Science & Futurism with Isaac Arthur cover image

The Megastructure Compendium

Science & Futurism with Isaac Arthur

00:00

The Atlas Pillar

The atlas pillar is a type of active support structure able to hold up the sky or repeating layer of land above it. They are typically envisioned inside matrioshka shell worlds, where concentric shells covered in land and sea and artificially lit allow us to maximize use of mass for generating gravity and using as living area. Atlas pillars could potentially be made of some type of unobtanium that was vastly strong in compressive strength but would most likely have an interior track in which magnetically accelerated materials ran. If technology permits this, may magnetically shielded, super conducting tracks, requiring little to now additional cooling or power input. Strong ones may also hold artificial lighting or even additional shells of habitats

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