We already know that you could use distant objects for practical purposes. A star can be use to heat your home, or make vitamin B. Pulsars can be used, like atoms, to run a clock here on earth.

Now suppose we consider systems of interacting astronomical object as molecules, and interacting astronomical molecules as material. We could then "design" things from them, though, design in this sense would largely be designing instruments that can harness the usefulness of these highly remote materials.

EDIT: Sort of baked in the idea of a "self-similar cosmos" or a "fractal universe". Even If only heuristically, stars and atoms may be meaningfully analogous.

I guess Half-Bakery itself may be baked. The original version was called "academia".
-- fishboner, Jul 18 2012

Gravitational Lens http://en.wikipedia.../Gravitational_lens
A very useful, very distant device [fishboner, Jul 26 2012]

Gravity Assist http://en.wikipedia...wiki/Gravity_assist
Strings together a number of distant objects forming a single device. Probe not included. [fishboner, Jul 26 2012]

Brown Dwarf Oort Cloud device http://www.space.co...study-suggests.html
To "use" this device, you would simply need to wait until the cycle repeats, calculate where the impacts will occur, and be on the opposite side of earth. [fishboner, Jul 26 2012]

Self-Similar Cosmological Model: Introduction and Empirical Tests http://www3.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw/OBS
After calling attention to the empirical and theoretical motivations for considering the hypothesis of a self-similar cosmos, the basic concepts and scaling rules of the Self-Similar Cosmological Model are presented. The results of a diverse set of 20 falsification tests are then shown to provide strong quantitative support for the uniqueness and broad applicability of the self-similar scale transformation equations, which successfully correlate physical parameters of atomic, stellar, and galactic scale systems. Possible implications of these results are discussed. [fishboner, Jul 26 2012]

But the only thing between molecules is nothing.
-- xandram, Jul 18 2012


Are you saying we should rearrange stars?
-- DIYMatt, Jul 18 2012


Like a giant celestial gravity meter. Humanity hasn't really crossed the scale/dimensions well enough yet.
-- wjt, Jul 18 2012


This makes perfect sense to me.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jul 18 2012


Wait - did I say 'perfect'? I meant 'no'.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jul 18 2012


with a bunch of mirrors on the roof and a network of conduits you could concentrate starlight and use it to decently nightlight a home.
-- FlyingToaster, Jul 18 2012


DiyMatt,

The idea is that the arranging is being done for us and we need only usefully construe the arrangements.

I guess it just bugs me that all the elementary particles get to form really complex useful things, and really large objects just get to behave like a bunch of dumb hot rocks.

Perhaps systems of large objects will interact to form something like a reflector. If a focal point of such an arrangement converges nearby enough, would we not be interested in collecting data from that focal point?
-- fishboner, Jul 19 2012


I think it might be time to reevaluate the proposal for the Thwarted Pineapple.
-- Hive_Mind, Jul 19 2012


Halfbakery really living up to the moniker these days.
-- WcW, Jul 19 2012


//the arranging is being done for us and we need only usefully construe the arrangements//

By whom, and why? And are you sure you used the word "construe" correctly?
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jul 19 2012


//A star can be use to heat your home// Excellent, I'll take two. When can you deliver?
-- pocmloc, Jul 20 2012


//By whom, and why? And are you sure you used the word "construe" correctly?//

An analogous example would be when we used very high mass objects, which curve space, as a means of seeing around the object itself to reveal stars we may have not otherwise seen. We first needed to understand what to look for. Physicists predicted we would be able to do this long before we had the instruments to actually do it.
-- fishboner, Jul 24 2012


Voyager had to get out there and mix it up with these distant objects to make them of any use. I think that if you have to get closer to these distant objects to use them they can no longer be called distant.
-- bungston, Jul 24 2012


//Voyager had to get out there and mix it up with these distant objects to make them of any use. I think that if you have to get closer to these distant objects to use them they can no longer be called distant.//

Even as voyager zipped past Jupiter, a small probe acting in our stead is really not much different than a very large earth-bound telescope addressing the distance problem by way of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Prometheus spacecrafts would have cost infinitely more than Voyager by any metric, except perhaps time.
-- fishboner, Jul 26 2012



random, halfbakery