Starquake.pdf

15 min 31 g cheela generation
29 sec 1 g = 1 great = 144
turns
(equiv. to human year)
0.2 sec 1 t = 1 turn of Egg (equiv. to human day)
17 msec 1/12t =dothturn (equiv. to human hour)
1.4 msec 1/144t = grethturn (equiv. to human 10 min)
115 msec 1/1728t = methturn (equiv. to human minute)
10 msec 1/20736t = sethturn (equiv. to human 4 sec)
800 nsec 1/28832t = blink (equiv. to human blink)
OUR NUCLEONIC FRIENDS
One can hardly imagine a more alien life form than a cheela. A typical cheela weighs the same as a
typical human, about 70 kilograms; but the nuclei in the cheela body have lost their electron clouds, so
the nuclei are condensed into a tiny body that is squashed by the high gravity and stretched by the high
magnetic field into an oval pancake shape a half-centimeter in diameter and a half-millimeter high—alittle
larger than a sesame seed.
The body is tough and flexible, with a tread on the bottom like that of a slug. Unlike a slug, a cheela can
move equally well in any direction. The cheela have twelve eyes spaced around their periphery, giving
them 360-degree vision. The eyes are up on stalks like those of a slug, but because of the high gravity the
stalk is thicker. The cheela see using the ultraviolet and soft X-rays emitted by the 8200-K glowing
surface of Egg.
Despite their alien appearance, the cheela are not thought of as ugly, terrifying monsters. Instead, they
have become our friends. One suspects that their small size may have something to do with it, as well as
the fact that they cannot use anything on Earth, or even the Earth itself. Anything made out of normal
matter would collapse at a touch from their ultra-dense nucleonic bodies.
LIFE ON A NEUTRON STAR
Living on a neutron star is very different from living on the Earth, but our friends, the cheela, find it very
pleasant. The very high gravity field of 67 billion times Earth gravity means that everything must be built
low to the crust and very sturdy. The very high magnetic field of a trillion gauss tends to elongate objects