Re: A Challenge To All Extropians/Free Martketeers
Dan Clemmensen (Dan@Clemmensen.ShireNet.com)
Tue, 28 Apr 1998 20:45:33 -0400
ChuckKuecker wrote:
>
> If everything is made of neutronium, how will you differentiate between
> parts of the whole? Is this stuff stable outside of a neutron star?
>
This was intended as an example, and is not the only possible use by an
SI of all the mass it can get. The example is by refrence to
"Dragon's Egg", by Robert L. Forward, and is reall idle speculation
on my part. Yes, you would start by squeezing everything into a
neutron star. The idea is that the crust of the star would consist
of matter that is almost, but not quite, compressed enough to
form pure neutronium. This matter is assumed to exist as atomic matter
with the electrons compressed almost into the nucleus, radically reducing
the size of the atoms. You end up using most of the matter in the solar
system as the core of the star, which is hard to use for computations.
The crust is available to build the computer. The result is roughtly
a thousand times denser that nanotech made from normal matter, so I guess
it's picotech. It should operate at least one thousand times faster than
nanotech because of reduced speed-of-light delays.
If this is not feasible, the SI may still want to use ALL the matter
in the solar system to maximize its computational capacity.