On Topic Saturday: Planets are very big
James Nicoll
more or less at random on Earth and not kill anyone:
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20060609-050952-4406r
People who read my livejournal may remember my frustration at
how long it would take to melt Ceres (At least, I think it was on my
LJ). Even though Ceres is small potatoes compared to Earth, melting all
water in its mantle using only incident sulike takes a long, long time
and if I'd thought about the fact that the asteroid is frozen solid, that
should have been obvious.
Planets, even small ones, turn out to be surprisingly large, given
that many SF books give the impression that your average planet is about the
size of a small island-nation. You can, for example, fit hundreds of nation-
states on a planet the size of Earth, although planetary governments seem
to be more customary (despite the complete lack of such governemnts in
history).
The main author who I recall playing with this was Poul Anderson,
who used the idea that planets were quite large in a number of stories.
This didn't stop people within his works from treating other worlds as
thought they were small, with the comic effect one might get from using
the climate of Antartica as the natural environment of humans.
--
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/
http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll
Bombardier Planetary
> For example, you can set off a Hiroshima-sized explosion
> more or less at random on Earth and not kill anyone:
>
> http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20060609-050952-4406r
Adjustable map of blast zone,
http://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/gmap/hydesim.html?ll=-116.0591,37.3000&yd=.15
http://spacebombardment.blogspot.com/2005/07/jackass-flats-map-of-blast-damage-zone.html
Damien Sullivan
> For example, you can set off a Hiroshima-sized explosion
>more or less at random on Earth and not kill anyone:
Heh.
> People who read my livejournal may remember my frustration at
>how long it would take to melt Ceres (At least, I think it was on my
>LJ). Even though Ceres is small potatoes compared to Earth, melting all
>water in its mantle using only incident sulike takes a long, long time
Yeah, your LJ.
Using all sunlight allows full disassembly of the Earth in a few months,
though. This wouldn't be true around red dwarfs, of course. Stars at
the other end of the sequence could take out Jupiter.
>size of a small island-nation. You can, for example, fit hundreds of nation-
>states on a planet the size of Earth, although planetary governments seem
>to be more customary (despite the complete lack of such governemnts in
>history).
Assuming history to not be a good guide seems reasonable here. We've
only had 500 years with awareness of most of the planet and even less
with good communication and transportation for unifying the planet. How
much of the world could post-WWII US have conquered if it felt like it?
-xx- Damien X-)
"There is also the view which asserts that what you defend, you own, and
that the US policy of permitting local government to its conquered
possessions is Extremely Clever." -- Graydon, about Japan and S. Korea
Joseph Nebus
> Planets, even small ones, turn out to be surprisingly large, given
>that many SF books give the impression that your average planet is about the
>size of a small island-nation.
Moving to Singapore's given me an appreciation for just how big
a small island-nation can be, if you're willing to work at it. I'd put
the mediocre science fiction monoculture planet as being about the size
of Sentosa Island, the theme park island just south of here.
--
Joseph Nebus
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
James Nicoll
Joseph Nebus <nebusj-@-rpi-.edu> wrote:
>jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll) writes:
>
>> Planets, even small ones, turn out to be surprisingly large, given
>>that many SF books give the impression that your average planet is about the
>>size of a small island-nation.
>
> Moving to Singapore's given me an appreciation for just how big
>a small island-nation can be, if you're willing to work at it. I'd put
>the mediocre science fiction monoculture planet as being about the size
>of Sentosa Island, the theme park island just south of here.
>
wasn't finding a map, it was recognizing how very tiny the bay I used
to swim in is compared to the entire lagoon.
David Tate
>
> Planets, even small ones, turn out to be surprisingly large, given
> that many SF books give the impression that your average planet is about the
> The main author who I recall playing with this was Poul Anderson,
> who used the idea that planets were quite large in a number of stories.
A couple of other canonical examples:
Jack Vance, _Big Planet_ (duh) and (to a lesser extent) the Cadwal
Chronicles
John Ringo and various guest artists, _March to the Sequel_ series,
first 3 books.
David Tate
sigi...@yahoo.com
David Tate wrote:
> > The main author who I recall playing with this was Poul Anderson,
> > who used the idea that planets were quite large in a number of stories.
