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Halo Science - Ringworlds and Plasma Weapons

Posted by Zonk on from the games-and-science-two-great-tastes-that-taste-great-together dept.

The book Halo Effect is an intriguing title that takes a look Bungie's best-selling Halo titles from a number of different angles. Each chapter includes coverage of specific elements; included are descriptions of pro events, a bit on the development process, and the making of the Red vs. Blue series. One of the most interesting chapters takes a look at the science behind the Halo world, talking about the physics and logic behind ringworlds and the hi-tech weaponry seen in the game. Thanks in part to a mini-review of the book on the GameSetWatch site, Gamasutra has been allowed to reprint the entire 'science of Halo' chapter on their website. "A 5,000 kilometer radius would yield a circumference of roughly 31,400 kilometers. If we assume a width-to-radius ratio similar to that of Niven's Ringworld, they would be approximately 5.37 kilometers wide. They are significantly wider, though, at 320 kilometers. The Halos, then, would have a surface area of 10 million square kilometers - slightly larger than the surface area of Canada, and approximately 2 percent of the surface area of Earth. Of course, since we know that there are lakes, seas, and rivers on the Halos, the livable surface area would be fractionally less." Update: 05/02 18:30 GMT by Z : The initial version of the article posted was from pre-production and contained some errors. They've been fixed in the article and now here in the post as well.

111 comments

  1. decimal point by PresidentEnder · · Score: 2, Informative

    I assume that there is a missing decimal point in the summary, since those figures give a much larger surface area.

    --
    I used to carry a bottle of whiskey for snake bite. And two snakes. -Nefarious Wheel
    1. Re:decimal point by Chris+Burke · · Score: 1

      Has to be, since I'm pretty sure Niven's ring didn't have a width/radius ratio of 10, since that would have made the ringworld 930 million miles wide, a veritable ringtube where the ends would be frozen and uninhabitable. I don't have the book handy, but I'm pretty sure the ring was actually fairly narrow, perhaps only a few thousand miles wide on a ring over five hundred million miles around.

      --

      The enemies of Democracy are
    2. Re:decimal point by LiquidCoooled · · Score: 1

      I thought the same, a circumference of 31,400 kilometers and a width of approximately 53,700 kilometers.
      That would be a fucking thick tube.

      The whole thing has a radius of about 5000km.

      Maybe Ted Stevens was right?

      --
      liqbase :: faster than paper
    3. Re:decimal point by bhima · · Score: 3, Informative

      From the back of Ringworld (1970 printing)

      A ring 93 million miles in radius (on earth obit)
      600 million miles long
      One million miles wide
      thickness of of about 1000 meters
      walls on the edge 1000 miles high

      Rotation on axis 770 miles per second

      But I'm sure those or just generalities

      --
      Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
    4. Re:decimal point by ATestR · · Score: 3, Informative

      Niven's Ringworld was 1 million km wide (although the units may have been miles). Assuming that the units were in km, to have the same proportions as the Ringworld, the Halo world would have to be approximately 5/150 times this, or 33,333 km wide.

      --
      âoeAny society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.
    5. Re:decimal point by gobbo · · Score: 3, Informative

      Has to be, since I'm pretty sure Niven's ring didn't have a width/radius ratio of 10, since that would have made the ringworld 930 million miles wide, a veritable ringtube where the ends would be frozen and uninhabitable. I don't have the book handy, but I'm pretty sure the ring was actually fairly narrow, perhaps only a few thousand miles wide on a ring over five hundred million miles around.

      Niven's Ringworld is one million miles across the ribbon, the rim walls holding in the atmosphere are 1000 miles high, and its circumference is 600 million miles around. For those who use a more sensible and thus cowardly* base 10 measurement system: 1,609,344 km wide, rim walls 1,609 km high, and 965,606,400 km in circumference. That yields a radius (AU) of 153,681,031 km. The radius/width ratio is thus about 154:1, so your instincts are correct, even if the calculation is a bit off.

      Added bonus: the surface area works out to 1.6×10^15 sq.km--about 3 million Earths; wrap your head around that! Halo's 10,000 km diameter is relatively tiny.

      (* Profuse apologies: impugning the valour of anything French, including metrics, on american-run sites is, seemingly, de rigueur.)

      --
      Damn those pesky terrorists
    6. Re:decimal point by gstoddart · · Score: 1

      I assume that there is a missing decimal point in the summary, since those figures give a much larger surface area.

      Indeed. That, and a radius of 5000kms from our Sun would put you squarely in an area of space you wouldn't want to spend much time in.

      The ringworld in Niven's book was utterly huge.

      Cheers
      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    7. Re:decimal point by toolie · · Score: 3, Funny

      That, and a radius of 5000kms from our Sun would put you squarely in an area of space you wouldn't want to spend much time in.

      Newark?

      --
      -- toolie
    8. Re:decimal point by ReverendLoki · · Score: 2, Funny

      (* Profuse apologies: impugning the valour of anything French, including metrics, on american-run sites is, seemingly, de rigueur.)

      Actually, it's more directed towards anything uniquely, or at least characteristically French. Since the metric system is much more widely used than in just France. So, Metric gets a pass on being classified as one of those "French things" to be mocked. No, we mock the metric system as one of those "European things", which operates on a different scale altogether - fewer cheese-eating surrender-monkey references, for one.

      --
      09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
    9. Re:decimal point by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So, the author was about 1/6 done converting his book from imperial to metric when they printed it?

    10. Re:decimal point by Trails · · Score: 2, Funny

      Canada uses it too! Does this mean it gets mocked less? ... why is everyone laughing?

    11. Re:decimal point by gstoddart · · Score: 1

      That, and a radius of 5000kms from our Sun would put you squarely in an area of space you wouldn't want to spend much time in.

      Newark?

      Well, I've only ever been in the airport, but I think you're probably correct from what I saw.

      Cheers
      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    12. Re:decimal point by gobbo · · Score: 1

      Actually, it's more directed towards anything uniquely, or at least characteristically French. Since the metric system is much more widely used than in just France. So, Metric gets a pass on being classified as one of those "French things" to be mocked. No, we mock the metric system as one of those "European things", which operates on a different scale altogether - fewer cheese-eating surrender-monkey references, for one.

