulator for Linux? > > > > > >I don't want a game like KSP but a simulation of orbits without much > need > > >for fancy graphics. > > > > > >I am wondering what the orbit of a ring would be like (EG a Dyson ring) > and > > >whether it's plausible to make such a ring or whether a set of > > >disconnected sattelites in the same orbit is required. > > is there such a thing as a Dyson ring? I thought it was a Niven ring, as > > per Ringworld, Ringworld Engineers etc. and as (fans of) those books > > pointed out, rings are unstable no matter what. > > I just made that term up as it seems to accurately describe it. But the > term > Niven Ring was invented first (I've just read the Wikipedia pages about his > books). > > > a full Dyson sphere is neutrally/meta stable, but no idea how you'd > > actually construct it in a stable manner... likely someone has thought > > about it though! > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringworld > > One thing that's noted in the Errors section of the above page is that a > ringworld as a rigid structure is not in orbit around the star but spinning > independently and would need attitude jets to keep it in place. A full > Dyson > sphere would require the same but with greater complexity as the jets could > only be on the outside of the sphere. > > > short version is that gravity is a harsh mistress, often chaotic, and > > hard to do right over long timescales. do you think the solar system > > is stable? you are wrong. satellites? nope. but depends upon what > > timescales they drift/resonate. > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klemperer_rosette > > The Klemperer Rosette is also interesting. > > > I mostly know about high N N-body codes, but I have a symplectic toy > > low N multi-timestep python code that I wrote somewhere. there are > probably > > high performance (giga-year) public symplectic low N codes out there too. > > > > BTW all mine are collisionless. quite different to David Zuccaro's > > (intriguing - asteroid field?) collisional code. > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alastair_Reynolds > > Alastair Reynolds Revelation Space series features a system that had a huge > number of inhabited satellites that all collided after an alien virus > destroyed their computers. NB this isn't a spoiler as that collapse isn't > covered in his novels. His novel set before the collapse was published > long > after novels set after it which mention it in passing. > > -- > My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ > My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/ > > _______________________________________________ > luv-main mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.luv.asn.au/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/luv-main > -- Dr Paul van den Bergen
_______________________________________________ luv-main mailing list [email protected] https://lists.luv.asn.au/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/luv-main
