By Ayo Akinfe
As the world’s largest black nation, Nigeria has got to start thinking of how to leapfrog industrialised countries. Let us start off with plans to manufacture a replacement artificial sun
[1] Every second, the sun’s core fuses about 600m tonnes of hydrogen into helium and in the process converts 4m tonnes of matter into energy. This energy, which can take between 10,000 and 170,000 years to escape the core, is the source of the sun’s light and heat
[2] Now, far in the future, when hydrogen fusion in the sun’s core diminishes to the point whereby it is no longer in hydrostatic equilibrium, the sun’s core will undergo a marked increase in density and temperature which will push its outer layers to expand, eventually transforming the sun into a red giant
[3] This process will make the sun large enough to render earth uninhabitable approximately five billion years from now
[4] Under this process, the sun will shed its outer layers and become a dense type of cooling star and no longer produce energy by fusion but will still glow and give off heat from its previous fusion for trillions of years. After that it might become a super dense hypothetical black dwarf, giving off no more energy
[5] As we all know, the enormous effect of the sun on earth has been recognised since prehistoric times. In many old cultures, the sun was thought of as a deity. In ancient Egypt for instance, the sun god Ra, was their most senior deity
[6] For now, the synodic rotation of earth and its orbit around the sun are the basis of some solar calendars. The predominant Gregorian calendar, which is based upon the standard 16th-century interpretation of the sun’s observed movement as actual movement, is what gives us 12 months annual years
[7] Historically, great nations always leapfrog those ahead of them as they make quantum leaps forward. It is time for Nigeria to do this and start manufacturing a new sun that will take over from the current one
[8] There is nothing melodramatic or extraordinary about this suggestion. As we speak, China is manufacturing artificial moons to light up its cities at night
[9] I want to see President Bola Tinubu open an International Artificial Sun Institute in somewhere like maybe Katsina where work can start on manufacturing a new device
[10] By 2050, Nigeria is going to become the world’s third most populous nation after India and China. We thus have to elevate our level of thinking substantially. As a people, we need to master the art of national and futuristic dreaming!
