Since little if any easily accessible real estate in the world remains unclaimed, I’ve been contemplating the possibility of building my own instead. (Sure, I could just buy a swath of pre-existing turf; but what fun is that, I ask you?) Therefore, in the best tradition of pulp science fiction, I’m thinking along the lines of either an artificial island or else a giant sky fortress.
But how large could such structures realistically be made, and what limitations would ultimately come into play? Given sufficient resources, could a modern-day Captain Nemo construct an enormous floating vehicle the size of the Dominican Republic and cruise it around the world’s oceans, dominating the shipping lanes? What about a zeppelin city the size of a cumulonimbus cloud formation?
I’ll see if I can find it, but there is a guy who built a floating island off of Mexico out of soda bottles. IIRC, he eventually built a house on it. Last I heard Mexico annexed it.
I know I read about some proposed floating city somewhere. If I recall correctly, it was supposed to be able to move even, albeit pretty slowly. I think it was supposed to off the coast of Florida, but I can’t seem to Google it. Here’s a couple of proposals for floating cities. A floating city could probably be arbitrarily large.
Icebergs can be huge, this report lists one as large as 40 miles wide and 53 miles long. That gives you an idea of what is structurally possible on the water. Constructing it and sustaining it is another matter.
Berg, nothing… The entire arctic polar cap is floating. That’s what, about a thousand miles across?
Really, I don’t think there’s any fundamental limitation, in the air or water cases. If nothing else, you could always just take a whole bunch of smaller floating things, and moor them all together.
The polar cap floats, but it’s my understanding that the ice itself is constantly rearranging itself, splitting into pressure ridges and then fusing back together. This would be problematic to replicate in an artificial structure, though perhaps sufficiently flexible materials would work as well.
Well, sure; but that would be cheating. I would imagine that with all the moored components jostling and bumping together, New Atlantis would be a profoundly unstable place to live (to say nothing of what would happen when the first big storm hits). I could see this being an even worse problem on my dirigible pleasure-city, though maybe we could just rise above a storm and wait it out.
I’m talking about a single huge structure, something solid and definitively island-like. Something big enough so that if you had to go to the other side of the island for some reason, you’d be like, “Dang! That’s a long way! This is going to put a serious dent in my schedule.” Something large enough that you could stand on it, look around, and if you didn’t know better, you’d say to yourself, “Yep, this is definitely an island.” And then you notice something odd, kneel, and brush away the sand under your feet to reveal a strange texture; at which point you would frown and exclaim, “Extraordinary! This island appears to be made of cast-iron!” And then a figure emerges from the jungle, and it’s James Mason, nattily dressed in a burgundy smoking jacket and holding a snifter of brandy, and he remarks laconically, “I fear you are mistaken, my unexpected guest. For you see, this ‘island,’ as you call it, is in fact a vehicle of my own design. Allow me to welcome you to my personal hideaway, the sovereign nation of Catgirltopia.”
At what size would the curvature of the Earth start becoming an issue for a big boat? Could you just build it so that it compensates for it? And just thinking of this, there is your first size limit, it can’t be bigger than the ocean where you will float it.
You’ll also want to make sure that you pay attention to depth.
The ocean is big.
The part of it that would accomodate a 50 foot draft is big, but not AS big.
Lemme know when you finish, I’d love to stop by for some fishing.
One of the proposals for a second airport here in Sydney was to have a floating one moored just off the coast, with high-speed ferries connecting it to the city. An international airport ain’t small either. I forget the details now, but while it was probably the wildest proposal, it was backed by a reputable Japanese consortium (from memory) rather than some guy with a Geocities site.
>I’ll wait for the physicists to come but I believe Earth is at the bottom of the air column where it sits.
I actually AM a physicist.
Now, which column are we talking about? It must be centered on Maryland, because the sky is right above me. What do the Australians see when they look overhead? Are they jammed right up against the bottom of the column?
that was a short wait for the physicists to arrive. Good thing you were not wearing your physicist uniform, otherwise it would have looked like slapstick comedy.
the “column” would be any wedge from the center of the earth “up”. Earth is not floating in the atmosphere. It is not being held up by the force exerted by the surrounding fluid (atmosphere). But you know that, of course
that was a short wait for the physicists to arrive. Good thing you were not wearing your physicist uniform, otherwise it would have looked like slapstick comedy.
