Talk:Orbital (The Culture)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

	Architecture Portal This article covers subjects of relevance to Architecture. To participate, visit the Wikipedia:WikiProject Architecture for more information. The current monthly improvement drive is Castle.
B	This article has been rated as b-Class on the assessment scale.
Low	This article has been rated as low-importance on the assessment scale.

Given that The Culture aren't the only ones to have Orbitals, should this page be elsewhere? If so, where? -- Tzartzam

Indeed. Banks says in an article he wrote on the Culture that he nicked the idea ... -- Tarquin

Actually, I meant that in his universe there are non-Culture Orbitals. Vavatch in Consider Phlebas, for example.

Hah, I just thought "Good point". I didn't realise it was me who made the point in the first place as tzartzam!! Anyway, should we move this to Orbital (Iain Banks) or something? -- Sam

So about 3 years after this point was raised, I've moved the page to Orbital (space habitat). :-) Evercat 12:33, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I moved it again to conform to Culture naming nomenclatura... MadMaxDog 05:45, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Are the Orbitals similar to oversized Stanford Tori? If so, where the artical says the says the rotation can be varied to give a day-night cycle, it is not clear that this means 'polar' rotation, not axial rotation (which controls the centripical force). CS Miller 13:22, Apr 20, 2005 (UTC)

Just had a look at the link for the Stanford torus and it is a similar idea but on a grander scale. The article is a bit vague but the orbitals rotate axialy (like a wheel) and are tilted approximately 45° to the star. They are quiet simple when you can visualise what they look like. Afn

ehm... and Chiark? (The Player of Games) --84.220.94.165 16:54, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Good shout. Added. --Guinnog 23:56, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Can we build one?

Would it be possible to build an orbital out of carbon nanotubes?

If you ask: could such an orbital be built currently, I severly doubt it - but ask a physics major instead. We certainly can't build it as Banks describes it, as they are held together with forcefields... MadMaxDog 10:40, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Image:Orbitale.jpg seems to have inaccurate scale

The image currently used by the article shows one hanging in front of Jupiter and appearing to be roughly the same angular diameter. Orbitals are described in the article as having a diameter of around four million kilometers, but Jupiter has a diameter of only around 140,000 kilometers and perspective requires that to look like this the ring would have to be smaller than that. It doesn't help if we assume that that's some other fictional Jupiter-like gas giant with a larger mass, since increasing the mass of a gas giant doesn't significantly increase its diameter until it gets big enough to actually achieves nuclear fusion (the increased gravity merely increases the planet's density). Am I correct in this interpretation? If so, I'm not sure it's a good idea to have such a misleading image here. Bryan Derksen 08:40, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I disagree totally. The size comparisions you make are not possible - this could be very well a "planet" of 50 cm diameter, you have no way of telling. Even accepting your argument about min/max sizes of gas giants, you still cannot make a size guess for the Orbital 'bracelet'. This could be an image taken in space of a 10 cm diameter bracelet taken by a camera 30 cm in front of the bracelet object, with the planet far, far behind in space. Again, you have no way of knowing.

Therefore, the image is not misleading at all. MadMaxDog 10:42, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm afraid I don't understand your disagreement. It doesn't matter exactly how large that ring is, my key point is that by the basic laws of perspective it cannot possibly be larger than the gas giant planet in the background. Since Orbitals are supposed to have a significantly larger diameter than the Sun, let alone a gas giant, this is a major inaccuracy. Assuming the ring is only 10 cm in diameter only makes it worse. Bryan Derksen 11:45, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Point taken, I did not read your comments well enough. That said, I still strongly object to the idea of removing the image, as it is quite beautiful (not a strong argument in regards to correctness, maybe, but a important argument nonetheless), and also because having no image - or a lesser one - would hurt the article more than the removal would help. A little note about the incorrect size relations would fit the bill better. MadMaxDog 09:48, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Until a more accurate representation does come along, granted, it's probably better to keep the image with a warning in the caption than to remove it. At least it gives the reader an understanding of the general layout of the ring. But I think I'm going to dust off my old POVRay skills and see if I can't make a more accurate one that'll be just as "pretty", thus satisfying everyone. :) Bryan Derksen 01:08, 9 March 2007 (UTC)