>
> A couple of other canonical examples:
>
> Jack Vance, _Big Planet_ (duh) and (to a lesser extent) the Cadwal
> Chronicles
Most things by Vance, actually. I'm thinking of the Tschai books, but
there are plenty of others.
(The Tschai books are nearly unique IMO. It's a world with several
alien races plus humans, but the various parts of it are as different
as Patagonia, China and Saudi Arabia. Then the books themselves are a
picaresque travelogue.)
Dave Duncan, in _West of January_. One peculiarity of that book: the
planet's geography is important to the plot, but the book has no map.
I think this was deliberate.
Doug M.
Default User
>
> David Tate wrote:
> > Jack Vance, _Big Planet_ (duh) and (to a lesser extent) the Cadwal
> > Chronicles
>
> Most things by Vance, actually. I'm thinking of the Tschai books, but
> there are plenty of others.
>
> (The Tschai books are nearly unique IMO. It's a world with several
> alien races plus humans, but the various parts of it are as different
> as Patagonia, China and Saudi Arabia. Then the books themselves are a
> picaresque travelogue.)
What? Vance books that are picaresque travelogues? How unusual!
Brian
--
If televison's a babysitter, the Internet is a drunk librarian who
won't shut up.
-- Dorothy Gambrell (http://catandgirl.com)
Peter D. Tillman
sigi...@yahoo.com wrote:
> Dave Duncan, in _West of January_. One peculiarity of that book: the
> planet's geography is important to the plot, but the book has no map.
> I think this was deliberate.
Huh. I'd have sworn there was a *series* of maps, as the climate-'year'
advanced. Pretty blurry ones, in the pb, which isn't at hand, dammit.
Anyone else recall, or have a copy handy? Geologists *love* maps....
Happy reading--
Pete Tillman
mra...@willamette.edu
> Dave Duncan, in _West of January_. One peculiarity of that book: the
> planet's geography is important to the plot, but the book has no map.
> I think this was deliberate.
I rather liked this one. The idea of a world that's day was 20? 100?
years long was rather interesting, as was the examination of how the
animals and humans adopted to it. He seemed to take the view that the
migratory nature of the world (if you and your ancestors don't walk
around the world once every 20? 100? years you die) would prevent high
technology and I agree with him there.
It can also be taken as a coming of age story, or as the life-story of
the Great Unifier of the Planet Who Starts Small.
He does capture the feel of such a planet quite well, I thought.
--
Mike Ralls
Bo Lindbergh
<Tillman-4FC544...@sn-radius.vsrv-sjc.supernews.net>,
"Peter D. Tillman" <Til...@toast.net_DIESPAMMERSDIE> wrote:
> In article <1150119083.6...@c74g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>,
> sigi...@yahoo.com wrote:
>
> > Dave Duncan, in _West of January_. One peculiarity of that book: the
> > planet's geography is important to the plot, but the book has no map.
> > I think this was deliberate.
>
> Huh. I'd have sworn there was a *series* of maps, as the climate-'year'
> advanced.
Yep. The first one has the noon point in eastern January and
the last one has it in western May. The habitable zone is about
five months wide.
/Bo Lindbergh
Keith Morrison
exercise fingers and typed:
>James Nicoll wrote in rec.arts.sf.written:
>[snip]
>
>Not realy ontopic but I thought I'd share:
>
>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JHdYBet_4Q
>
>Meteor strikes Earth
It's from the series called "The Miracle Planet", first episode
(Japanese-Canadian co-production). For those who don't speak Japanese,
they're talking about the big impacts in Earth's history and so they
simulated what it would look like if it happened today, using familiar
landmarks and such so the audience could grasp what scale they're talking
about.
--
Keith
Keith Morrison
exercise fingers and typed:
>>Not realy ontopic but I thought I'd share:
>>
>>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JHdYBet_4Q
>>
>>Meteor strikes Earth
>
>To borrow a phrase from _Lucifer's Hammer_, what you have here is
>"pasteurized planet". In a collision of that scale, I don't think
>even deep-sea life would survive. Life would have to start over from
>scratch.
