Re: starship-design: stuff

[Christoph Kulmann <kulmann@zfn.uni-bremen.de>]

Re: Never-ending Universe

Hi Mike,

That's quite an interesting mail. I've got good news for you.

Don't be worried about an ever expanding universe, their are some weird 
physical tricks to get around it...
As Freeman Dyson points out in his book "Time without End", it is 
possible (at least in principle) for any civilization to survive FOREVER 
- even when the rest of the universe is cooling down to absolute zero.
The trick is a kind of hibernation - not just sleep, but complete 
suspension of all technical and biological processes - so no energy is 
spent, and we wouldn't even recognize it...

If an entire civilization is subjected to an alternating cycle of 
awakeness and hibernation (while the hibernation phases get LONGER each 
time), it can survive an INFINITE time - whith a FINITE energy reserve.

According to Dyson, this trick would allow our present civilization to 
persist ETERNALLY - and it would only need the energy the Sun produces 
during EIGHT HOURS!

So it's up to you now to build a global scale refrigerator....