The technology level question answered.

[Darth Wong]

Do you really think he'll have anything else to say? He seemed to blow his load during all of those E-mail messages he sent, since none of his posts here were new. You could tell he was simply reciting his dogmatic viewpoint and ignoring peoples' rebuttals.

[Master of Ossus]

I'd love to see how Mr. Ender set up the parameters for his game. It generates numerous very questionable results, even from just examining what he says about it.

[The Kernel]

It's too bad, I'm quite taken with this one. He's the most enjoyable troll we've had since AJT.

[Xon]

I forget, how big can a double get in java before it rolls over?

A double is a IEEE format, so its the same for all platforms which implement it. Its roughtly ~5.0 x 10^–324 ... ~1.7 x 10^308

Not much of an issue.

[PackMule]

Do you really think he'll have anything else to say? He seemed to blow his load during all of those E-mail messages he sent, since none of his posts here were new. You could tell he was simply reciting his dogmatic viewpoint and ignoring peoples' rebuttals.

I am kinda hoping that he will provide some evidence of his "extensive" life experiences.

You are right though, he probably is spent.

[Darth Servo]

Damn, another trek newbie while I'm not on line.

[Stewart at SDI]

One of the posters above asked? parraphraising "I debate that the space program actualy did any thing."

I do not know if this person is joking or serious.

If it's a joke, will someone please tell me the protocall for finding out to save my time.

If he's really that ignorant, the following list of minor items and their implications might help.

Servo valved monopropellant (mono-methel-hydrazine) thrusters from the Gemini program. (These alowed space graft and satilites to maneuver very percisly. This in turn let satilites stay "on station" for long periods of time before they ran out of fuel, thus extending their usefull lives.)

Ultra high frequency commumications. ( This let space craft use significantly smaller antennas for any given gain, thus saving weight, and gave significantly longer ranges at any given power level. As a side benifit, they also permited a three orders of magnatude increase in data rate per channel. A decade later, the equipment gave MM Wave Radar sufficiant resolution to be able to identify a tank from a truck and eventually what kind of tank for fire and forget missiles. Weather radar is a spin off.)

The Fuel Cell. A laboratory curiosity since the middle 1800's, the space program turned it into a viable source of power. Today it is used as a surge source on the national power grid that saves energy, lessens polution and helps small communities get reliable power.

Matierials and fabrication technology advancements. Titanium is heavier than aluminium, (2.65-3.6) the space program gave us stronger aluminium alloys' and construction techniques that made the jumbo jet possable. Without this technology, aircraft were comming up on the Square/Cube Limmet of size and efficiancy.

I will only mention the following items but not their contributions to the technology that made the economic growth rate of the United States three times that of Europe and Japan for most of the last forty years. Lasers, IC Chips, Multy layer PC Boards, RAM, portable computers and their periffials, Thermal Imaging, CCD Imaging, Recce Satilites, Micro Gravity Manufacturing, Hot Isoplastic Pressing, Single Crystal Metal parts, Super Allois, NiCroMo Steel, SDI and Peace On Earth.

A very famious ecconomist, Milton Friedman, IIRC, claimed that the space program single handedly doubled the wealth of the average American in a single generation. The single greatest rate of growth in the history of civilisation.

[Straha]

Nice dodge, you take one small mention of something that I think personally, and turn it into a whole foot long post. Way to ignore the subject (and I can't believe I'm saying this) go off Topic!

MOre come later, lazy, tired, and dirty now.

[The Kernel]

Does this little rant having anything to do with the subject matter?

[Darth Wong]

It is a true distinguishing mark of a troll to completely ignore all of the best rebuttals to his argument in order to focus on a particular easily-attacked sentence taken out of context.

You can sum up "Stewart from SDI"'s post above as "I noticed a weakness in one sentence of your collective voluminous annihilation of my argument. I win."

[Straha]

It is a true distinguishing mark of a troll to completely ignore all of the best rebuttals to his argument in order to focus on a particular easily-attacked sentence taken out of context.

You can sum up "Stewart from SDI"'s post above as "I noticed a weakness in one sentence of your collective voluminous annihilation of my argument. I win."

Too add to it my comment was all the way back on Page 1.

[Stewart at SDI]

I asked one of the people who replied to me by direct MSG how to answer all the points made in rebuttal of my post. They replied make smaller posts on single subjects, don't put it all out at once.

