The Seveneves Notebook
Paul P
| about 7 years ago
The torus assembly is spinning on the end like a propeller, so its axis of rotation must therefore also precess through 360 degrees every 90 minutes. This seems like it would impart enormous forces on the bearings and torque on the spine of the station.
So how does the torus assembly not precess the entire station around Amalthea, or rip itself apart through gyroscopic forces?
Kelly Bell
| about 7 years ago
So... With all the crazy emergency feats of macro-engineering going on in the book, why did nobody try to just hold the moon together with a net and some kind of crazy glue or space cement (like the pyrcrete or whatever)? It seems at least as theoretically possible as all the other craziness people came up with...
I'm only 1/5 of the way through the book because I just got it yesterday, so maybe that's exactly what DOES happen? But it seems unlikely that's where the story is going. I dunno but it just occurred to me about a chapter ago, when the Ymir disappeared at L1
Deon Booker
| about 7 years ago
Hi Tom, Here's the link where you can find Neal's behind-the-scenes notebook, along with bonus illustrations:
http://lithive.com/books/93?layout=compact
More illustrations to come soon...enjoy!
David Hearn
| about 7 years ago
I recognized many characteristics of Neal DeGrasse Tyson in Doob, a good model.
Peter L Eidenbach
| about 7 years ago
Part One
oe Rufus MacQuarie 6 miner
GP Dinah MacQuarie 8 Rufus' daughter, roboticist
GP Ivy Xiao 8 ISS Izzy commander
GP Dubois Jerome Xavier Harris 12 TV host, astronomer
GP Frank Casper 16 IT
GP Jibran Haroun 16 IT
GP Konrad Barth 16 astronomer
GP Lina Ferreira 17 marine biologist
oe Aurelia Mackey 18 NASA deputy admin.
oe Amelia Hinojosa 25 elementary teacher
AK Julia Bliss Flaherty 27, 52 President USA
oe Pete Starling 28 President's science adviser
oe Cal Blankenship 33 USN submarine commander
oe Scott Spalding 35 director of NASA
GP Fyodor Antonovich Panteleimon 39 cosmonaut
GP Maxim Koshelev 41 cosmonaut
GP Bolor-Erdene 42 cosmonaut
GP Yuri 42 cosmonaut
GP Vyacheslav Dubsky 42 cosmonaut
GP Rhys Aitken 42 engineer
oe Mary Bulinski 55 US Secretary Interior
oe Celani Mbangwa 55 South African artist
oe Clarence Crouch 55 geneticist
GP Moira Crewe 55 geneticist; Crouch post-doc
AK Tavistock Prowse 63 blog journalist
Sean Probst 68 head of Arjuna Mining
GP Tekla Alekseyevna Ilushina 85 Scout cosmonaut
GP Igor 90 Scout cosmonaut
GP Marco 90
Ulrika Ek 91 Arkitect-in-chief
GP Margie Coghlan 96 physiologist, medic
GP Spencer Grindstaff 97 network & communications
GP Jun Ueda 108 life scientist
GP Larz Hoedemaeker 110 roboticist
GP Zeke Petersen 125
oe Henry Harris 130 Doob's son
GP Luisa Soter 142 social worker, psychologist
oe Margaret Sloane 169 White House comm. director
oe Mario 189 news photographer
oe king of Bhutan 191
AK? Dorji, Jigme 195 Bhutan Lottery choices
GP Markus Leuker 200 Swiss astronaut
GP Wang Fuhua 200 Chinese taikonaut
oe Hadley, Hesper Harris 212-213 Doob's daughters
oe Enrique 213 Hesper's boyfriend
Part Two ---------------------
GP Miguel Andrata 283 geneticist
GP Tom Van Meter 288 engineer
GP Salvatore Guodian 294 lawyer
GP Steve Lake 301 hacker, IT
GP Zhong Hu 312 biologist
GP Jiro Suzuki 373 nuclear engineer
AK Camila 403 Muslim student
GP Dr. Catherine Quine 432 medical doctor
GP Paul Freel 439 engineer
AK Li Jianyu 432, 455
AK Ravi Kumar 432, 470
AK Aida 513
AK Michael Park 515
---------------------
oe Old Earth
GP General Population
AK Arkie
Part Three
Mo Kath Amalthova Two 570 Survey
Tk Beled Tomov 593 Survey
Di Rhys Alaskov 594 Survey
Iv Dr. Hu Noah 596 TerReForm geneticist
Di Leuk Markov 597 TRF geneticist, Hu's teacher
Mo Cantabrigia 600 Eve Moira's only daughter
Mo Kath One 601
AK Julius Mwangi 625
JU Ariane Casablancova 626 Quarantine agent
Ca Remembrance 637 “Memmi”, Hu's aide
Catherine Dinova 643 1st new generation
IDi Tyuratam Lake 677 bartender/manager