      Ah well, wit is wasted on the young, and America chooses to be perennially young. I was referring, of course, to the origins of the metric system.

      --
      Damn those pesky terrorists
    13. Re:decimal point by ReverendLoki · · Score: 1

      Ah well, wit is wasted on the young, and America chooses to be perennially young. I was referring, of course, to the origins of the metric system.

      Actually, I was quite aware of it. In fact, I was also considering the use of the French language as another example akin to the metric system (really, it isn't the language that gets mocked, but rather the particular dialect one finds in France). I was all set to go on about how the French Canadians and the Cajuns down south both get mocked for their language, with little to no reference to the country of France, but I thought to myself that surely such a reference would just drag out a little gag and wouldn't add any real meaning to it all. I mean, surely the jest was simple and plain enough as is, what value could that extra bit add? Alas, how wrong I was...

      BTW, another aspect of the French that gets continually mocked is the stereotypical "holier than thou" attitude. No idea where that one comes from, really...

      --
      09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
    14. Re:decimal point by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, the back seat of a Volkswagen.

    15. Re:decimal point by AvitarX · · Score: 1

      "Rotation on axis 770 miles per second"

      That doesn't even make sense.

      --
      Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
    16. Re:decimal point by Blackhalo · · Score: 1

      "Canada uses it too! Does this mean it gets mocked less? ... why is everyone laughing?" Canadians are clearly worthy of quality mockery in thier own right, with the added incentive of the French Canadians. Plus since Canada is in North America they are literaly Americans resulting in mockery incentive that is off scale.

      --
      "There is nothing to do it. But to do it." -Floyd Pepper
    17. Re:decimal point by Hal_Porter · · Score: 1

      Ah well, wit is wasted on the young, and America chooses to be perennially young.

      You know when making Francophile arguments to les neocons internets it's de rigueur to describe American culture as jejeune. The English phrase "perennially young" lacks a certain je ne sais quois.
      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
    18. Re:decimal point by Fulcrum+of+Evil · · Score: 1

      No it wouldn't - you don't have to have this thing orbitting the sun on axis. It's much easier to build them in orbit around a planet the right distance out, and much easier to move them around afterwards. Banks got this right.

      --
      "We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
    19. Re:decimal point by gobbo · · Score: 1

      bwahaha! touché!

      --
      Damn those pesky terrorists
    20. Re:decimal point by Silverlancer · · Score: 1

      Yes it does. Its the speed needed to keep 1G of "gravity" from the centripetal force.

    21. Re:decimal point by AvitarX · · Score: 1

      Maybe I am too stupid to understand, but wouldn't rotation on axis be measured as RPM, or deg/sec or rad/sec?

      In fact the linear speed when on the actual axis would be 0 miles per second.

      I assume 770 miles/sec is the linear speed when on the ring 93 million miles away from the axis.

      I am eager to be corrected on this though.

      --
      Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
  2. Bad Calculations by rherbert · · Score: 4, Informative

    "A 5,000 kilometer radius would yield a circumference of roughly 31,400 kilometers. If we assume a width-to-radius ratio similar to that of Niven's ringworld, we get a width of approximately 53,700 kilometers. The Halos, then, would have a surface area of 1.68 million square kilometers."
    A width of 53k kilometers and a radius of 5k would be a very long cylinder. Given the other numbers, 1,680,000 km^2 / 31,400 km gives a width of 53.5 km, which is much more reasonable and ring-shaped.
    1. Re:Bad Calculations by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      At least with the metric system when someone is wrong it's off by a factor of 1,000.

  3. Go to the original by linzeal · · Score: 1, Informative

    Why bother with the mediocre writing of game novel hacks when you can go straight to Niven?

    --
    An Education is the Font of All Liberty
    1. Re:Go to the original by Blakey+Rat · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The Halo is not the only science fiction element in the Halo universe, you know. It's just the one it's named after. It also has a pretty unique AI concept (pioneered from the Marathon games, I believe) as well as an interesting alien civilization consisting of different races with a strange and pretty complex social dynamic but all seem to work (more or less) together despite that. Then there's the Flood, which is some sort of super-evolved virus or bacteria.

      If you read the novels, they also shove in a bunch of genetic engineering and spacesuit/armor construction and some other stuff.

      Plus the Halo in Halo is actually build as an amplifier to some kind of neutron bomb or something which can kill all life in a huge radius.

      I'm glad that you can come to Slashdot and show off your knowledge of Niven, but the Halo universe is actually a very well-constructed science fiction universe in its own right.

      --
      Comment of the year
    2. Re:Go to the original by locokamil · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Agreed. I read the novels before I played the games, and I was surprised by how convincing the sci-fi actually was. Characterization was off, but the science was good, and all four books described an appealing future with _relatable_ human technologies, i.e. the technology was advanced, but not so far advanced that I found it implausible.

      GP is a tool, make no mistake. The Halo books are solid sci-fi in their own right.

    3. Re:Go to the original by Ryan+Amos · · Score: 1

      Marathon was a great series. You were essentially the pawn in a war between 3 competing AIs. The worst part of the games was the inability to jump. They released level editors that let you fuck with the levels in any way you wanted though so it was all good.

      And the dual auto-reloading sawed off shotguns in Marathon 2 have got to be the most kick-ass weapons I've ever played with. They had a great rhythm to them while also having the ability to shred armies of enemies if you got them in a hallway.

    4. Re:Go to the original by julesh · · Score: 1

      Because while Niven's Ringworld is widely considered as an impossible structure due to the extraordinary structural strength requirements it places on his "scrith", something somewhat Halo-like could actually be built by a civilization not incalculably more advanced than our own. Therefore, its details make a more interesting thought exercise than Ringworld's do.

  4. but... by Archades54 · · Score: 3, Funny

    the inhabitants would be angsty aggressive teenagers, so we need to tugboat the ring into a the sun.

    maybe the pale folk would finally see some sun

    --
    If your neighbours roof is flying past your window, you know it's cyclone season.
  5. Sorry Niven; by B5_geek · · Score: 2, Informative

    The Ringworld is unstable!

    Sorry I just couldn't resist.

    Ringworld is simply a must-read for anybody who considers themselves a geek. Thank God it won't ever be made into a movie.

