Yet again you demonstrate your stupidity. First, as mentioned SEVERAL TIMES TO YOU IN THE EARLIER THREAD, the theory calls for a 5km ball, not an 80km ball.

Second, you need 1E38 J, not 4E32 J.

Third, this "uranium droplet" would not be composed of 100% fissile material, you moron, or it would have gone off already!

How fucking stupid can you be? Don't you realize that most uranium is useless for that purpose, which is why uranium in which the fissile isotope has been removed is called DEPLETED uranium and considered garbage?

Were did you read that? Both of the articles that I read had dimentions of 25-50 miles and 31-62 miles. ( see POPULAR SCIENCE.)

What makes you think it takes that much energy to blow up a planet? There are several compeeting theories and the better ones come up with much less energy than that, generated by the overcomeing gravity model.

Several isotopes of Thorium and U-238 (Depleated Urainium.) all fission when struck by fast nutrons like those generated in D-D and D-T reactions in thermonuclear weapons.

Utterly irrelevant. The possibility that the superlaser system may not operate at 100% efficency does not negate the observed phenomenon of the weapon delivering enough energy to blow apart a terrestrial-sized planet very violently.

Your laughable (and unoriginal) theory has been dealt with and shredded several dozen times before.

And as has been pointed out already, the fact that the superlaser blasts apart an entire planet is observed evidence that it can deliver the energy required.

The fact that the Death Star was never affected by any observable problem with disposal of waste heat testifies to the capacity of its energy control and transport system.

And Stewart, if you try and use the Exhaust Port as "proof" that the DS had trouble with heat overproduction, bear in mind that the Athlon 64 and Opteron processors both have circuitry to prevent a thermal overload, but that doesn't mean that they have trouble with excess heat! It's there as a precaution - in fact, I seem to remember the novel stating that.

(Not the best example I'm sure, but it was the first one I thought of)

Not true again. The fact that they had atleast one "small, unshielded, thermal exhaust port" is proof that they had at least some concerns on this matter. Other wise the film is silent on the matter and we are left to make better conjecture than your last sentance.

That has nothing to do with the post in either way. The prior post said that the DS did not have any problem with thermal dissipation. I pointed out that not showing a problem and the existance of the port do not exclude or include each other. Therefore the film is not silent on the subject but we do not know if they have problems or not, but that measures have been taken to aleaviate a problem or potential problem.

You have just proven your ignorance beyond all shadow of a dought!

Several isotopes of Thorium and U-238 (Depleated Urainium.) all fission when struck by fast nutrons like those generated in D-D and D-T reactions in thermonuclear weapons. That is why all larger Thermonuclear weapons get 50% or more from the Depleated Urainium sleeve that is placed around the thermonuclear "Secondary".

At least one isotope of Thorium, U-233, U-235 and all the isotopes of plutonium that I can remember will all fission when struck by so-called slow "thermal" nutrons which is why they are used to make small Fission bombs. It is easy to get slow nutrons but hard to make fast ones.

I recomend that you read Richard Rhodes's THE MAKING OF THE ATOMIC BOMB and DARK SUN. They are probably the best un-clasified works on the subject and after you have read them you will not be so ignorant on the subject.

Do you KNOW why U-238 is stable? It's because it requires a net input of energy to cause it to fission!!!

U-238 fission consumes more energy than it releases! It is a net-loss reaction!

It is realivant. If a compeeting theory can explain the effects seen, without having to suspend our disbelife on the efficiancy of the mechanism, THEN IT IS THE BETTER THEORY and it must take president over the infirior one that it replaces. (According to the rules on this web site, anyway?)

Your ignorance of nuclear physics and weapons is showing. Read Rhodes books.





I dispute that the above figure is cannon! If so where? The movies are silent on the energy out put. The EU matierial is of a lessor cannon acording to His Highness and the figures derived from faulty assumptions are them selves faulty. If the velosity of the leading fragments from the explosion, as shown in the film is ~17,000 Km/S, then the energy of the typical planet burst would be ~4^32J.