I am new at this and would really like to know the rules. I am not online that much and can not post as many replies as I would like to. I am vastly out numbered here and just tonight 2/2/04, 21:30, read all of the replies to this thread. I was trying to narrow the debate not pick on a single defect. It is now 22:25, it took me this long to type this.

For this time I will concentrait on the DS-1's destruction of Alderan. When I stated that a different mechanism could account for the planets destruction, I was not stating that the other possability was THE answer, just that there were other possabilities.

The newest thinking on the heat inside this and many other planets, is that it is gennerated by a giant nuclear reactor at the center of the planets core. This is natural Thorium, Uranium and Plutoium between 40-80 KM in diamiter. These are the "heavy metals" that I refered to in the prior post. Since the vast majority of all of those elements consist of isotopes that do not fission from "thermal" neutrons, the reactor is self regulating. That Urainium has several isotopes, -233 and -235 that fission from impacts by "slow" "thermal" neutrons they are refered to as fissionable and constitute less than 1% of all "natural" Urainium. The othe 99.3% is mostly isotope -238 wich is concidered waist matierial or "depeated" after the fisile isotopes are removed. U-238 will fission when struck by high energy neutrons and is why it is included as a "jacket" around the Fusion secondary in the larger Nuclear weapons. Many of the largest weapons use less than one critical mass of fissile fuel to make them work. This is because the initiator, or fission, "trigger" is a so called "fractional crit" device. It is imploded to as much as 27 times "normal" density. Some times it is "bosted" by the introduction of Trintium gas just prior to detonation. The secondary or fusion part of the bomb is largely composed of Lithium duteride, a combination of lithium-6 or -7 and dutirium. This is in the form of a long cilinder surrounded by a U-238 sleeve that acts as a pusher and tamper. They could use lead or any other high density matirial for this but Uranium is heavier and does a better job. It also contributes to the yeald as I will get to later. In the center of the LiD cilinder is a rod of Plutoium that when crushed to very high density by the colapsing pusher fissions and acts like the "Igniter" to the fusion fuel. Combined with the primary pit they are less than one critical mass. One of the byproducts of the fusion is lots of very high energy neutrons. Left on their own it becomes an Enhanced Radiation weapon (Neutron Bomb) but if the secondary is surrounded by a second thicker sleeve of U-238, outside the plastic sleeve that is vaporised by the primarie's X-Rays to compress the secondary, these VHE Neutrons cause it to fission and contribute more than half the total yeald to larger H-Bombs. Thus the economical, efficiant fission/fusion/fission bombs we all enjoy so much.

Because the newest thinking on planetay formation and mechanics states that specific density of the "heavy" metals will naturaly cause them to sink to the core of the planet and that this causes a natural reactor to form and then heat the core and by convection, the rest of the planet.

My point is that "If the DS-1's beam just burned a small hole to the core, then fired a large pulse of HE neutrons that would cause it to fission, thus suppliing most of the energy to explode the planet."

This is a perfectly logical and much more practicle explanation to the fenominon witnessed in the movie than that the tiny, (reallitvly) DS-1, generated, transported, controled, focused and aimed the energy required to blow the planet to smitherines. That the enevitable leakage of even the tiniest most minute fraction of the energy required by the other hypothisis would vaporise the Death Star instantly. Which sounds the more likely solution? Transporting trillions of billions of millions of mega watts from the core reactor inside the DS-1 without absorbing any of that power or my plan?

It does not matter to the movie, in either case the planet is destroyed. It just makes a very large difference as to the power generated and thus to our discussion. In the absence of other data, the movie does not cite a mechanism. In either case the weapon is very powerfull. It can destroy a planet in a very short time and the effect is the technology in it self.

Anyone have a reason why my theriory might not be the right one?

Sincerely, Stewart.

[Luke Starkiller]

Just a couple of short questions from me.

I had thought that the leading theory of the composition of planetary cores was primarily iron, neither fissible nor fusable, do you have a source for this new theory you are citing?

Secondly how do you propose that the DS drilled such a deep hole in such a short time? Wouldn't that cause significant (visible) disruption of the planet?

[Kamakazie Sith]

It is a true distinguishing mark of a troll to completely ignore all of the best rebuttals to his argument in order to focus on a particular easily-attacked sentence taken out of context.