    --
    "The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
    1. Re:Sorry Niven; by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thank God it won't ever be made into a movie.

      Why not?

    2. Re:Sorry Niven; by irby0 · · Score: 1

      Snippet from http://www.mania.com/41212.html :
      "Based on Larry Niven's RINGWORLD series of novels, a four-hour mini-series is in development. In the future four explorers crash on an artificial structure in deep space, a mammoth ring that circles a distant star."

      I've been waiting for years- I guess we'll see if it ever comes to fruition.

    3. Re:Sorry Niven; by redtape · · Score: 1

      From the article on the site:
      Date: Tuesday, April 6, 2004

      So, they obviously are taking their time about it...

    4. Re:Sorry Niven; by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Get with the 80's guys - it's on the SciFi channel. Pretty good, imho. But I would have liked to see the whole series of books in movies, not just the first.

  6. Iain Banks Orbitals by argent · · Score: 1

    Halo is more like Iain Banks "Orbitals" than Niven's Ringworld.

    I haven't played Halo, but from what I've seen on the net I suspect the GCU Grey Area might be poking around there some time...

    1. Re:Iain Banks Orbitals by simm1701 · · Score: 1

      I rather like the character of "Meatfucker" - and the Culture novel universe in general - its certainly a future I can relate to and would be very happy living in - without it being too shiny happy optimistic about the way things will turn out

      --
      $_="Slashdotter";$syn="OTT";s;..;;;sub _{print shift||$_};s!ash!Perl !;s=$syn=ack=i;tr+LLEd+BLAH+;_"Just Another ";_
    2. Re:Iain Banks Orbitals by szyzyg · · Score: 1

      There are quite a few links between Iain M Banks work and the Halo series - and I absolutely recommend anyone who's not read his work to check it out. Larry Niven was certainly first with the ringworld design, but the orbitals are more directly related to the game environment.

      Someone has put together a nice list of similarities between the games and the books.

      http://marathon.bungie.org/story/halo_culture.html

    3. Re:Iain Banks Orbitals by orkysoft · · Score: 1

      But 1.68 million square kilometers? That's a toy compared to an Orbital! At least, that's what Hub says...

      --

      I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
    4. Re:Iain Banks Orbitals by argent · · Score: 1

      its certainly a future I can relate to and would be very happy living in - without it being too shiny happy optimistic about the way things will turn out

      You quite sure it's a future you'd be happy living in? Have you read State of the Art? :)

    5. Re:Iain Banks Orbitals by argent · · Score: 1

      Oooh, VERY interesting.

      The Halo ships seem a bit boring compared to the Culture ones, though.

    6. Re:Iain Banks Orbitals by julesh · · Score: 1

      Have to ask: are you the 'szyzyg' I used to know on mono?

    7. Re:Iain Banks Orbitals by simm1701 · · Score: 1

      Yep - its a completely fucked up universe but I think it would suit me.

      I'll freely admit I'd certainly prefer being part of the Culture or the Ulterior - but within those parts I could be quite content

      --
      $_="Slashdotter";$syn="OTT";s;..;;;sub _{print shift||$_};s!ash!Perl !;s=$syn=ack=i;tr+LLEd+BLAH+;_"Just Another ";_
    8. Re:Iain Banks Orbitals by argent · · Score: 1

      Yep - its a completely fucked up universe but I think it would suit me.

      Ah, you haven't read The State of the Art then.

      The Culture novels are not set in the future.

    9. Re:Iain Banks Orbitals by Fulcrum+of+Evil · · Score: 1

      This should be clear to anyone who's read Consider Phlebas. Also note that, in interviews, Banks has said that the Culture isn't necessarily Human (almost certainly not) and that Humans may not be capable of the change.

      --
      "We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
    10. Re:Iain Banks Orbitals by simm1701 · · Score: 1

      Ah now I get your reference - true that it is set now but they would just ignore this planet as unbeleivably strange and primitive - though thats a fairly standard twist for science fiction in general

      --
      $_="Slashdotter";$syn="OTT";s;..;;;sub _{print shift||$_};s!ash!Perl !;s=$syn=ack=i;tr+LLEd+BLAH+;_"Just Another ";_
    11. Re:Iain Banks Orbitals by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Earth isn't being ignored.

      It is the untouched control in the Culture's experiment.

      They need the control to measure the effect of their intervention on other planets.
      RJG.

    12. Re:Iain Banks Orbitals by argent · · Score: 1

      Earth isn't being ignored. It is the untouched control in the Culture's experiment.

      Yeh, bastards... why the hell did they have to pick us as the control? It's the opposite of the anthropic principle, anyone would think it was a cosmic plot device to explain why we haven't been...

      Oh, yeh... :)

  7. Ringworlds have a lot of problems by SirBruce · · Score: 4, Informative

    Unfortunately, there are numerous technical problems that make Ringworlds problematic, as Niven tried to address in later books. The Ring requires active stabilization, day and night cycles can only be crudely simulated, etc. Perhaps the biggest problem is that the structural material itself would have to have the tensile strength of the strong nuclear force just to hold together...

    Dyson Spheres actually make a lot more sense than Ringworlds. Any civilization capable of making a Ringworld would most likely be able to make a Dyson Sphere.

    1. Re:Ringworlds have a lot of problems by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      A solid Dyson sphere is just as unstable as a ring, for the exact same reason. Day and night cycles are even more difficult to simulate. And the structural issues are just as insurmountable.

      Probably the answer is to abandon a solid surface, but that works as well for a ring as a sphere.

    2. Re:Ringworlds have a lot of problems by SirBruce · · Score: 1

      I didn't realize a dyson sphere would be unstable, but you're right. As for a shell, I think the structural issues are not as bad as for a ring, but it's been a long time since we did the math in physics class...

    3. Re:Ringworlds have a lot of problems by HiThere · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Dyson spheres are also unstable, though not drastically so. And, practically speaking, you need a pair of them, concentric (you hold the atmosphere between them. There really WOULD be pillars holding up the sky! And etherial spheres (well, at least one of them). Keeping the sun in the center, however, looks to be a bit tricky, but fortunately the net gravitational instability should be quite small even if the sun is slightly off center (you can't assume that mass is actually symmetrically distributed, only approximately).

