[ExI] Silence in the sky-but why?

[spike]

From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes
Sent: Wednesday, August 28, 2013 10:51 AM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [ExI] Silence in the sky-but why?

 

On Aug 28, 2013 10:31 AM, "BillK" <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:
>>. Considering the size of the universe, galaxies without number as far
> as we can see, it seems unbelievably arrogant to say that humans are
> the only intelligent life.  BillK

I am OK with arrogance.  It is one of my favorite emotions.  But it really
isn't so much arrogance as I just can't convince myself it is so, even
though it does explain the silence in the sky.  I have set one of the Hubble
deep sky images as my background screen.  Every time I close all my windows,
I am gazing out into vast stretches of space, shimmering with unimaginably
numerous billions of galaxies.  And I think: all those stars, so small, far
away and insignificant, and here I am right down here in the middle of all
this, so big and strong.

Well, I don't really think that, but it tickles my arrogant side.  Actually
what I think is how the hell could we be the first or the only?

But let me try an argument on you please BillK.

At some point somewhere in time, some intelligent life form was the very
first.  We can set aside for now the argument that this first wise guy is
us, and agree that somewhere and somewhen in the observable universe,
someone was first.  If we assume, quite reasonably, that this first
intelligent tech-enabled species wanted to colonize the universe or at least
the galaxy it inhabited, I proposed years ago a design for an MBrain node,
that looks like this:

 

 

Sun side:
Away from sun side:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The reason I wanted to start with the assumption of the first intelligent
species is that that particular species would definitely see a radio silent
sky, and all the signals it sent out would go forever into cold dark dead
space.  So if that species wanted to spread, it would need to move actual
matter, atoms and molecules, rather than instructions on how to build copies
of itself.  So, these nodes would need to go.

There is a good reason to think interstellar space could have diffuse
hydrogen clouds that would be mission-enders if you encounter one, even at
.001c.  Your spacecraft would ablate away.  But if you took your entire star
along, then the radiation from that star would dissipate the hydrogen, as
our star does now.

Approximate dimensions about 120 mm diameter, so it is about the size of our
DVDs for those of you who are old enough to remember those, and with three
LCD regions for maintaining a desired attitude towards the first smart star,
I showed that a sufficiently large swarm of these things could move a star
anywhere you wanted to go.

My realization today is that with an MBrain moving a star, it could go to a
binary where both stars in the binary are on the main sequence.  For main
sequence stars, the luminosity increases as 2^3.5 times the mass.  So
doubling the mass would increase the luminosity by a factor of about 10, and
this would increase the available acceleration by 10.  So the trick is to
move the home star to the nearest star and collide them, assuming their
combined mass is below the limit so that the combined stars would not go
supernova, then speed off at an acceleration of 10 times as many nanometers
per second squared, or if you don't mind the oddball unit, several tens of
meters per square year.

Oy vey, I realized that this whole post is babbling, and assumes everyone
who reads this far was in on the discussing going back at least ten years.

I need to go back and write some introduction to moving stars with MBrains.
Does everyone here know what I mean by that?  You reflect some fraction of
the star's radiant energy in one direction, and since momentum is conserved,
the whole star and planet system goes the opposite direction the MBrain aims
the light.  Today's realization: you combine stars to make them faster.  The
first smart species would eventually invent an MBrain and start rocketing
away to the nearest star.  Wouldn't it?

spike

 

 

 

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