Defence against solar flares.

[LJWJ]

I'm currently writing a book and need help working out a possible solution to a problem I'm having. The world is almost completely automated and, therefore, a solar flare large enough to knock all the world's electronics would definitely spell the end of everything. In this world all of the world's resources can be directed towards individual tasks at once if need be so thinking big is not a problem here, the planet is totally unified. The best I can think of is either to install circuit breakers in all electronics and some mechanism that would restart everything after a few hours or install some sort of huge magnetic installation that uses immense amounts of power to boost the planet's magnetosphere enough to deflect the incoming solar flare, activating as soon as jumbled radio signals indicate a solar flare is headed our way. Also, a long term plan in this book is to build a Dyson sphere (actually a Dyson swarm) so now could this also be protected from solar flares.

 

If my science is way off and I'm not actually making sense just explain to me where I'm going wrong. My interest in science is recreational, I actually study languages haha.

[koti]

I'm currently writing a book and need help working out a possible solution to a problem I'm having. The world is almost completely automated and, therefore, a solar flare large enough to knock all the world's electronics would definitely spell the end of everything. In this world all of the world's resources can be directed towards individual tasks at once if need be so thinking big is not a problem here, the planet is totally unified. The best I can think of is either to install circuit breakers in all electronics and some mechanism that would restart everything after a few hours or install some sort of huge magnetic installation that uses immense amounts of power to boost the planet's magnetosphere enough to deflect the incoming solar flare, activating as soon as jumbled radio signals indicate a solar flare is headed our way. Also, a long term plan in this book is to build a Dyson sphere (actually a Dyson swarm) so now could this also be protected from solar flares.

 

If my science is way off and I'm not actually making sense just explain to me where I'm going wrong. My interest in science is recreational, I actually study languages haha.

What genre book are you writing? If its SciFi then your assumption that "In this world all of the world's resources can be directed towards individual tasks at once if need be so thinking big is not a problem here, the planet is totally unified" could be correct but only then

[LJWJ]

What genre book are you writing? If its SciFi then your assumption that "In this world all of the world's resources can be directed towards individual tasks at once if need be so thinking big is not a problem here, the planet is totally unified" could be correct but only then

Yeah it's SciFi There is no democracy or capitalist competition any more so the powers that be can direct world resources in way they desire. Also there has been a lot of... artificial population control... so world resource consumption is also greatly reduced, freeing up a lot of power and resources.

[koti]

Yeah it's SciFi There is no democracy or capitalist competition any more so the powers that be can direct world resources in way they desire. Also there has been a lot of... artificial population control... so world resource consumption is also greatly reduced, freeing up a lot of power and resources.

Well in that case you gotta use a singularity to deflect the solar flare. Whats a good scifi story without a good old singularity

[LJWJ]

Well in that case you gotta use a singularity to deflect the solar flare. Whats a good scifi story without a good old singularity

yeah... fear of the singularity drives a lot of the story haha, but it doesn't necessarily exist so I still need some sort of viable tech to deal with solar flares that would otherwise make any chance of a singularity disappear

[Phi for All]

Well in that case you gotta use a singularity to deflect the solar flare.

 

Gravitational singularity.

 

yeah... fear of the singularity drives a lot of the story haha, but it doesn't necessarily exist so I still need some sort of viable tech to deal with solar flares that would otherwise make any chance of a singularity disappear

 

Technological singularity.

 

 

These definitions don't match.

[koti]

Phi for all is right. I ment a gravitational singularity. A technological singularity concept is something completely different but it does sound like a cool idea to incorporate it into a story too

[Airbrush]

A giant solar screen that orbits the sun but closer to the sun than the earth. That way it only needs to be a few thousand miles in diameter. Then when we detect a solar flare is on the way retrorockets move the screen into place between sun and earth to block the flare.

 

Such a screen could also act as a damper on global warming. It is moved into place periodically to let the earth cool down.

Edited September 21, 2016 by Airbrush

[LJWJ]

 

Gravitational singularity.

 

 

Technological singularity.

 

 

These definitions don't match.

 

Ah I see, I'll look into what a gravitational singularity is

A giant solar screen that orbits the sun but closer to the sun than the earth. That way it only needs to be a few thousand miles in diameter. Then when we detect a solar flare is on the way retrorockets move the screen into place between sun and earth to block the flare.

 

Such a screen could also act as a damper on global warming. It is moved into place periodically to let the earth cool down.

Would a physical barrier work against charged particles like that? I would have thought that nothing short of a few feet of lead or a metal case around the world would be able to stop a solar flare and even with all the world's resources pooled, I don't know if there even are the materials for the lead version at least.

[LJWJ]

I still don't have an answer for this topic if anyone else has anything they think they could add.