Paul Birch's supramundane worlds

sailor.barsoom wrote:> But a problem has been pointed out to me, and if Birch addressed it I> missed it. A shell around a planet or other body would be unstable in the> sense that any nudge (a meteorite strike, a passing moon) would put part of> it closer to the underbody than other parts, and then the underbody's gravity> would pull it even closer, and the part further away would experience less> gravity, and soon the whole thing crashes.After reading the page...The structure is held up by mass streams, not by any structuralstrength. This could take care of the dynamic stability issue, whichwould apply more force to these parts.But this introduces *huge* problems: the mass streams wouldconsume *enormous* amounts of energy, and if they ever failed downgoes the whole structure.The idea is laughable. It's something dreamed up by people for thesole purpose of being huge.