Actually, the point of that bit in the series is to show how life *did*
survive in conditions like that. The overarching story was how the recent
(in the last few decades) discovery of bacteria deep in crustal rocks
indicate how that would have allowed it to survive the heat, the
simulations indicating that there was a "temperate zone" in the region
heated from below by the core and above by the heat of impact that would
have remained survivable.
--
Keith
John F. Eldredge
Well, I guess the survival would be piecemeal, a few bacteria here and
there who were lucky to be towards the center of a chunk of crust that
stayed large enough for the heat not to penetrate all of the way to
the center. If real life matched the simulation, most of the unmelted
chunks of crust would still have been heated well above the survival
temperature of even thermophilic bacteria.
Why would the meteor be shown to have lava on the surface away from
Earth before it hit? Would the tidal stresses be enough, that close
to impact, to have started melting it? Since that was the side away
from Earth, atmospheric heating would not have started to take effect.
--
John F. Eldredge -- jo...@jfeldredge.com
PGP key available from http://pgp.mit.edu
"Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better
than not to think at all." -- Hypatia of Alexandria
Michael Stemper
> Planets, even small ones, turn out to be surprisingly large, given
>that many SF books give the impression that your average planet is about the
>size of a small island-nation.
> The main author who I recall playing with this was Poul Anderson,
>who used the idea that planets were quite large in a number of stories.
The two that best portrayed this for me were:
- _Mirkheim_, which had David Falkyn stranded on Jupiter (or some
other J-type)
- _War of the Wing-Men_, which had van Rijn stranded on a mostly
water-covered world
Hmm. I'm detecting a theme here. Does stranding somebody make it easier
to convey a sense of size?
--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
Indians scattered on dawn's highway bleeding;
Ghosts crowd the young child's fragile eggshell mind.
Mark Atwood
>
> Hmm. I'm detecting a theme here. Does stranding somebody make it easier
> to convey a sense of size?
It works in non SF fiction too.
Cities, even big ones, can seem small when one is screaming past at
70mph on the freeway. But when your car breaks down in a small town
and the part you need has to be shipped in (if you can afford it at
all, even), suddenly that small town can get very very big.
It's such a common technique that it's almost nameless.
Two very different examples that come to my mind from movies are
"Follow Me Boys" and "Groundhog Day".
--
Mark Atwood When you do things right, people won't be sure
m...@mark.atwood.name you've done anything at all.
http://mark.atwood.name/ http://fallenpegasus.livejournal.com/
James Nicoll
Mark Atwood <m...@mark.atwood.name> wrote:
>mste...@siemens-emis.com (Michael Stemper) writes:
>>
>> Hmm. I'm detecting a theme here. Does stranding somebody make it easier
>> to convey a sense of size?
>
>It works in non SF fiction too.
>
>Cities, even big ones, can seem small when one is screaming past at
>70mph on the freeway. But when your car breaks down in a small town
>and the part you need has to be shipped in (if you can afford it at
>all, even), suddenly that small town can get very very big.
>
>It's such a common technique that it's almost nameless.
>
wouldn't want to paint it..."
Mark_R...@hotmail.com
> It's from the series called "The Miracle Planet", first episode
> (Japanese-Canadian co-production). For those who don't speak Japanese,
> they're talking about the big impacts in Earth's history and so they
> simulated what it would look like if it happened today, using familiar
> landmarks and such so the audience could grasp what scale they're talking
> about.
I thought it looked familar. I've watched all five episodes of that
science mini-series on the Science Channel.
http://www.ambrosevideo.com/displayitem.cfm?vid=1178
That sequence was from the first part The Violent Past. Another
earlier strike also simulated in that episode was the Moon creating
glancing collision of a Mars sized planetesimal.
It's really a fascinating series. I learned about a good bit of recent
conclusions about the planet's history that I hadn't known before.
Mark_R...@hotmail.com
> It's from the series called "The Miracle Planet",
P.S. The episode Extinction and Rebirth was just on last night, damn
it. One of the things it covers is the Permian extinction, which is
the sole subject of "The Day the Earth Nearly Died" which will be shown
next Monday.
Default User
> Keith Morrison wrote:
> > It's from the series called "The Miracle Planet", first episode
> > (Japanese-Canadian co-production). For those who don't speak
> > Japanese, they're talking about the big impacts in Earth's history
> > and so they simulated what it would look like if it happened today,
> > using familiar landmarks and such so the audience could grasp what
> > scale they're talking about.
