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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link="#0563C1" vlink="#954F72"><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>There was an excellent talk hosted by SETI over at the Microsloth campus last week. Now, a good new article on the latest on Tabby’s star:<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><a href="http://www.space.com/33813-alien-megastructure-mystery-tabbys-star.html">http://www.space.com/33813-alien-megastructure-mystery-tabbys-star.html</a><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>This SETI talk went over all the known natural explanations for Tabby’s dimming, and why none of them work very well. Then (being the SETI crowd) he indulged us with the models involving a Dyson Swarm, indicating that the IR signature doesn’t match that model either. I had to run to pick up my son at school, so I didn’t get a chance to point out that if the Dyson Swarm needed to reflect most of the energy from the star in a low-entropy state (and thus not use the energy for computing) for some very good reason (such as: it would otherwise overheat inboard in accordance with my understanding of how Bessel functions explain the thermal gradient in a planet.)<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>If there is a physical limitation requiring this low-entropy heat rejection, if that phenomenon is fundamental and real (and I wasn’t just misunderstanding my thermal model (which is entirely possible)) then an alien technological megastructure would be the only proposed explanation for Tabby’s dimming spectrum we cannot directly counter-indicate or disprove.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Keeeewwwaaaalllllll… {8-]<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Have we any currently active (preferably with industry or academic contacts) thermal science hipsters? We should work on this.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>spike<o:p></o:p></p></div></body></html>