KFL@MIT-MC.ARPA (08/10/85)
From: Keith F. Lynch <KFL@MIT-MC.ARPA> Not a problem. Warwick!simon@topaz ignores time dilation. Whenever a solar system gets too crowded, people can travel to an arbitrarily distant point in an arbitrarily short time by travelling close enough to the speed of light. Or they could use suspended animation and travel slower. Anyway, it's silly to use arguments like this against space colonization. One solar system alone could easily support a population of about 10**20 people, billions of times Earth's present population. If only one person in a billion is a Mozart or an Einstein, think how wonderful the arts and sciences would become with a solar population of 10**20. Or a galactic population of 10**30. ...Keith
ndd@duke.UUCP (Ned Danieley) (08/13/85)
In article <3221@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU> KFL@MIT-MC.ARPA writes: >From: Keith F. Lynch <KFL@MIT-MC.ARPA> > > Not a problem. Warwick!simon@topaz ignores time dilation. Whenever >a solar system gets too crowded, people can travel to an arbitrarily >distant point in an arbitrarily short time by travelling close enough >to the speed of light. Or they could use suspended animation and travel >slower. But time dilation does not slow down the people who are still in the solar system and reproducing, and they are the problem. Unless you assume that you can ship out an arbitrarily great number of people. Ned Danieley duke!ndd
simon@warwick.UUCP (Simon Forth) (08/20/85)
In article <6090@duke.UUCP> ndd@duke.UUCP (Ned D. Danieley) writes: >In article <3221@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU> KFL@MIT-MC.ARPA writes: >>From: Keith F. Lynch <KFL@MIT-MC.ARPA> >> >> Not a problem. Warwick!simon@topaz ignores time dilation. Whenever >>a solar system gets too crowded, people can travel to an arbitrarily >>distant point in an arbitrarily short time by travelling close enough >>to the speed of light. Or they could use suspended animation and travel >>slower. > >But time dilation does not slow down the people who are still in >the solar system and reproducing, and they are the problem. Unless >you assume that you can ship out an arbitrarily great number of people. > >Ned Danieley >duke!ndd I think Ned has got the point, that the volume of colonized space is growing as the cube of the distance travelled from the centre, whereas the new space being explored is growing as the square of the distance from the centre (if you assume uniform expansion in a sphere.) So eventually you will run foul of an unfavourable square/cube ratio. It would be useful if someone could produce some figures for this. I have hazy recollections of some figures that said that, if Mankind started to colonize nearby planets and that these planets also send out planets then the whole galaxy would be colonized in 20000 years (This figure I am not sure about,) but certainly less time than it takes light to cross the galaxy. Simon. -- Simon Forth. Dept of Computing. University of Warwick. Coventry CV4 7AL. UK {various backbone sites in US}!mcvax!ukc!warwick!simon