>
> I thought it looked familar. I've watched all five episodes of that
> science mini-series on the Science Channel.
>
> http://www.ambrosevideo.com/displayitem.cfm?vid=1178
Interestingly, there was a previous series of the same name by the same
producer:
Miracle Planet Part 1 The Third Planet 1989
Miracle Planet Part 2 The Heat Within
Miracle Planet Part 3 Life From The Sea
Miracle Planet Part 4 Patterns In The Air
Miracle Planet Part 5 Riddles Of Sand And Ice
Miracle Planet Part 6 The Home Planet
http://www.astonisher.com/archives/miracle_planet1.htm
Charlie Stross
as <the_...@inet.hr> declared:
> John F. Eldredge wrote in rec.arts.sf.written:
>
>> On Tue, 13 Jun 2006 00:43:52 +0200, Danijel Starman
>> <the_...@inet.hr> wrote:
>>>James Nicoll wrote in rec.arts.sf.written:
>>>[snip]
>>>Not realy ontopic but I thought I'd share:
>>>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JHdYBet_4Q
>>>Meteor strikes Earth
>> To borrow a phrase from _Lucifer's Hammer_, what you have here is
>> "pasteurized planet". In a collision of that scale, I don't think
>> even deep-sea life would survive. Life would have to start over from
>> scratch.
>
> But humanity could survive, maybe. If we knew for example that a hit of
> this magnitude would happen in, lets say, 10 years could we do
> something, send people to space? On the Moon, Mars?
Nope. We'd go extinct, for sure.
Oh, it'd be possible to send a bunch of people to the Moon to sit it
out, possibly -- with an all-out effort -- a couple of hundred, but even
if they survived the rain of red-hot debris blasted all the way out to
lunar orbit, there'd be nothing habitable for them to come back to on
Earth within the life span of their supplies and tech support. And we
wouldn't be able to ship them an entire self-sustaining industrial
economy to the moon to keep them alive after their initial bunch of
tools and machines break down.
To survive anywhere except Earth takes the products of a civilization
with the resources to devote to engineering on a heroic scale, *or* a
human-compatible biosphere. Ten years, even ten years of all-out effort,
isn't enough to establish either of those things elsewhere in our solar
system. A hundred years wouldn't work either -- we don't tend to take
events seriously if they happen on time frames much greater than an
average human lifespan.
Thirty years and a planetary dictatorship that's serious about lasting
forever, and we might stand a chance. Ahem: *someone* would stand a
chance -- the lucky one in ten million, maybe. Not you or I, that's for
sure.
Luckily for us, going by the footage on that video, the impactor in
question was about the size of the Moon. There don't seem to be many of
those knocking around the solar system these days ...
-- Charlie
Keith Morrison
fingers and typed:
>Cities, even big ones, can seem small when one is screaming past at
>70mph on the freeway. But when your car breaks down in a small town
>and the part you need has to be shipped in (if you can afford it at
>all, even), suddenly that small town can get very very big.
>
>It's such a common technique that it's almost nameless.
>
>Two very different examples that come to my mind from movies are
>"Follow Me Boys" and "Groundhog Day".
"Enemy at the Gates". The movie was pretty much set in an area a few
kilometres long and a few hundred metres wide.
--
Keith
Bryan Derksen
<the_...@inet.hr> wrote:
>But humanity could survive, maybe. If we knew for example that a hit of
>this magnitude would happen in, lets say, 10 years could we do
>something, send people to space? On the Moon, Mars?
With only ten years warning, no chance for a self-sufficient group
off-planet no matter how much money we throw at the problem. The only
hope would be to build an adequate survival bunker on-planet.
Normally, this would be much easier than building an extraterrestrial
habitat. All our industrial infrastructure is available on-site to
help with the task and the geology is very well known. Earth also has
ample supplies of the elements needed for life.
