Planetary Ring

A conversation with one of the MIT boys during quark research has come back to my mind. I don't know if this is a false lead, but I remember the following conversation thread. I think it was with Sam, but I may misremember things - it could have been with the olive skinned oriental girl Lana who used to hang out by the water cooler when the lab hit 30 degrees on late July doubleshift data collating evenings. Either way, I was asking their views on the next stage of particle accelerators. They said: 'of course, without doing the whole ringworld space thing, the biggest we could hope for would be a ring going right round the planet.'

The suggestion was that a submerged ring shaped (or donut shaped!) particle accelerator constructed right around the circumference of the earth would be the biggest achieveable and would be capable of splitting into the heart of bosons and beyond. It was suggested that if it was lined up to gain the additional speed of the earth's spin AND the additional magnetic propulsion force of the earth's magnetic poles/core, then it would be a truly great particle accelerator. I never heard any more of the supposition. CERN took over as top 'nut, and the MIT facilities were soon enough made obsolete and mothballed. But a 'nut that size - now that could be capable of splitting gravity particles, time particles, thought particles and god knows what else... I don't suppose for a minute that this is what they are building down there. But then who knows. It's possible. What's to stop them? I mean, what's to stop them?

If a civilisation built a 'nut right around the circumference of a galaxy - now that could be far reaching. I recall the piece in New Teenage Metaphysical postulating the interstellar stick to relay information in contravention of Einstein's special theory. I must do the maths on what exactly a ring that big could do.