Posts by dmckee
Any mechanism for generating a neutrino beam starts with a way to generate neutrinos, and there is only one underlying means right now: weak decay (including beta decay in radioactive nuclides). Th...
Convert mass density to energy density, to get $9 \times 10^{-11}\,\mathrm{J/m^3}$ which isn't very much. After all, an adult human is on order of one eighth to one quarter of a cubic meter. So, a...
Preconditions Bank's The Algebraist and many other works feature galactic scale civilizations connected by wormhole networks, but with only relativistic (i.e. slow and expensive; possibly very slo...
Any light source is a propellant-less drive (often called a "photon drive"), it's just extremely energy inefficient. With perfect conversion efficiency, the impulse of the device is (energy suppli...
Practical issues with the whole cut-a-planet-with-a-beam idea. Your fundamental problem is that if you dig the trench by sequential applications of a beam with shallow penetration the time scale i...
Dung Charcoal A staple fuel for grassland people is dried dung. It generally doesn't burn particularly hot, but if you a assume a source of dung that is both unusually dense and comes in cohesive...
Using thermal energy for power generation is a thing, but you need a temperature difference to make it work. You implanted device is likely to be essentially uniform in temperature meaning that it ...