You can sum up "Stewart from SDI"'s post above as "I noticed a weakness in one sentence of your collective voluminous annihilation of my argument. I win."

I don't think he is a troll at all. I really do believe this guy is insane.

[Kamakazie Sith]

Just a couple of short questions from me.

I had thought that the leading theory of the composition of planetary cores was primarily iron, neither fissible nor fusable, do you have a source for this new theory you are citing?

Secondly how do you propose that the DS drilled such a deep hole in such a short time? Wouldn't that cause significant (visible) disruption of the planet?

Really the planet exploded too quickly for any visible activity to show, however, his little theory violates Occams Razor.

[Luke Starkiller]

Just a couple of short questions from me.

I had thought that the leading theory of the composition of planetary cores was primarily iron, neither fissible nor fusable, do you have a source for this new theory you are citing?

Secondly how do you propose that the DS drilled such a deep hole in such a short time? Wouldn't that cause significant (visible) disruption of the planet?

Really the planet exploded too quickly for any visible activity to show, however, his little theory violates Occams Razor.

Conceded, that still leaves my first question though.

[SirNitram]

You're a scientist? The proposal you make violates parsimony; it introduces extra unknowns without proof for htem. One might as well say unicorns power it.

In addition, I'm frankly scared by the idea people think unrefined heavy metals can be made to go off bang without energy inputs that would vastly exceed the energy requirements of Hypermatter. You are proposing not only that there is naturally occouring Plutonium, but it occours in quantities sufficient for the whole planet to, just by happenstance, happen to be sufficient to blow the whole thing to hell.

To illustrate the problem...

1e39 J. The canon energy state of Alderaan following the explosion.

8.9e13 J. The factual, 100% release of fission, per kilogram of material. Keep in mind we're talking about a naturally occouring fission bomb, so your efficiency will be closer to 1%.

~1e25 kg. The mass of the nuclear material required to blow the hell out of Alderaan, derived from the above. Someone check this math, please.

5.974e24 kg. The mass of Earth, and thus, logically, Alderaan.

Hrm.

For this to work, you need twice the Earth's mass in fissile material, in a naturally occouring state, just happening to be weapons grade.

Fuck the energy requirements for this; this boondoggle is ridiculous once you actually look at the amount of stuff involved!

[SirNitram]

See, this is why I hate the BS trekkies generate around the Death Star. They just go 'oo, this looks new and edgy and a source of energy. it must drop teh energy requierments and be totally feasible.'. Never once do they actually act like the scientists, scholars, and engineers they claim to be and take two minutes to run the fucking math. Meanwhile, an author living paycheck to paycheck can do the math inside two minutes, throw up why it's a load of crap, all the while watching SG-1's great episodes. The Replicator ones were on tonight, that was fun.

[Kazuaki Shimazaki]

This must be pretty new shit, since no one has ever heard of that ball of fissionable material. Let's do a reality check, shall we?

I'd grant you your 40000m radius (for 80km diameter) ball of fissionable material. The density of plutonium is 19816 kg per meter squared. The other elements are somewhere around that. Let's ust call it 20000kg per meter squared.

I know that extreme pressures increase density somewhat, but AFAIK its not an order of magnitude improvement at the pressures involved. And I'd give you something MUCH nicer. We wouldn't want even the smallest chance of it being true, would we?

4/3pi(r^3) = Volume

So, your spherical volume is 268,082,573,106,329m^3. Times that by 20000 for 5,361,651,462,126,580,460. Let's see ... that's about 5.4E18kg.

Now, I'd be nice here, and just convert that whole ball perfectly into energy instead of using the theoretical fission rate, at the full rate of 9E16J/kg. That's still only about 4.8E35J. That's a hefty sum, but the Alderaan explosion is evalauted at AT LEAST E38J class. In comparison, the energy you provided is a tiny drop in a bucket, to use a cliche.

That's basically Nitram's argument, re-written in another way. Basically, even if all your premises (which as yet you have left as a mere claim) are true and then some, the math doesn't come out right.

Yes, and saying that there was first a drill phase, then a neutron firing phase is a violation of Occam's Razor.