IAn Langobard 686 vintner
Ju Tomac 716 Julian prophet
IIv Einstein 733
D Donno 769 Digger leader
D Marge 770 Digger captive
D Sonar Taxlaw 771 Cyc (encyclopedist)
D Pop Loyd 772 Digger elder
D Ceylon Congreve 793 Cyc mentor
Ca Hope 800 medic
Iv Esa Arjun 800 intelligence analyst
Tk Roskos Yur 809 Snake Eater soldier
Mo Kathree Kath Amalthova Three 811
Mo Cantabrigia Barth Five 824 officer
Mo Jamacia Hammerhead Five 844 lived to 200
P Deep 855 Pinger envoy
Races:
Di Dinan
Iv Ivyn
Mo Moiran
Tk Teklan
Ju Julian
Ca Camite
Ai Aïdan
An Neoander
Aj Jinn, Gheni
Aa Aretaic
Ab Beta
Ae Extat
I Indigin
D Digger
P Pinger
Mrs W
| about 4 years ago
David Hearn
| about 7 years ago
Neal is obviously familiar with the campus. I recently attended my 50th reunion there.
Jill
| about 7 years ago
yaacov lazar
| about 7 years ago
Dan | about 7 years ago
The day before The Break, the day the White Rain started, Ivy and Dinah both report on how they need to begin moving away from Earth as the atmosphere is showing evidence of expanding. This was something they expected and were prepared for. There is a reference to needing enough coolant to get the entire ark "higher".
<p>particularly set in the age of isolation, the first thousand years.<br></p>
<p>6. Boiling the oceans. Where did the water go? It boiled off into the atmosphere, but when the surface cooled down, it would rain out back and refill the oceans. Unless some of the H2O was fractured in the high atmosphere (by ultraviolet?) and the hydrogen lost. This is IIRC how Mars lost it's water. But then what happened to the excess oxygen? If it was only a little (gigatons) then the comets were only to top off the oceans. dunno.<br></p>
<p>5. The underground shelter in the book gets their power from geothermal. You can only generate power from temperature differentials. You need someplace hot and someplace cold, relatively anyway. The surface would be roasting and after a while the heat would penetrate some way down. I don't know how much. Any shelter would be between a rock and a hard place. You have heat coming up from below, deep mines always get hot the deeper you get. So you would have to find some kind of temperature differential to run your generators and then run a massive refrigeration plant off of that, and find some place to dump the heat. Maybe that's why the governments preferred to invest in shelters at the bottom of ocean trenches.That might work better.<br></p>
<p>3. And what about Orion? It would have been ideal for the situation. I was looking forward to lifting a few million tons into orbit by blasting a-bombs underneath thick concrete, steel and lead plates. See Footfall by Niven and Pournelle. It would explain nicely why the powers that be didn't seem too concerned by the logistics of long-term survival in orbit. A half million tons of ice would go a long way. And they would leave Orion till the last minute to avoid freaking everybody out. (and it would kill a lot of people) Oh, well.<br></p>
<p>4. Why would there only be one underground safe haven built? That survived anyway. Another reason that governments would see Izzy and the arklets as a distraction for the populace would be that they were pouring most of their efforts into habitats in deep existing mines and the like. Much easier to move millions of tons of needed stuff and thousands of people underground than into orbit. Seems obvious.<br></p>
<p>2. The first thing I thought of when the moon broke up was that you now have a chaotic multi-body gravitational problem. These things are not predictable even theoretically. You could have a chunk slingshotted off in some random direction by the orbital interactions of the seven, then dozens of pieces of the moon. Even a 50th chunk of moon slamming into the earth would leave nothing left but a very short book.<br></p>
Someone , Executive Author | about 7 years agoI like the numerological significance of "seven" representing the seeker.
