From: Alexander Sheppard (alexandersheppard@hotmail.com)
Date: Tue Oct 22 2002 - 09:43:56 MDT
There seems to be a discussion going here regarding the possibilities for
harvesting energy from stars. Well, someone mentioned more potent energy
sources. There would seem to be a very potent source of energy that I don't
think anyone has yet mentioned (while I've been on the list anyway). That
would be rotating black holes. Most black holes, according to current
theory, ought to be rotating at a fast pace. Theoretically it should be
possible to build a structure around the black hole and tap into this
rotational energy, involving the ergosphere of the hole, which is a general
relativistic effect created by the rotation of the hole. Too deep into the
hole, the ergosphere causes it to become impossible to not spin in the
direction of the hole, that is, eventually the velocity necessary to hold
stationary with respect to rotation exceeds c. I'm not exactly sure how it
works, but by building a structure, possibly a ring or torus, around the
black hole, it ought to be possible to extract extraordinary amounts of
energy, much more than one can extract through nuclear reactions. In fact,
there is a even a theory to explain gamma ray bursters which has been
proposed which makes use of this feature. Apparently this also has something
to do with electromagnetic fields, they mention it in the links.
http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0202/22grbtheory/
http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/20011015blackhole.html
Have you noticed that nobody EVER portrays what a black hole would really
look like cast against the stellar background? In fact you ought to be able
to see your ship, too, assuming it is large enough..
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