[extropy-chat] will the sun rise?

[Keith Henson]

At 05:37 PM 23/12/04 -0500, Eliezer wrote:

snip

>One suspects that the primary issue would not be speed as such, but 
>choosing a balance of speed, power expenditure, and material lost, which 
>minimizes entropy loss and hence maximizes the calculations performable 
>with the winnings.  Does it take more energy to rush machinery into solar 
>orbit, than the Sun wastes over that time?

I remember the results of a calculation someone made (Drexler?) that taking 
Jupiter apart would require about 3 Sun-centuries of energy.  Even if the 
Sun is burning 1500 tons of matter to energy per second, it is still a slow 
burn rate.

Keith Henson