8.36e13J acording to my DoD manuals. Where did you get your figure from?

Why? The very best bomb design ever published quoted compressions of 27 to 64X for the "Polish atomic hand grenade". Will send copies of the article for a finn. ($5.00) Normal "implosion" bombs make do with 8-27X and get efficiancies much higher than 1%. I wonder if Mikie could compute the compression of a 80 klick ball of the three most common elements that will fission when struck by fast nutrons when compressed by the weight of the entire planet? After all, this is the kind of problem CME's are trained to do. I'll bet it's higher than 27X.



Again this argument is based on faulty assumtions that have no bassis in weaponeering. In addition, they make other assumptions that are based on faulty logic and or ignorance of the effects as shown. More enlightened figures are 2.7e14M^3 at sea level pressure. That is a ball only 40,052M in radius. There are very many effects that could rais the efficiancy much higher.



You know what they say about people whu assume things they know nothing about.

Hrm.



Faulty assumptions again. Read Rhodes books. Then you might have a glimmer of knowledge on this topic.



You are right, lets chuck the whole argument based on your ignorance and faulty assumptions.



If you had read any of the articles, there are several interesting theories that still await proof. But they are all better than the problem of waist energy in the DET Model DS beam.

Wrong again the core is "THOUGHT" to contain iron and nickle with other denser metals inside that. The heavy stuff does not float on the liquid iron it sinks.



Boy do you have to go back to school. Your ignorance is showing. You just said that the friction caused the heat and that then caused the magnetism! The facts are that the heat drives the tectonics, not the other way around.

[quoite] this isn't to say of course that there might not be uranium floating in the mantle or near the core,

however it's a rather big leap of logic to assume that it's what's making it stay warm,

when in fact it's more likely due to the immense pressure as a result of the plates, the crust and the mantle around it. pressure + objects = friction = heat. see? simple.

No, it's not been discredited. It's just that some people have a theory that the uranium all collected in a 5km wide ball at the centre, whereas others think it's more evenly distributed throughout the planet's mass. Doesn't change anything either way since neither theory makes the preposterous assertion that it's all pure fissile material. Not to mention the fact that it would be many orders of magnitude too small anyway, and would have gone off by now if that were the case.

So it is actually your position that a material mostly made up of iron, was induced to fission?

Do you know anything whatso ever about nuclear physics?

No, I dispute that the gravitational binding energy is not the lower limet. If all the mass of the planet had escape velosity, why would the fragments shown in the film clearly be moving parrallel to and in the same direction as the Milenium Falcon as it approched the last known pos of the planet?

Because it flew through it moron.

You have to be very carefull about the assumptions that you start with if you are going to get good data.

Like your assumptions that you can induce anything to fission?

That they are sufficiently advanced that it is not an issue; afterall they have no problem disposing of thewaste heat from Coruscant.

There is no discrepancy to explain.

Yes, the Death Star would undoubtedly have to dissipate some portion of the energy generated for the superlaser blast, but since you have no idea what portion, your argument against the DET theory is completely unfounded. We don't expect the mechanism to be 100% efficient, but virtually anything less might be feasible with Imperial/Republic technology. For all you know, the Death Star had to dissipate less than one megaton of energy (4.2E+15 J) in the course of delivering it's planet-shattering energy beam (1E+38 J).

Until you can demonstrate that inefficiency of the superlaser mechanism forced the Death Star to absorb more energy than the known laws of physics would allow it to reasonably handle, you have no basis for disputing the DET theory due to overheating of the weapon system.

I don't even see why we should humour his delusion that DET should be considered a "theory" at all. It is the default explanation of thermodynamics. It's like saying that you need to provide evidence for the "direct impact" theory when one football player runs into another. It is an inevitable outcome of the laws of physics, and he is going to need some pretty impressive evidence to support any alternative explanation.