      Note that as you don't spin a Dyson Sphere, net gravity is very low. About half that of the Sun's from the distance of the Earth. This makes ponds, lakes & seas possible (if not probable, and probably temporary), but quite dangerous. Rivers, however, are not going to occur.

      --

      I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
    4. Re:Ringworlds have a lot of problems by CogDissident · · Score: 1

      Why couldn't you spin a dyson sphere?

      You could stabilize it with a large number of low yeild thrusters placed on the outside of the sphere, keeping the sun at the center without needing to have any physical contact with it. These thrusters could also be used to spin the sphere, causing a centrifugal force that pushes outward from the sun, needing no cealing whatsoever (assuming you were at least earth's distance from the sun away, at all points), because things would fall away from the central gravity of the sun. This would then solve the problem of not having rivers or lakes, and needing two layers of a sphere.

      I thought these issues were addressed by Dyson...

    5. Re:Ringworlds have a lot of problems by eht · · Score: 1

      Then you end up with all practicality a ringworld as you wouldn't be able to do anything at the poles. So get rid of that wasted space and just make a ring. A sphere would either require two layers and have very low simulated gravity, or some kind of gravity generation device, which if it ever failed, could be disastrous, and many localized ones over something the size of a Dyson sphere would be a nightmare to maintain, along with a need to make portals if you actually wanted to leave the thing.

    6. Re:Ringworlds have a lot of problems by ip_vjl · · Score: 4, Interesting

      When I read Ringworld, I wondered why you wouldn't build something that combined both a ringworld and a Dyson sphere. Let's say the ringworld followed Niven's dimensions. At 1 million miles wide, it only occupies about 1% of the 'latitude' of the orbital sphere. All the solar energy directed elsewhere is wasted.

      It seems it would be good to build a smaller sphere that can collect this energy. If you built it at an inner orbit (like Mercury's orbital distance) you wouldn't need as much material. You would leave out a section of the middle that corresponds to the location of the 'ring plane' to allow the energy there to make its way to the ring. Both halves of the sphere could still be connected, but instead of solid sphere, it would be alternating solid/empty to provide the function of the shadow squares. You may want to perforate it in other areas as well to allow solar pressure to escape.

      Exactly what materials you'd use, I don't know ... but if you have the resources to build the ringworld to begin with, this shouldn't be a stretch.

    7. Re:Ringworlds have a lot of problems by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      Maybe I'm missing something, but why would a sphere have low gravity? Couldn't you just add mass to the shell to increase gravity?

      As for the poles, wouldn't it be better to keep those covered so that you can harness the solar power (rather than using them for habitats)? After all, the definition of a type II civilization is that they're able to use the entire power output of a star. You can't do that if you let most of the solar radiation escape.

    8. Re:Ringworlds have a lot of problems by CogDissident · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Assuming you have enough thrusters, and a good controll program, you could easilly compensate for up to 50-90% of the total thrusters being offline at a time, allowing you to do repairs at your leasure. And a dyson sphere DOESNT HAVE poles, none, its uniformally the same temperature the whole sphere over (minus whatever height differences, as peaks would be a bit colder due to less atmosphere or the bottoms of the oceans which could be a bit colder).

      If you spin a dyson sphere, you dont have to simulate gravity, at all, and if the spinning mechanism failed, you would have a LOT of time to deal with it, as it would take a while for something spinning that fast to spin down to a point where people start falling off the surface. Assuming the loss of spin comes from too few functioning thrusters, then you would have an even slower spin-down because the tursters would compensate for the loss, at least a little.

      Portals are a staple of most dyson spheres, but with something that big, the odds of having to leave very often are rather unlikely. Even if you did need to leave, reinforced circular portals would be good,it wouldnt compromise the strength of the sphere if it was curved at the same rate, and could be built as needed. Any single LARGE (drive a planet through it) portal could be difficult, but would not be impossible.

    9. Re:Ringworlds have a lot of problems by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, you have some gravity from the Sun, just put the atmosphere on the outside of your single sphere (facing away from the Sun). You can either do something fancy with orbiting pseudo-suns (fusion reactors or whatever), or just deal with the fact that it'll always be night time and use lots of floodlights. After all, you have a ridiculously vast amount of solar energy getting captured on the inside, there's no shortage of power.

      Or, just use the sphere for power generation and industrial stuff and live as normal on a planet(s) orbiting inside it.

    10. Re:Ringworlds have a lot of problems by HiThere · · Score: 1

      OTOH, if you chop off the ends to save the wasted space, you decrease the gravitational stability. A Dyson sphere is much less gravitationally unstable than a ringworld, because spherical shells of equally distributed mass have zero net internal gravitation. The instability of a Dyson sphere is caused because mass will NEVER be evenly distributed. And, of course, inertia. (A slow rotation would probably be advantageous for this reason...but not much, because you don't want to drag all of the air away from the poles.)

      With a Dyson Sphere it's useful to correct for very minor drift. Being off center isn't catastrophic, but drifting "soon" will be.

      That said, my favorite space structure is "Topopolis" AKA "Cosmic Spaghetti". This is a tube up to several miles in diameter which is built in orbit as a RingWorld might be, but it's not open. You can spin it for gravity, or not. Sections can be linked magnetically, without coming into actual contact. And it can be extended ad-lib. (Forking a chain can be problematic...but there are ways.) You can extend it to encircle the sun several times. You can split off a branch and sent it climbing into the Oort cloud, and possibly to the stars. You can get as much surface as a Dyson Sphere with not horrendously more material, and you can build it in sections, and move into those sections.

      Think of a worm crossed with a chambered Nautillus, and expanded to cosmic proportions. With a radius of five miles you could loop a sun at Earth's orbital distance, and still be spinning the whole thing for gravity. (Personally I'd prefer that only segments be spinning, and that others be non-spinning, and linked in magnetically with vacuum insulation between them. This allows cross-linking between different strands.

      Note that as with all cosmic engineering, maintenance WILL be required. With a Topopolis, you can separate any problem segments and deal with them separately without injuring the integrity of the rest (though if you move one segment out of the way you'll probably require inserting a spacer).

      Etc.