In the case depicted in that video, though, we'd be in serious
trouble. We'd need to put our survival bunkers deep below the surface
simply for insulation against the heat and protection from ejecta,
they'd need to withstand a significant seismic shock without
collapsing, and they'd need to be almost completely self-contained for
a very long time. I suspect cooling would be a giant problem since
nuclear power seems like the only way to go for this and with the
oceans completely vaporized there are no good heat sinks to dump waste
heat into. Not sure if we could do it. I wonder if it might be
possible to use a deep aquifer as a source of coolant until the oceans
started recondensing again?
Frank
<cha...@antipope.org> wrote:
>Luckily for us, going by the footage on that video, the impactor in
>question was about the size of the Moon.
Not quite that big. According to the accompanying translation, the
impactor is slightly larger than the width of Honshu, the mainland of
Japan (which is 240 km at its widest point, apparently).
Jordan
Charlie Stross wrote:
>
> And we
> wouldn't be able to ship them an entire self-sustaining industrial
> economy to the moon to keep them alive after their initial bunch of
> tools and machines break down.
>
> To survive anywhere except Earth takes the products of a civilization
> with the resources to devote to engineering on a heroic scale, *or* a
> human-compatible biosphere.
I disagree.
For colonists to _survive_ on the Moon or Mars would require a _subset_
of the original self-sustaining industrial economy that was needed to
_send_ them there. What would be important would be making sure that
the colonists had the _right_ subset. Given energy, tools,
informations, and enough numbers to constitute a viable breeding
population, survival would be _possible_.
However, I do think that it would be very, very, difficult and so we
would _probably_ all go extinct, given a mere decade of warning.
Furthermore, I think that if they did survive it would be, for the
first few generations at least, a rathe Spartan existence, and the
culture which would emerge from this would be an initially very
truncated version of our own.
- Jordan
Jordan
Bryan Derksen wrote:
> On Tue, 13 Jun 2006 23:13:50 +0200, Danijel Starman
> <the_...@inet.hr> wrote:
> >But humanity could survive, maybe. If we knew for example that a hit of
> >this magnitude would happen in, lets say, 10 years could we do
> >something, send people to space? On the Moon, Mars?
>
> With only ten years warning, no chance for a self-sufficient group
> off-planet no matter how much money we throw at the problem. The only
> hope would be to build an adequate survival bunker on-planet.
I think we'd be best off to pursue _both_ options. With, if possible,
a space launch capability on the Lunar survival site so that the two
refuges could if necessary exchange some personnel and technical
resources.
In fact, the more bunkers in the more places the better, within the
limits of our resources. Just ONE site would be too vulnerable to
being scragged by some stray earthquake (on the Earth) or bit of flying
debris from the impact (on the Moon). The more the merrier.
- Jordan
Wayne Throop
:: off-planet no matter how much money we throw at the problem. The
:: only hope would be to build an adequate survival bunker on-planet.
: I think we'd be best off to pursue _both_ options.
Wouldn't it be better to concentrate on one? Not one site, mind you;
one method. Resources spent on the less optimal method would largely
be wasted.
The earthbound alternative would not be difficult. Nuclear reactors
could provide power almost indefinitely. Greenhouses could maintain
plantlife. Animals could be bred and slaughtered. A quick survey would
have to be made of all the available mine sites in the country. But I
would guess... that ah, dwelling space for several hundred thousands of
our people could easily be provided.
Though perhaps you're right; there's a bottleneck in the available mine
sites, so any resources above those needed for available sites could be
spent on space without wastage. Hm.
Wayne Throop thr...@sheol.org http://sheol.org/throopw
William December Starr
Bryan Derksen <bryan....@shaw-spamguard.ca> said:
> In the case depicted in that video, though, we'd be in serious
> trouble.
I believe the line from "Con Air" is appropriate here:
"Or as they say in Ebonics, 'We be fucked.'"
> We'd need to put our survival bunkers deep below the surface
> simply for insulation against the heat and protection from ejecta,
> they'd need to withstand a significant seismic shock without
> collapsing, and they'd need to be almost completely self-contained
> for a very long time. I suspect cooling would be a giant problem
> since nuclear power seems like the only way to go for this and
> with the oceans completely vaporized there are no good heat sinks
> to dump waste heat into.
Wait a minute -- heat _is_ energy, and that's the one thing that
the post-collision Earth would have in over-abundance.
