Ringworld's - Fact or Fiction?

What are your takes on ringworlds? are they fact (how so?), or are they mere fiction?

For those who have no idea what ringworlds are, I can say they are like the world in the computer game "Halo".

Halo?

Try Larry Niven's classic novel Ringworld.

That being said, the benefits of a Ringworld are far greater than those of a Dyson Sphere. I would assume any technologically advanced species would see this and go with that option over anything else. As for if they're possible? Yes, of course they are. Technially, anything is possible. Though, until we actually discover one, I'd say they're simply in the realms of fiction.

Here are the "technical" specifications of the orginal Ringworld:

en.wikipedia.org...

Ringworld parameters Radius - 0.95×108 miles (~1.5×108 km) (~1 AU)
Circumference - 6×108 miles (~9.7×108 km)
Width - 0.997×106 miles (1,600,000 km)
Height of rim walls - 1,000 miles (1,600 km)
Mass - 2×1027 kg (1.8×1024 short tons) (1,250,000 kg/m², e.g. 250 m thick, 5,000 kg/m³)
Surface area - 6×1014 sq mi (1.6×1015 km²); 3 million times the surface area of Earth.
Surface gravity - 0.992 gee (~9.69 m/s²)
Spin velocity - 770 miles/second (~1,200,000 m/s)
Sun's spectral class - G3 verging on G2; "barely smaller and cooler than Sol".
Day length - 30 hours
Rotational time - 7.5 Ringworld days (225 hours, 9.375 Earth days)

[edit on 6/22/2006 by cmdrkeenkid]

Originally posted by cmdrkeenkid
Halo?

Try Larry Niven's classic novel Ringworld.

I know, I saw it as the first result on Google when I searched for it, but as I haven't read the book, I coulden't exactly go about resembling the thread with it. Understand?

Ah, wasn't sure... I've met a fair share of people who think that the Halo was a new idea. It's a great book though, especially if you like hardcore sci-fi like that.

Originally posted by cmdrkeenkid
Ah, wasn't sure... I've met a fair share of people who think that the Halo was a new idea. It's a great book though, especially if you like hardcore sci-fi like that.

Unless I'm mistaken, it was Niven's "Ringworld" that had the Earth rotating in the wrong direction, at least in the first printing. Niven, an excellent writer, was quite embarrassed by this and included a forward about it in subsequent printings.

I've read much of his work, and thoroughly enjoyed every bit I've read. I'm particularly fond of his collaborations with Jerry Pournelle, who was an astrophysicist (I believe) at JPL when he was collaborating with Niven. One of the better works these two wrote together was a sci-fi take on Dante's inferno. Really good read. Also, they wrote a novel called "Lucifer's Hammer" about a comet impact on the Earth. Excellent as well.

Harte

Ringworld is one of my favorite books ever! Although larry nivens best works are his short stories, particularly the ones involved in his known universe. I think the error he made was the fact that his ringworld design wouldnt have worked without Y axis stablising (if the diameter of the ring is the X and Z) for which he wrote a forward in the Ringworlds sequel Ringworld Engineers. I havent heard of the earth's rotation mistake, before my time probably

I think the ringworld as a design for habitation is the ultimate dream for an advanced civilisation, but you gotta be pretty desperate to have the need to build one!!

Originally posted by superduperman
Ringworld is one of my favorite books ever! Although larry nivens best works are his short stories, particularly the ones involved in his known universe. I think the error he made was the fact that his ringworld design wouldnt have worked without Y axis stablising

It's not the point. With a ring, there is no equilibrium position in the plane of the ring. So while rotating, it will be wandering all around the star, one side coming closer then the other. Maybe that's what you meant.

Originally posted by Aelita
It's not the point. With a ring, there is no equilibrium position in the plane of the ring. So while rotating, it will be wandering all around the star, one side coming closer then the other. Maybe that's what you meant.

oh yeah thats the one, its been a couple of years since i read it, cheers aelita

How do you people think such a world could be created? Based on your own fictional theories

Originally posted by superduperman
I havent heard of the earth's rotation mistake, before my time probably

First edition paperback came out in 1970. I have a first edition, but I haven't taken it out of the plastic out of fear.

...but you gotta be pretty desperate to have the need to build one!!

Why do you think that? If you had the technology to better your civiliazation, wouldn't you?

Originally posted by Aelita
With a ring, there is no equilibrium position in the plane of the ring. So while rotating, it will be wandering all around the star, one side coming closer then the other.

