From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Sun Feb 11 2001 - 12:11:22 MST
In his prelude to Amara's Plasma Physics Lession, Spike Jones wrote:
> The discussion came about because of Robert's ideas regarding Matrioshka
> brains. If you want to get up to speed on m-brains, do check
> the the extropians archives first as Robert has already posted
> tutorial material.
Because the Extropian archive layout recycles on itself and
the entire archive isn't indexed due to some program bugs,
the only way to access the really old MBrain threads to
go through the '99 and early '00 archives by hand.
(Spike, you should test things before you recomend them....)
For people who enjoy that idea as much as they do eating bread
that has fallen butter side down, you can access the expanding
list of papers at:
http://www.aeiveos.com/~bradbury/MatrioshkaBrains/index.html
For the record, I would like to note that *most* of
the discussion around plasma physics was due to my noticing a
Science News article in mid-January regarding the fact that
Corona Mass Ejections contain a billion tons of highly charged plasma.
I was discussing it with Spike because I thought it would be highly
useful for him to apply his engineering talent and creative mind to
the problem of how to use that much heated plasma to solve the electricity
shortage in California, so I wouldn't have to keep paying
(indirectly, due to Seattle's higher energy prices) for his
prime number searches (something I view as only *slightly*
less wasteful than SETI@HOME...). [I am under the impression that
the deregulation process in California State put a cap on energy
prices there (presumably saving Spike from the consequences of the
state's problem). There is no such cap however in Washington and
my electricity rates are in the process of going up 30%.]
I find it very interesting, that the Californians have a
very nasty habit of exporting their problems to Washington
(First it was traffic, now its energy shortages. I wonder
what it will be next?).
I'm a fairly firm believer in the principle that if you dig
your grave you shouldn't throw others into it first so you
can lie on something soft when you have to get in yourself!
Spike is working off and on some related M-Brain stuff but it
doesn't have as much to do with plasma physics as it does
with finding the most efficient way to shift the orbital
plane of the solar collectors as you do planetary dismantlement.
[He keeps promising me hard numbers on this, but keeps getting
distracted with looking for prime numbers...]
The M-Brain related question that I've sent to Amara related
to the Freese & Graff paper regarding the limits that Multi-TEV
gamma rays place on the abundance of old (cool) white dwarfs.
This seems based on the fact that near-to-mid-IR radiation attenuates
the gamma rays by some mysterious process. This interaction might be used
to set temperature constraints (and/or abundance constraints) on
M-Brains if I understood the physics involved.
[I believe Amara is still researching this point as it seems to
involve some subtle properties of electromagnetic radiation.]
Robert
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