4 ms·
Where you are going wrong is assuming the outer layer has to be the same thickness as the inner layers. The outer layer only needs to capture the long infrared
by danieltillett 9y ago
Where you are going wrong is assuming the outer layer has to be the same thickness as the inner layers. The outer layer only needs to capture the long infrared radiation emitted by the inner shells. In theory it only needs to be 1 atom thick and can contain gaps half the wavelength to be captured.
- _Codemonkeyism 9y agoWhy does the 1 AU Dyson sphere needs to be that much thicker (more than 625x thicker to be precise)?
- danieltillett 9y agoThe inner shells need to be thicker for three reasons - photon pressure, they are at a higher temperature, and the wavelengths they are capturing are shorter. Having said this they would not need to be much thicker than the outer layers.
- _Codemonkeyism 9y agoSo a.) The inner layer is thicker than the outer layer, but not much b.) The outer layer has a surface area 625x larger than the inner layer c.) The outer layer needs only a "small increase in resources" I still don't get it.
- danieltillett 9y agoThe only thing we get to observe is the outer layer. We really have no way of knowing what is going on inside or what structures are present. The relative small increase is not in reference to a smaller sphere, but to the material resources of the stellar system. If you only need 0.00000001% of the material resources of the system to build an inefficient sphere then using 625x more is not a significant increase.
- tboughen 9y agoWe tend to assume that one would want to be able to walk and live inside a 1AU Dyson sphere, so structurally it would have to be sufficiently strong to support such uses.