Tom Blackwell | about 7 years ago
Having just finished and enjoyed SevenEves, II came to this site to see the " technical drawings, a bonus illustration of Endurance, and a “making of” video" mentioned at Neal Stephenson's site - but I can't seem to find them.
Gary , Hive Master | about 7 years ago
Hi Tom -- Login and go to http://lithive.com/sections/662 for the video. We'll be releasing some additional images into the gallery this weekend.
Tim Florer | about 7 years ago
I, also, am not finding the pictures or video. The above link just kick me to the main page for Seveneves. Am I doing it right?
Not sure where to put this, so I'll comment here. The comment form acts a bit weird. The subject field is all caps on entry, but not after submission. Text pasted into the post editor with its original black background that then affected the whole post.
Charles Hill | over 7 years ago
I've been a fan of Mr. Stephenson since his first work. Seveneves is a disaster on too many levels to explain. "Disappointing" is my kindest critical evaluation. My bedtime prayers now include a fervent wish that NS never gives a moment's consideration to a sequel.
Amen
Marc Bernstein | about 7 years ago
I couldn't disagree more. Just to provide a counterpoint, I loved the book and would gladly read a sequel if there was one.
Captain I/0 | about 7 years ago
Thirded from me. I thought it was a great read and great fun. I'd love to read more.
Now, I do admit that the third act gets off to a slow start, but the first 2 acts were outstanding and the last half of the third act was too.
Eugene Wong | about 7 years ago
I second that - would be interested in finding out aspects of "the Purpose" referred to by Ty at the end of the book. Also...SPOILER WARNING...how much did Julia know about the project that led to the race that appears at the end of the book (trying to be circumspect so as to not spoil) and did she pass on that knowledge to her children?
Len | over 7 years ago
Some excellent illustrations of content from the latter portions of the book. They help if you are reading the audiobook
http://gizmodo.com/heres-how-space-megastructures-will-look-according-to-1705593580
Rob | over 7 years ago
How did the repopulate animal species? Did they create some sort of artificial womb?
DVJ Labonte | about 7 years ago
If you can't wrap your head around the possibility of artificial wombs and test tubes then you really shouldn't be bothering with Stephenson's books as they are often in depths which would require A) thinking outside the box B) technical knowledge of the subject matter.
Charlie Uniman | over 7 years ago
Wasn't there a glitch in the last third of the book when Doc declined to go with Ty, Einstein and the others and then ended up in crucial scenes during that "adventure?"
which glitch?
Again, the glitch amounts to Doc declining to join Ty, Einstein, Kath Two et al. and then appearing as part of their exploration that resulted in their finding the Diggers. First, Doc said he wasn't joining them and then he's there with him. There's a disconnect here.
bob mcconn | over 7 years ago
Richard Thompson | over 7 years ago
My favorite novel of Neal Stephenson's has been Cryptonomicon. I am currently enjoying reading Seveneves and suspect it may eclipse Cryptonomicon as my favorite. It is well written and highly imaginative.
jw00d | over 7 years ago
This novel is an instruction manual of what we should do when we have to leave the Earth..
well...the first two sections comprise the user's manual; the last 3rd is on the path set by LeGuin, It's v. neat how the book honors two of the most important post WWII sci-fi "eras." I read it first, and now we just finished listening too on our commutes and evenings. It's certainly up there with the Golden Age and Cryptonomicon as my favorite NS books; which means, of course, that it's among my favorite books. Orbital mechanics info dumps replace his usual "geography" dumps (my wife and i are both geographers so those breaks have always appealed.)
I'm hoping that's addressed in the book. Why not at least attempt to limit the damage? Maybe that's a ridiculous idea based on the size of the moon, but it does seem like a question that needs answering for readers.