      --

      I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
    11. Re:Ringworlds have a lot of problems by julesh · · Score: 1

      Dyson spheres have similar issues to ringworlds, i.e., if you're using rotation to provide psuedogravity you have stability issues (on a dyson sphere this manifests itself as the habitable area wandering over the surface of the sphere over time). If you're relying on mass, you're going to need a lot of it, much more mass than would be required for a similarly sized ringworld.

      I think the answer is to forget the idea of having a star in the middle, which enables you to build substantially smaller. The ringworld from Niven's books is 150 million kilometres in diameter. This scale is unfeasible. The scale of Halo as quoted in the article here is substantially more realistic, but you don't really get to have a proper star in the middle of it. In terms of its SF predecessors, Halo is much more like Iain M. Banks's Orbitals, which rely on a star somewhere outside of their ring to provide light. As well as allowing you to build smaller, this also gives you a more natural day/night cycle as the sun rises over the edge of the orbital in the morning, passes over beyond the far side at noon and falls down behind the orbital in the evening; you don't get the harsh terminators produced by Niven's rotating array of light shields.

    12. Re:Ringworlds have a lot of problems by ceoyoyo · · Score: 1

      Poles aren't the cold part of a planet, they're the part where the spin axis comes out of the surface. So a spinning Dyson sphere does indeed have poles. And those poles have virtually zero gravity. In fact, there would only be a ring around the equator that would have full gravity (whatever you wished for that) and as you went north or south it would decrease. So the poles and temperate regions would be barren wastelands and you'd end up with essentially a ringworld. The only difference is that you'd be able to collect all the solar energy.

    13. Re:Ringworlds have a lot of problems by Jerf · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If you spin a dyson sphere, you dont have to simulate gravity
      But remember that in that case, the "gravity" is always perpendicular to the axis of the spin, so only people on the equator get gravity that is "down".

      This results in only a single (relatively) thin strip at the equator being habitable, because all the air is down there. Then you wonder why you're building the rest of the sphere. Then you end up making just the ring, and making it stronger. And you're back to Ringworld. (Plus the Ring doesn't have to be a spherical section so the surface can be at a uniform pressure, which increases the available land area a lot.)

      Niven explains this in his "Bigger than Worlds" essay as how he came up with the Ringworld in the first place, though it might just be a convenient after-the-fact reasoning process, who knows?

      This is why a Dyson Sphere, as a place where humans might happily live inside and frolic away in their meat bodies, is pretty silly. If you insist on this level of mega-tech building a place for meat-bodies to frolic in, Ringworld makes much more sense. However, what makes the most sense of all is the Dyson sphere in its original sense of simply being a structure to capture all the energy output of the sun. For that to occur, you don't actually need one monolithic object; the most likely design is a cloud of real-world-scale objects (somewhere between smart dust and largish, but feasible, spacecraft) carefully orbited in a way to capture all the energy from the star without hitting each other. It's not possible to have every object in the swarm in the sun all the time (you'll sometimes be in shadow), but the net effect of 100% coverage is possible.
    14. Re:Ringworlds have a lot of problems by sabre86 · · Score: 1

      It seems to me that a Dyson sphere would have a local gravitation field directed toward the surface. At small distances from the surface, this field should be approximately equal to that of the field produced by an infinite plate of finite thickness. Yeah, there's no net gravity field at the center, but unless the material the sphere is made from is massless, there will be a field near the surface. I should do the math, but I'm at work (at least, that's my excuse.)

      --sabre86

    15. Re:Ringworlds have a lot of problems by CogDissident · · Score: 1

      I still think the sphere makes sense, because about 80% of it would still have gravity enough to support life, and the remaining 20% can be completely covered in solar panels to power the rest of the sphere, and whatever other energy needs you may have.

      I say 80%, because even when your 9/10ths down the side of a spinning sphere, theres still enough centrifugal force to keep something there instead of falling inwards, the gravity might be 1/10th of earth normal, but thats liveable.

      If you spun the equater up to about 1.5g you could extend the useable surface by a considerable amount. At a guess I'd say 90% could support life (IE: not fall off), and 70-80% would have enough gravity to be within normal human long-term tolerances. People coming from the low-g regions would be significantly taller and more dexterous than those from the high-g regions, but no medical problems that even today's medicine couldn't deal with.

      A cloud of small solar-panel ships would be more efficient, especially because the panels could be rotated out of place for maintance without loss of power (assuming you had on hand a few extra un-used panels to swap around while you do maintance work). It might be better than a dyson sphere, but they would be more wastefull because dyson spheres use the sphere shape of their construction to get around the fact that they'd have to be constantly thrusting away from the central star. Though, of course, you could have the solar-panel ships spinning around the star in a very close, very fast orbit, but that makes it very difficult to do repairs, and increases the chance of a single engine failure causing many panels to fall into the gravity well.

    16. Re:Ringworlds have a lot of problems by cswiger · · Score: 1

      Maybe I'm missing something, but why would a sphere have low gravity?
      Couldn't you just add mass to the shell to increase gravity?

      Oddly enough, no. :-)

      Extra mass farther away from you than the center of gravity doesn't count-- if you dug a very deep tunnel towards the center of the earth, you'd find yourself weighing less the deeper you got.

      --
      "The human race's favorite method for being in control of the facts is to ignore them." -Celia Green
    17. Re:Ringworlds have a lot of problems by HiThere · · Score: 1

      A single Dyson sphere wouldn't have enough gravity to hold an atmosphere, certainly not a breatheable one. So you live between two layers, and you build the layer closer to the sun transparent to allow for "natural lighting". Within the two layers there would, effectively, be no gravity. Beyond the outer layer..., yeah, there's gravity. Not much, but some. (Well, how much depends, of course, on how much mass the sphere contains, but you've got to remember that the center of gravity is at the sun's center (approximately). That's a long way from the edge. Say you use all the planetary mass of the solar system to build the sphere...it's still a pretty weak gravity in any one place...of course it falls off rather slowly, so it might actually be able to hold an atmosphere...but not one of any density in any one place. You couldn't jump free of it, but a combination of a decent catapult and an ion rocket should do the job. It might collect an atmosphere as dense as (Wild Ass Guess!) the Earth's upper ionosphere...but that atmosphere could well extend out an AU or so (getting thinner all the way, of course).