[Kazuaki Shimazaki]

See, this is why I hate the BS trekkies generate around the Death Star. They just go 'oo, this looks new and edgy

To be fair, it turns out it isn't that new. The idea of fission in the core has been around since suppoedly the 50s and 60s. For one reason or another, it seemed to have remained a 'fringe' theory, though. So far, I'm only parsing through online papers on Google supporting it. I hadn't found any real papers against it yet (though they should be somewhere.)

[Howedar]

all the while watching SG-1's great episodes. The Replicator ones were on tonight, that was fun.

Fuck! I missed them.

[Darth Wong]

I asked one of the people who replied to me by direct MSG how to answer all the points made in rebuttal of my post. They replied make smaller posts on single subjects, don't put it all out at once.

I am new at this and would really like to know the rules. I am not online that much and can not post as many replies as I would like to. I am vastly out numbered here and just tonight 2/2/04, 21:30, read all of the replies to this thread. I was trying to narrow the debate not pick on a single defect. It is now 22:25, it took me this long to type this.

You tried to "narrow" the debate to a subject which had nothing whatsoever to do with the main point. What about your turbolaser argument being shredded effortlessly? No comment about that?

For this time I will concentrait on the DS-1's destruction of Alderan. When I stated that a different mechanism could account for the planets destruction, I was not stating that the other possability was THE answer, just that there were other possabilities.

First you must show that these really are "possibilities" rather than nonsense.

The newest thinking on the heat inside this and many other planets, is that it is gennerated by a giant nuclear reactor at the center of the planets core. This is natural Thorium, Uranium and Plutoium between 40-80 KM in diamiter.

And what evidence is there for this speculation, since the heating effect is just as easily explained by radioactive decay in heavy metals scattered throughout the planet's mass? Please give us a source which can be verified independently (none of this "I know a guy whose name must remain secret" bullshit).

These are the "heavy metals" that I refered to in the prior post. Since the vast majority of all of those elements consist of isotopes that do not fission from "thermal" neutrons, the reactor is self regulating. That Urainium has several isotopes, -233 and -235 that fission from impacts by "slow" "thermal" neutrons they are refered to as fissionable and constitute less than 1% of all "natural" Urainium. The othe 99.3% is mostly isotope -238 wich is concidered waist matierial or "depeated" after the fisile isotopes are removed. U-238 will fission when struck by high energy neutrons and is why it is included as a "jacket" around the Fusion secondary in the larger Nuclear weapons. Many of the largest weapons use less than one critical mass of fissile fuel to make them work. This is because the initiator, or fission, "trigger" is a so called "fractional crit" device. It is imploded to as much as 27 times "normal" density. Some times it is "bosted" by the introduction of Trintium gas just prior to detonation. The secondary or fusion part of the bomb is largely composed of Lithium duteride, a combination of lithium-6 or -7 and dutirium. This is in the form of a long cilinder surrounded by a U-238 sleeve that acts as a pusher and tamper. They could use lead or any other high density matirial for this but Uranium is heavier and does a better job. It also contributes to the yeald as I will get to later. In the center of the LiD cilinder is a rod of Plutoium that when crushed to very high density by the colapsing pusher fissions and acts like the "Igniter" to the fusion fuel. Combined with the primary pit they are less than one critical mass. One of the byproducts of the fusion is lots of very high energy neutrons. Left on their own it becomes an Enhanced Radiation weapon (Neutron Bomb) but if the secondary is surrounded by a second thicker sleeve of U-238, outside the plastic sleeve that is vaporised by the primarie's X-Rays to compress the secondary, these VHE Neutrons cause it to fission and contribute more than half the total yeald to larger H-Bombs. Thus the economical, efficiant fission/fusion/fission bombs we all enjoy so much.

All of this nuclear weapon design information is totally irrelevant to the natural uranium inside the Earth, which is not refined or carefully arranged like the material in a nuclear bomb. This is what we call "the smokescreen of superfluous detail", and it will fool no one. Anyone could simply copy and paste that from the infamous Nuclear Weapons FAQ; it tells us nothing whatsoever about the viability of your theory.

Because the newest thinking on planetay formation and mechanics states that specific density of the "heavy" metals will naturaly cause them to sink to the core of the planet and that this causes a natural reactor to form and then heat the core and by convection, the rest of the planet.

How odd that so much uranium remains in the crust, then. Note: that is an observable fact, as compared to your speculation.