Yeah, after the book came out people would chant at conventions Niven attended "The Ringworld is unstable!" His answer? In the sequel, The Ringworld Engineers, he said it was stabilized by attitude jets.

Originally posted by Volatile
How do you people think such a world could be created? Based on your own fictional theories

Mining all of the planets, moons, and all the other vagabonds out there for their resources. Then using something to create a superstrong material for the base of it - be it a Ringworld, Dyson Sphere, Alderson Disc, or anything else, that would be neccessary because of all of the stresses.

Originally posted by cmdrkeenkid
Why do you think that? If you had the technology to better your civiliazation, wouldn't you?

Thats a very interesting question, look at the fossil fuel driven world we're living in now!

But i think Niven touches on this point in the book, cant remember exactly, cost to build it, a massive operation to move all those people and set them up there, would be easier to colonise other planets (apart from that in the book the engineers didnt have faster than light travel) stuff like that.

Originally posted by superduperman
apart from that in the book the engineers didnt have faster than light travel

Yeah, that could have been it. It's been awhile since I've read those books, so I think I'll have to start on them once again.

And despite not having FTL, the Protectors did have crude Bussard Ramjets, which was a step on that direction.

Originally posted by cmdrkeenkid
And despite not having FTL, the Protectors did have crude Bussard Ramjets, which was a step on that direction.

but the protectors live until they choose to stop eating, so faster than light is not important to them!

but back to the point, i think a dyson sphere might be a bit better because you can absorb potentially 100% of the suns energy and more surface area to live on but it's more difficult to build.

m.disclose.tv...

Possible sighting of alien ringword

m.reddit.com...

originally posted by: Volatile
How do you people think such a world could be created? Based on your own fictional theories

A star with rings of material around it. The material could be condensed into a ring.

from a 4th dimensional perspective, in which time is seen as a linear streak, the earth-sun orbit would make the earth appear like a ring around the sun - like a scroll in which the geography of the earth is laid out 365.24 times in said ring; each iteration resembles a day in the orbit with the sun.

a reply to: cmdrkeenkid

It's a great book though, especially if you like hardcore sci-fi like that.

I read it like a month ago (I think you or SO recommended it), but I wouldn't call it hard science fiction. Blindsight is hard science fiction to me.

Readers of "hard SF" often try to find inaccuracies in stories, a process which Gary Westfahl says writers call "the game". For example, a group at MIT concluded that the planet Mesklin in Hal Clement's 1953 novel Mission of Gravity would have had a sharp edge at the equator, and a Florida high-school class calculated that in Larry Niven's 1970 novel Ringworld the topsoil would have slid into the seas in a few thousand years.[7] The same book famously featured a devastating inaccuracy: the eponymous Ringworld is not (in) a stable orbit and would crash into the sun without active stabilization. Niven fixed these errors in his sequel The Ringworld Engineers, and noted them in the foreword.

I had NO idea Halo was about the same sort of thing. Never really played Halo though. I thought it was HALO and a nod at High Altitude Low Opening. Oops.

How would a ringworld be more beneficial than a Dyson sphere? Whole point of the Dyson Sphere to my understanding is that you get to use all of the power from a sun since it encapsulates one. A ringworld would have to be very far away to be habitable as Niven described, and it's a ring, so couldn't capture all of the energy.

a reply to: Volatile

What are your takes on ringworlds? are they fact (how so?), or are they mere fiction?

No idea OP. My guess is probably not. The tech that it would take to develop one makes me think that the civilization would be so far advanced they would have a better way of dealing with such simple problems.

When you're capable of building an enormous weirdly solid ring around a sun, I think perhaps you've found an easier way to supply energy. Or alternatively, realized you needed to branch out and populate other planets that could provide for energy needs etc. I would think it a far easier feat for a very advanced civilization to colonize other celestial bodies rather than create them.

Path of least resistance and whatnot. We're still in the dark ages but there's talk of terraforming Mars and getting people there. The technology to do so is going to increase because it seems possible. If we can spread out, there's no real need for such an elaborate, expensive, technically difficult solution.

a reply to: Domo1

Dyson spheres require gravity generators. A Ringworld you can just spin.

originally posted by: Domo1
If we can spread out, there's no real need for such an elaborate, expensive, technically difficult solution.

I think that was Niven's point in the first novel, no one would build a Dyson sphere or Ringworld if they had any choice at all.

Of course, the Pak had no hyperdrive, but needed a lot of surface. And they had no choice in the matter, because of Teela Brown.