      P.S.: I think you might well need more mass than I suggested. I haven't calculated any of this out, I'm merely remembering from calculations that some other people reported that I read a decade or so ago. OTOH, A Dyson Sphere doesn't need much in the way of strength. Just enough to remain air tight under atmospheric pressure. You will, however, want to be able to seal off compartments.

      P.P.S.: Note again that gravity has essentially gone missing (because of radially symmetric design. This means that anything that lives there will adapt to neither need nor use gravity. And probably such features as legs would disappear. (The easy way to do this would appear to be to revert to monkey feet, adapted into an extra set of hands...but remember that hands are much more useful if you can see what they are doing, so you'll need to be able to bend them around so that you can bring at least three hands to bear on a problem. [The remaining hand might well be used to anchor yourself in position.])

      --

      I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
    18. Re:Ringworlds have a lot of problems by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      Ok, I'm still confused. I've read a little about Dyson Spheres and ringworlds, and I thought that in a full-size Dyson sphere, the gravity was generated simply by the mass of the sphere itself. The mass wouldn't be farther from the center of gravity; a human standing on the inside surface would be 1 AU from the star inside (presumably the size of our Sun), and the sphere itself would be quite thick, so that at any point on the interior of the sphere, there would be a large amount of mass underneath a person's feet. The sphere itself would be so large (the diameter of earth's orbit around the Sun) that the rest of the mass wouldn't have a significant effect.

    19. Re:Ringworlds have a lot of problems by LiquidCoooled · · Score: 1

      assuming the Star chosen is approximately similar to our Sun, if you produce a ring much closer everything would fry.

      --
      liqbase :: faster than paper
    20. Re:Ringworlds have a lot of problems by ip_vjl · · Score: 1

      The ring wouldn't be closer. The ring would be like Niven's, out at Earth distance.

      The *sphere* would be at a much closer distance to the sun so that you wouldn't need as much material to construct it. Its only purpose would be to collect energy. You would just leave the center with 'cutout' sections to allow energy to continue to travel out to the ring at its further distance.

    21. Re:Ringworlds have a lot of problems by dltaylor · · Score: 1

      you missed a point: the "gravity" (centrifugal force) would not be perpendicular to the surface. midway between the "equator" and the "pole", it would be at a 45 degree angle to the floor.

      you could, I suppose, build a "stepped sphere" ( like the hats in Devo's "Whip It" http://www.vh1.com/artists/az/devo/videos.jhtml/ ), which is essentially a set of cylinders decreasing in radius from the equator to the poles, to solve the gravity problem. this results in the stellar light always arriving at the same apparent non-directly-overhead (except at the equator) angle. that would make for some interesting tropisms.

    22. Re:Ringworlds have a lot of problems by Sigma+7 · · Score: 1

      This results in only a single (relatively) thin strip at the equator being habitable, because all the air is down there. Then you wonder why you're building the rest of the sphere. Energy collection. With ring worlds, you only get a small chunk of the sphere.

      If a dyson sphere turns out to be an extra-wide ringworld, you can simply equip the uninhabitable terrain with solar panels to collect power. This clears up some space on the ringworld which can be used for other things. In addition, assuming that no energy is lost in transmission from the poles to the equator, you'd have much more power collected than simply using the ring itself.
    23. Re:Ringworlds have a lot of problems by king-manic · · Score: 1

      Gravity is affected by mass linearly but radius exponentially. so At 1AU you'd have negigible gravity compared to earths gravity.

      --
      "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
    24. Re:Ringworlds have a lot of problems by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      So you're telling me that if you have a shell, 1 AU in diameter around the sun, and that is as thick as the earth, that there won't be any gravity on the inside?

      That doesn't sound right to me at all.

    25. Re:Ringworlds have a lot of problems by king-manic · · Score: 1

      If it's as thick as the earth then yes it would have the gravity of the earth. But thats a massive amount of material. thousands of times more then in this solar system. Although the contruct would have earth like gravity, it would require so much material it would require thousands of star systems to create.

      --
      "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
    26. Re:Ringworlds have a lot of problems by krenshala · · Score: 1

      But if you are 9/10ths of the way up/down from the equator to the pole, the direction of centrifugal force is NOT down. It is still perpendicular to the axis of rotation. Another way to look at why its not useful is a nice simple question: What degree of slope (or larger) makes a location unsuitable for use? 60 degrees? 30? I know hills with more than 15 or 20 degrees of slope have all kinds of warning signs for traffic to use caution, low gear, etc. That angle use usability would determine just how much of a Dyson sphere would actually contribute to usable surface area.

      On the other hand ... its a bloody HUGE structure, so for a single system race it probably would still be an improvement over "normal" rocks in orbit around a star. ;)

      --

      krenshala

    27. Re:Ringworlds have a lot of problems by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      Ok, this makes sense then.

      If a civilization can create a 1AU-diameter ring around a star, finding enough material to make it that thick doesn't seem like a big challenge. Maybe this is a good reason for a ringworld instead of a Dyson sphere: it wouldn't require quite as much material.

      Of course, a civilization that advanced could probably just make artificial gravity generators.

    28. Re:Ringworlds have a lot of problems by king-manic · · Score: 1

      Of course, a civilization that advanced could probably just make artificial gravity generators.

      If it's possible. It may not. It's a huge object requiring a lot of fantastic technologies. But a shell less then earth thick and earth density of the earth would result in lower gravity. If it had a great deal more dendity it may need less overall mass. For instance if they had some way to use stable degenerate matter they wouldn't have to have it the thickness of earth and less mass as well.

      --
      "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
    29. Re:Ringworlds have a lot of problems by DerekLyons · · Score: 1

      Note that as you don't spin a Dyson Sphere, net gravity is very low. About half that of the Sun's from the distance of the Earth. This makes ponds, lakes & seas possible (if not probable, and probably temporary), but quite dangerous. Rivers, however, are not going to occur.

      If you have gravity enough to hold water in place - then you'll have water seeking it's own level, I.E. rivers.
    30. Re:Ringworlds have a lot of problems by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      True nevertheless. It makes a good example problem for calculus class.

      Qualitatively, you can see that if you're in the exact middle of the sphere, the forces from the mass all around you are balanced. No gravity. As you move toward the surface, you get closer to some of, so there's more gravity. But since you're off center, there's more mass on the other side of you. It works out such that the extra mass exactly counterbalances the extra attraction from the smaller, closer, mass. The field inside the sphere is everywhere zero.

