Imagine the Earth is the size of a marble. Now imagine a world is built that when compared to the marble-sized Earth is a ribbon over 5 feet wide and ½ a mile long. What you would have is a proportional model of the setting for Larry Niven’s innovative Ringworld.
Ringworld Synopsis
His novel, titled after his imaginative new world, follows a band of explorers as they crash land and travel across the huge structure’s surface, which is equal to the area of 3 millions earths. Ringworld is physically based on a slice of the geometrical concept of a Dyson Sphere. the plot centers around a mad puppeteer alien with two heads orchestrates the massive mission and recruits Louis Wu, the 200-year-old human protagonist, Teela Brown, his congenitally lucky lover, and a cawardly, cat-like alien with orange fur and sharp teeth named Speaker-to-Animals.
Ringworld and Earth Similarities
The giant ribbon-like Ringworld circles a G2 class star and along the inner side a habitable world has been created. The Ringworld similarities to Earth are many-- its position from its sun, 95 million miles away, and the type of star, a G2 or yellow dwarf just slightly cooler than ours, and its gravity strength is about the same. A second smaller ring within the Ringworld checked with black shadow squares provides day and night to the Ringworlders.
Ringworld Flaws
The foremost discrepancy in the novel is the fact that a thin ring suspended around a star would be inherently unstable. Built like a suspension bridge with no foundation, the ring is subject to tension forces of shattering proportions. The tensile strength of the material Ringworld is made of would have to be on the order of the strength of what holds atoms together.
Ringworld LandscapeEven if the Ringworld were somehow stabilized in a way not mentioned in the novel, without geologic movement and stimulation, the Ringworld’s surface would just become a mush of organic material. With the only large force acting on the surface being the artificial gravity pushing everything against the outer surface, the inner surface should have become a homogenous sludge of organic matter, punctuated here and there by the dents in the Ringworld material, instead of the lush habitat the main characters found.
Ringworld: Still a Sci-Fi Classic
With all its similarities to Earth, reading about the land almost feels like a glimpse into the future instead of a work of imagination. In a world where faster-than-light travel is possible, it feels very real to think that humans might one day create a huge world to solve problems of burgeoning populations and global warming, and viral epidemics don’t exist. Niven offers a mysterious hope along with a fantastical read in his landmark classic, making it overall a pleasurable and insightful book.
See Rocheworld by Robert L. Forward and Cosm by Gregory Benford for more scientifically plausible sci-fi reading.