Would the survivors be able to somehow use the "convert a
temperature differential into electrical power" trick to satisfy
their energy needs? Admittedly they'd still face waste-heat
problems -- any civilization living in a closed environment will --
but at least they wouldn't be creating _more_ heat while
generating/collecting energy to keep things running.
--
William December Starr <wds...@panix.com>
Bryan Derksen
Starr) wrote:
>In article <bq0i92139nuu5s6m4...@4ax.com>,
>Bryan Derksen <bryan....@shaw-spamguard.ca> said:
>>I suspect cooling would be a giant problem
>> since nuclear power seems like the only way to go for this and
>> with the oceans completely vaporized there are no good heat sinks
>> to dump waste heat into.
>
>Wait a minute -- heat _is_ energy, and that's the one thing that
>the post-collision Earth would have in over-abundance.
>
>Would the survivors be able to somehow use the "convert a
>temperature differential into electrical power" trick to satisfy
>their energy needs?
The problem is that you need a _differential_ for that, a hot place
where the heat comes from and a cold place where the heat goes to.
After an impact like the one depicted there's going to be a number of
years where cold places are very hard to come by - above you is a
Venusian hell and below you is the mantle.
If you can find a place to dump heat to, then yeah, I suppose one
could run a heat engine off of that. The only major problems I see are
that you'll need to stick a heat exchanger out near the surface where
it could get wrecked by the harsh conditions up there, and that as the
planet cooled back down toward habitability again your power source
would fade away. Might serve as an easy-to-manufacture supplement in
case the power source you had at the outset turns out to be
inadequate, though. Good idea.
Westprog
"Wayne Throop" <thr...@sheol.org> wrote in message
news:11510...@sheol.org...
> :: With only ten years warning, no chance for a self-sufficient group
> :: off-planet no matter how much money we throw at the problem. The
> :: only hope would be to build an adequate survival bunker on-planet.
>
> : I think we'd be best off to pursue _both_ options.
>
> Wouldn't it be better to concentrate on one? Not one site, mind you;
> one method. Resources spent on the less optimal method would largely
> be wasted.
>
> The earthbound alternative would not be difficult. Nuclear reactors
> could provide power almost indefinitely. Greenhouses could maintain
> plantlife. Animals could be bred and slaughtered. A quick survey would
> have to be made of all the available mine sites in the country. But I
> would guess... that ah, dwelling space for several hundred thousands of
> our people could easily be provided.
I think you mean "bred and... _slaughtered_."
J/
BOTW: "Enigma" - Hugh Sebag-Montefiore
Jordan
Wayne Throop wrote:
> :: With only ten years warning, no chance for a self-sufficient group
> :: off-planet no matter how much money we throw at the problem. The
> :: only hope would be to build an adequate survival bunker on-planet.
>
> : I think we'd be best off to pursue _both_ options.
>
> Wouldn't it be better to concentrate on one? Not one site, mind you;
> one method. Resources spent on the less optimal method would largely
> be wasted.
The problem is that any one method might have unforeseen weaknesses.
In particular, the Earth might suffer unexpectedly severe tremors from
the impact; the Moon unexpectedly heavy bombardment by debris thrown
from the impact.
> The earthbound alternative would not be difficult. Nuclear reactors
> could provide power almost indefinitely. Greenhouses could maintain
> plantlife. Animals could be bred and slaughtered. A quick survey would
> have to be made of all the available mine sites in the country. But I
> would guess... that ah, dwelling space for several hundred thousands of
> our people could easily be provided.
Yes. I would definitely choose Earthly bunkers as _part_ of the
strategy.
> Though perhaps you're right; there's a bottleneck in the available mine
> sites, so any resources above those needed for available sites could be
> spent on space without wastage. Hm.
Well, more mines could be dug. But I think that in the case of an
impact scenario, confining the shelters to Earth alone is putting one's
eggs in one (large) basket -- what if the impact triggered planetwide
earthquakes or volcanic eruptions (as the Dinosaur Killer well may have
done)? There _are_ ten years to prepare, and Luna's not that far away.
(orbital shelters would also be a good idea, but obviously more
vulnerable to damage from meteoric debris, plus they would have to have
access to some celestial body or bodies to get raw materials).
Sincerely Yours,
Jordan