2012 got me no Hugo nomination in 2013

[james_davis_nicoll]

But you know what it did get me? From Rapture of the Nerds:

It’s called a Nicoll-Dyson beam—a laser weapon powered by a star—and just one of them is capable of evaporating an Earth-sized planet a thousand light-years away in half an hour flat.

So there's that. (it takes a week to evaporate an Earth-sized world with the combined power of a Sun-like star, boo hiss, but to make up for it the range is more like one million light-years)

Comments

[kithrup.livejournal.com]

You should start patenting these things.

[soon_lee]

Been reading it, and just got to that bit.

[gohover.livejournal.com]

I wonder if there are imaging applications for a more gentle beam? LIDAR?

See also:

http://arxiv.org/abs/1301.0825

When I saw this paper, the Nicoll-Dyson beam came to mind, even though the scale, though vast, is much smaller.

Interstellar radar is a potential intermediate step between passive observation of exoplanets and interstellar exploratory missions. Compared to passive observation, it has the traditional advantages of radar astronomy. It can measure surface characteristics, determine spin rates and axes, provide extremely accurate ranges, construct maps of planets, distinguish liquid from solid surfaces, find rings and moons, and penetrate clouds. It can do this even for planets close to the parent star. Compared to interstellar travel or probes, it also offers significant advantages. The technology required to build such a radar already exists, radar can return results within a human lifetime, and a single facility can investigate thousands of planetary systems. The cost, although high, is within the reach of Earth's economy, so it is cheaper as well.

[nelc.livejournal.com]

If you've got reason to need a million light year range, why would you use a Sun-like star? Some type O's would do for most routine galactic-imperial purposes, but the heavy beam installations would be near stars that can be easily stimulated to nova or supernova.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Wow, you can hold the beam together a lot better even than Kimball Kinnison could; the ability to direct it to a planet of some other star was just a gleam in the eye of Laverne Thorndyke.