      Outside the sphere, you have gravity.

    31. Re:Ringworlds have a lot of problems by Headw1nd · · Score: 1
      actually, yes.

      The trick is that the gravity of the mass under your feet is exactly counterbalanced by the gravity of the rest of the shell, the majority of which is above you. It's farther away, true, but the fact is there's so much more of it balances out the equation.

      Now on the outside of the shell, gravity would work in a more expected fashion.

    32. Re:Ringworlds have a lot of problems by Headw1nd · · Score: 1

      It might be a better idea to choose a smaller star than the sun, firstly to save on materials, secondly to have lower spin rate, and thirdly to have as long lasting a star as possible. I mean after all, if you're going to build a ringworld, you want to build it to last.

    33. Re:Ringworlds have a lot of problems by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The neat thing is, Gauss' law means a dyson sphere constructed to your specification wouldn't provide any gravity to anyone anywhere inside it

    34. Re:Ringworlds have a lot of problems by RagnarokGod · · Score: 1

      and allowing for keeping everyone happy in the "habitable" - life-supporting temperature - liquid water zone?

    35. Re:Ringworlds have a lot of problems by CogDissident · · Score: 1

      The stepped sphere idea is a good one, especially if you use a series of steps that are only a few miles wide. The reason you'd do that instead of immense steps is mostly because big steps would increase the amount of raw materials needed for construction significantly more than a series of small steps. Considering that a dyson sphere already requires several huge planets(jupiter and bigger) worth of materials to construct, an extra expendature of 50% more raw materials, which dont necessarilly need to be of any quality, filler rock can be used for the steps because they dont really need to support anything more than whatever sits on their surface.

      Either that or a light framework that can support buildings placed upon it. The light framework might be the best solution because of the fact that any extra mass on the sphere would cause more strain on stabilization systems and rotational systems, and make them slower to respond due to the huge increass of mass of the sphere.

      You know, after this whole long discussion, I really must say that I like using the word "light" in the context of a framework that would require more metal than all metals found on the entire planet earth.

    36. Re:Ringworlds have a lot of problems by HiThere · · Score: 1

      You don't spin it fast enough to hold water in place. The spin isn't for gravity, it's to ensure that the non-even distribution of mass doesn't cause stability problems. SLOW. This would probably result in 0.01g acceleration. Or less, you also don't want to strain the framework. You build it of something as close to saran-wrap as you dare! Materials for this much construction are EXPENSIVE!! in whatever currency you are using.

      Think of it as a super-high-tech Space Station and you'll be close to correct. It's got the same gravity, and the same basic construction. It's just spread out over a much larger area. (As such, I don't think it would be a good place to live. (OTOH, nobody seems interested by my favorite structure, the Topopolis, though it could be a rather nice place to live, with gravity to suit the local residents, etc. Ditto for air pressure, amount of water, etc. But it doesn't have to be built gigantic to get started, so it doesn't WHOW! people.)

      The one benefit claimed for the Dyson Sphere is that it could reclaim close to 100% of the solar energy. This is probably true, if the entire inner surface is plated with 100% efficient solar cells. (Actual designs are less efficient, but they still make an effort in that direction, emitting infra-red radiation rather than using it, usually.) I've yet to encounter someone who has thought seriously about a Dyson Sphere who thinks it would likely be a good place to live without invoking magic, like small gravity generators.

      --

      I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
  8. What about the edges? by Floritard · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm far too lazy to read the article, fanboys have all but ruined Halo for me, but does it mention anything about what happens on the edges of the Halo world? Would be really cool if they had a level in Halo near the edge. It's funny how they just kinda ignore that the game takes place on a world that actually has the pre-Columbus world-with-edges setup going on. What happens to the atmosphere (atmocylinder?) at the edge? If you're flying in an aircraft can you fly over the edge given enough momentum? How are the seas held back, etc?

    1. Re:What about the edges? by slycrel · · Score: 1

      The halo books go into much more detail on this kind of thing, assuming you're interested enough you'd get your best answers from them.

    2. Re:What about the edges? by necro2607 · · Score: 1

      I seem to recall reading that there are 1-2km high walls on either side to "hold the atmosphere in", which may or may not be a very realistic concept...

    3. Re:What about the edges? by MikeyNg · · Score: 1

      You use "Spill Mountains" on the edges. Basically, you make mountains 1,000 miles high on the rim to prevent spillage. (If you can build a ringworld, you can build mountains 1,000 miles high.) That's reasonably above a large portion of the atmosphere such that very little should spill out. By the way, you also use the mountains on the edge to put back soil that you naturally lose through erosion. :)

      --
      Where the wind blows, the tumbleweed goes.
    4. Re:What about the edges? by Devar · · Score: 1

      I seem to recall that the traditional nomenclature of ringworlds is that the edges feature really big walls. Think of a cross-section of a ringworld like this:

      [ * ]

      With the brackets being the ring structure and the asterix being the central star. Because the ringworld spins, there's a centrifugal (or is it centripetal? IANAP) force keeping all the air/ocean/etc in. Like spinning a bucket full of water around.

      --
      It's a Bagel.
    5. Re:What about the edges? by Jake+Dodgie · · Score: 1

      They were called spill mountains, because sludge from the sea bottoms was pumped up through the edges and spilled down the internal sides of the atmosphere walls. A massive effort of recycling dirt.

      --
      Drunkeness is an electron free version of virtual reality.
  9. Walls by argent · · Score: 2, Informative

    There are walls all along the rim, high enough to keep the atmosphere in.

    1. Re:Walls by Floritard · · Score: 1

      Actually I have to call bullshit on that one. The first game presents the ringworld quite clearly on the title screen and there is no evidence of there being any high walls. If you look you can actually see the oceans running all the way up to the edges of the ring. So the atmocylinder (is no one going to challenge that crappy portemanteau?) cannot be kept at bay with walls. Is this something stated in the Halo novels or what? Walls would have been cooler anyway. Massive fucking walls on the horizon.