My point is that "If the DS-1's beam just burned a small hole to the core, then fired a large pulse of HE neutrons that would cause it to fission, thus suppliing most of the energy to explode the planet."

Yet you said absolutely nothing to prove that speculation. You simply blabbered a lot of totally irrelevant information about nuclear weapon design. Unless you honestly believe the naturally occurring uranium in the Earth's mass is arranged just like a giant man-made nuclear fission bomb, that information had nothing whatsoever to do with your claim.

Let's subject your idea to the microscope, shall we? Take your 80km wide sphere of uranium, assume it's three times denser than normal due to pressure. That gives us 1.5E19 kg of uranium. Let's say that 1% of that is an easily fissionable isotope; that gives us 1.5E17 kg of fissile material. Now, multiply that by ~9E13 J/kg, and you get something on the order of 1E31 J, which is not enough to destroy the planet.

In other words, you're assuming a big sphere of uranium at the core, a near-lightspeed neutron beam which causes fission in this mass instead of scattering it, and about 100 million percent efficiency.

This is a perfectly logical and much more practicle explanation to the fenominon witnessed in the movie than that the tiny, (reallitvly) DS-1, generated, transported, controled, focused and aimed the energy required to blow the planet to smitherines. That the enevitable leakage of even the tiniest most minute fraction of the energy required by the other hypothisis would vaporise the Death Star instantly. Which sounds the more likely solution? Transporting trillions of billions of millions of mega watts from the core reactor inside the DS-1 without absorbing any of that power or my plan?

So you're saying that the virtually 100% efficiency required for the Death Star is less plausible than the hundreds of millions of percent efficiencies you need for your scheme?

It does not matter to the movie, in either case the planet is destroyed. It just makes a very large difference as to the power generated and thus to our discussion. In the absence of other data, the movie does not cite a mechanism.

Actually, the movie states quite clearly that the Death Star has "enough power to destroy an entire planet". And your laughable argument is hardly the sort of thing to disprove that.

In either case the weapon is very powerfull. It can destroy a planet in a very short time and the effect is the technology in it self.

Anyone have a reason why my theriory might not be the right one?

Yes, many of them. Perhaps you should try looking here in order to get started.

[Darth Wong]

To be fair, it turns out it isn't that new. The idea of fission in the core has been around since suppoedly the 50s and 60s. For one reason or another, it seemed to have remained a 'fringe' theory, though. So far, I'm only parsing through online papers on Google supporting it. I hadn't found any real papers against it yet (though they should be somewhere.)

One of the reasons is that existing models of radiogenic heating are good enough to explain the Earth's internal heat generation, so there is no need for an additional heat-generation mechanism. In fact, it would be difficult to explain where the extra heat would go, since radiogenic heating would still occur.

[HRogge]

My point is that "If the DS-1's beam just burned a small hole to the core, then fired a large pulse of HE neutrons that would cause it to fission, thus suppliing most of the energy to explode the planet."

This is a perfectly logical and much more practicle explanation ....
Anyone have a reason why my theriory might not be the right one?

Maybe the fact that the core of Earth is mostly iron ? The amount of fissionable substances in Earth is very low, even if the DS would manage to make them react all at once you don't get enough energy to overcome the gravitational binding energy of Earth ( and of course the DS1 pumped in MUCH more energy than this, we can see it on the speed of the explosion ).

[Mr Flibble]

See, this is why I hate the BS trekkies generate around the Death Star. They just go 'oo, this looks new and edgy

To be fair, it turns out it isn't that new. The idea of fission in the core has been around since suppoedly the 50s and 60s. For one reason or another, it seemed to have remained a 'fringe' theory, though. So far, I'm only parsing through online papers on Google supporting it. I hadn't found any real papers against it yet (though they should be somewhere.)

We should get CaptainChewbacca's opinion on this, seeing as he is our resident geophysicist. I am doing geophysics at uni, and have heard nothing of this theory, so I think it is very much a fringe theory (especialy since some of our lecturers are fond of telling us the fringe theories, such as the iceball earth theory). I am too lazy to look at all the google sites to see if I can find the basis of it, or any flaws in it. However what I have read seems to indicate that the normal Nikel/Iron core theory with radioactive elements in the crust and mantl, prviding more heat, adequately explains the state of the Earth today. Either way as your calculations show it wouldn't account for what happens to Alderaan.