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Shouldn't we be looking for civiliations near black holes? Time dilation, which makes time pass slower when closer to the black hole, would result in a relative
by readyplayernull 3y ago
Shouldn't we be looking for civiliations near black holes? Time dilation, which makes time pass slower when closer to the black hole, would result in a relatively "longer living" universe, and there's plenty of free energy and materials to harvest, and also the BH would be a natural trash can, basically solving all the energy/production/disposal/time-span problems of any civilization.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- wwweston 3y agoIf you expect any outside civilizations might be hostile, wouldn't a slower frame of reference magnify the risk, both in terms of giving slower civ a disadvantage in adaptation/response times if any conflict did occur, and also in giving the faster frames more time to spawn hostile civilizations?
- kadoban 3y agoIt probably depends what the limits of physics actually are. If interstellar war is actually practical given the laws of nature, you might be worried about such things. Otherwise, doesn't matter.
- readyplayernull 3y agoWeapons and soldiers would be entering the same time frame, so they would have similar response times.
- sadtoot 3y agopark your army away from the black hole and build up your weapons and drones before the battle. you could build up resources at speeds orders of magnitude greater than the black hole civ
- wwweston 3y agoIf hostiles were conquerors, I’d think they’d send waves of robot-weapons, with extra time to make/improve successive waves. If they were annihilists, I’d think they’d send relativistic projectiles.
- Ancalagon 3y agoThe radiation from an active black hole would sterilize most anything.
- readyplayernull 3y agoThick radiation shielding? https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/missions/parker-solar-probe/in-depth/ https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/missions/parker-solar-probe/in-...
- Ancalagon 3y agoSeems really inconvenient to have to build your entire civilization with thick radiation shielding in mind
- throwaway4aday 3y agoIf the power you derive from having access to all the resources around a black hole is large enough it could pay for a really big shield.
- andrewmcwatters 3y agoCompletely unrelated, but what blossomed in my mind reading your comment was the brief synopsis of a race of beings close enough to a black hole that it significantly began to alter the likelihood of them facing conditions no longer compatible with life and the stories of what life would look like for these societies.
- killthebuddha 3y agoThis thread must have at least one A Fire Upon the Deep reference, so I'll do it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Fire_Upon_the_Deep https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Fire_Upon_the_Deep Edit: tldr; Vernor Vinge, the guy who originally coined the phrase "the singularity", wrote a really excellent SciFi novel about information archaeology, artificial intelligence, galaxy-spanning civilizations, black holes, and all sorts of other dope ish.
- habosa 3y agoJust finished that book last night. Highly recommend, its incredibly original.
- wojciii 3y agoOr The Opoponax Invasion. This is one of my favourite sci-fi books.
- saberdancer 3y agoThank you for the recommendation. Growing up I was a big fan of John Brosnan's trilogy Sky Lords - post apocalyptic / genetic wars sci-fi with zepellins - what is there not to like :). Seeing this is by Brosnan as well means it's an instant buy for me.
- wojciii 3y agoI know Brosnan because my initial meeting with hard sci-fi was by reading a Polish magazine about sci-fi which printed one of his stories. Good times. He was a great author and I'm sad that he will not write any more stories .. he is unfortunately dead.
- saberdancer 3y agoI found his books (which IMO are not that famous) because our local library had them. Otherwise I don't think I would have stumbled upon it. Same applies to Walter Jon Williams and his Hardwired which was one of my early favorites. I was amazed to find out later that this book is one of inspirations for Cyberpunk tabletop games and Cyberpunk 2077.
- dotnet00 3y agoWouldn't it result in a relatively shorter living universe, since they'd be watching the rest of the universe speed by?
- galaxyLogic 3y agoIsn't it the case that time goes faster under high gravity? Based on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon%27s_Egg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon%27s_Egg that would seem to be the case.
- aaron_m04 3y agoI think the high speed there is due to the neutronium, not due to general relativity.
- MarcoZavala 3y ago[dead]
- sideshowb 3y agoIirc if you get close enough to a black hole for time dilation to be substantial, then things are going to be pretty inhospitable in other ways. We couldn't survive the gravitational field gradient, for example. Strong imagination required to imagine aliens that would cope with it.
- edgyquant 3y agoThis idea is perpetuated by Isaac Arthur who assumes any such civilization will be digital with only their computers and automatons required to sustain them existing in the physical realm.