    2. Re:Walls by argent · · Score: 1

      The first game presents the ringworld quite clearly on the title screen and there is no evidence of there being any high walls.

      http://games.monstersatplay.com/assets/screenshots /halo/halo-016.jpg
      http://games.monstersatplay.com/assets/screenshots /halo/halo-017.jpg
      http://games.monstersatplay.com/assets/screenshots /halo/halo-024.jpg
      http://games.monstersatplay.com/assets/screenshots /halo/halo-027.jpg

      It sure looks like there are walls in these pictures. Don't forget that Halo is 53 kilometers across, so fairly high walls would be hard to make out from the surface unless they were had a high contrast color scheme... if they were blackbody on the inside you'd only be able to tell they were there from any distance if they occluded an object in orbit.

      http://games.monstersatplay.com/assets/screenshots /halo/halo-009.jpg

      If the field of view is 20 degrees, the haze in the distance subtends an angle of two degrees. If that shot is across the entire ring even a brightly colored wall a couple of kilometers tall would be lost in the haze. If the view is at an oblique angle even higher walls would be invisible.

      http://games.monstersatplay.com/assets/screenshots /halo/halo-006.jpg
      http://games.monstersatplay.com/assets/screenshots /halo/halo-028.jpg

      The cloud decks in these pictures would cover a wall tens of kilometers tall.

  10. Re:Lamest Slashdot Story In A Long Time by T-Bone-T · · Score: 2, Funny

    There's a reason this was posted by an AC. Please note the "Coward" portion of the name and start modding this shit down.

  11. Re:Ringtube?!? by Trails · · Score: 3, Funny

    Ringtube!?! No, since you've dropped the functional component of the word (i.e. "world", what purpose it serves), and compounded two shape descriptors, ring and tube.

    The correct term is Tubeworld. Despite the environmental problems you point out, this is clearly superior to aringworld, since it would be its own internet.

  12. Mod Parent Up, Please by MikeyTheK · · Score: 1

    1) You didn't include a disclaimer, so you now owe me a new monitor and keyboard. "cheese-eating surrender-monkey" is priceless. (golfclap/)

    2) The signature is great, too. Well done. I have no mod points today or I'd give you one. The only question would be for funny or underrated. Watch - now I'll have them for the next four days running.

    --
    Friends help you move. Real friends help you move bodies.
    Never forget: 2 + 2 = 5 for extremely large values of 2.
    1. Re:Mod Parent Up, Please by MikeyTheK · · Score: 1

      Ugh. I hate it when Slashdot eats fake tags. Let's try the first one again with parens instead of brackets: 1) You didn't include a disclaimer (WARNING: Swallow liquid contents in mouth before continuing to read/), so you now owe me a new monitor and keyboard. "cheese-eating surrender-monkey" is priceless. (golfclap/)

      --
      Friends help you move. Real friends help you move bodies.
      Never forget: 2 + 2 = 5 for extremely large values of 2.
  13. Re:Ringtube?!? by NeilTheStupidHead · · Score: 1

    But with only one tube, the bandwidth would be terrible.

    --
    Lose: misplace or fail || Loose: not bound together
  14. Re:Ringtube?!? by Trails · · Score: 1

    Dude, it's 2 AU's across! That's a LOT of pr0n.

  15. center of gravity? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    if you had a giant ring in the middle of space, wouldn't the center of gravity be in the middle of it? hence pulling anything on the ring into the middle?

    1. Re:center of gravity? by LionMage · · Score: 1

      That's why these rings are spun on their axis (which passes through the center of gravity) to simulate gravity via centripetal acceleration. Some call that "centrifugal force," but my high school physics teacher insisted (as do many textbooks) that this is an erroneous term because the force is "fictitious". (Yeah, being the smart-ass with the top grade in the class, I asked her how she explained the operation of a centrifuge -- especially one large enough to hold people, like certain carnival rides and their even bigger cousins that NASA uses for training of astronauts. The force doesn't feel so fictitious when you're inside the machine.)

      There's also a big star in the middle of a ringworld, at least a Niven-style ringworld, so it's even more important not to allow the thing to collapse in on itself; spinning the structure solves this problem, but introduces another. It has been calculated that the substance the ring is made out of, called scrith in Niven's books, needs the tensile strength equivalent to the strong nuclear force to not tear itself apart. But if you can solve that engineering problem, then the ring and anything on its surface will stay ring-like and gravity won't cause everything to fall into the center of mass -- providing you spin the ring.

  16. Re:Ringtube?!? by The+Great+Pretender · · Score: 1

    Tubeworld? Is this where the Ambiguously Gay Duo come from?

    --
    A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
  17. not Niven... Banks by tabby · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'm tired of people making comparisions of the Halo 'installations' of Bungie's to the Ringworld of Niven.

    Apart from basic shape they have nothing in common. The Halo's most apparant ancestor would be the orbitals ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_(The_Culture) ) from Ian M Banks' "Culture " novels. It's rather apparant that Bungie drew much more inspiration from Banks' work than from Niven. http://www.marathon.org/story/halo_culture.html

    --
    I've experiments to run, there is research to be done on the people who are still alive.
  18. Re:Ringtube?!? by Indiana+Joe · · Score: 1

    "The correct term is Tubeworld. Despite the environmental problems you point out, this is clearly superior to a ringworld, since it would be its own internet."

    Talk about a fat pipe...

    --
    I can't decide if this post is interesting, funny, insightful, or flamebait.
  19. Another Smart Pop Book by PhoenixOne · · Score: 1

    Not to disrespect somebody's work, but the Smart Pop books I've read had a lot of silly high-school level logic and analysis.

    The read much like transcripts of drunk chats with undergrad students. Not that this is always a bad thing. :)

    --
    Spell cheek you've failed me four the last thyme!
  20. Ah yes, Halo by Trogre · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    "Your destruction is the will of the Gods, and we are their instrument!"

    I still remember the red alien speaking those words in the teaser trailer. Of course that was before the game got bastardized into an X-Box (*spits*) title.

    Additionally I hope there's no one here who thinks Bungie invented the ringworld.

    --
    "Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
  21. maths by RagnarokGod · · Score: 1

    since radius=5000 ergo diameter=10000, then would not circumference be 31415.926536? oops, forgot 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0



    09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0

  22. Re:Ringtube?!? by RagnarokGod · · Score: 1

    would not the correct term be a tokenring world?