More Trektardism

[Starglider]

Since it DID cause the planet to explode, what the hell kind of question is that?

I think he means 'would not be able to make the planet explode without a chain reaction'. But the answer is no of course. There's no way a beam of strongly interacting particles could blast all the material in its way out of the planet, plus avoid being diffracted at all, plus somehow stop the incredible pressures of the core pushing new material into the path of the beam as quickly as it was removed. I've seen this question answered before on SDN at least once, but I can't recall which thread it was in.

[Ryan Thunder]

A question somebody else asked me about this got me thinking; since the beam is so thin (relative to the world, that is), would it be more likely to just punch a hole straight through the planet, rather than causing it to explode?

Since it DID cause the planet to explode, what the hell kind of question is that?

That's what I thought. But he insists that it couldn't have been direct energy transfer because the beam was so thin relative to the planet, and therefore would have only actually exposed to a narrow corridor of the planets mass.

He's not arguing about what happened. That much is obvious. He's arguing about HOW it happened...

[Ryan Thunder]

Since it DID cause the planet to explode, what the hell kind of question is that?

I think he means 'would not be able to make the planet explode without a chain reaction'. But the answer is no of course. There's no way a beam of strongly interacting particles could blast all the material in its way out of the planet, plus avoid being diffracted at all, plus somehow stop the incredible pressures of the core pushing new material into the path of the beam as quickly as it was removed. I've seen this question answered before on SDN at least once, but I can't recall which thread it was in.

Didn't see this before I replied. Thanks.

[Darth Wong]

Nuclear weapons do supply a good example (the archetypal example in fact) of a physical process that is much harder to harness for power than for weapons; nuclear fusion. We've had fusion bombs since the mid 50s, but fifty years later we're still a couple of decades away from practical fusion power reactors. But this just confirms that a physical process of this nature can exist, there's no evidence that it actually does exist in the case of the SW superlaser.

You're forgetting that the Sun harnesses nuclear fusion for power naturally, and did so for billions of years before someone came up with a thermonuclear bomb. It's just a matter of scale. Similarly, there was a natural nuclear fission reactor running for centuries.

The physical principle employed by both firearms and internal combustion engines is using rapid combustion to create a high pressure which is used to drive a piston. Combustion alone is a much more general process, too general to be useful here; furnaces heat things up but don't produce mechanical energy that can be used to do arbitrary jobs. Steam engines do, but external combustion is still a substantially different design. Internal combustion is close enough that a few inventors did actually build gunpowder-fueled engines before switching to more practical fuels.

True, although steam engines are still more complex than "light off fuel, watch it push something". The earliest gunpowder applications were rockets, before cannons became practical (a rocket doesn't have to hold together, after all).

[Lord Poe]

The guy who apparently runs Starfleetjedi.com has shown up in the thread now. Maybe we can get someone worth debating with now.

So, to describe the event: A small tree is exploded by fire from an AT-ST. Note that the trunk is not burnt; it merely is burst by vaporizing water. Energy of this event: 1-10 megajoules, depending on how big the tree is.

There's just nothing new under the sun at all for Trekkies, is there? From 1996:

We've covered this already! The blasters' intensity were toned town to fry ewoks, not deforestation. And yes, SW weapons have power settings, says so in the tech manual. This goes for hand blasters and AT-ST guns. I quote: "Power output can be varied on most models; the highest setting on most blasters will VAPORIZE any material short of carbon-fiber-reinforced durasteel. Minimum settings {will stun}"

[Batman]

The phrase 'the trunk is not burned, it is merely burst by vapourizing water' speaks for itself, I think.

[Starglider]

You're forgetting that the Sun harnesses nuclear fusion for power naturally, and did so for billions of years before someone came up with a thermonuclear bomb.

No, I'm not; the Sun isn't a manufactured artefact. It produces heat, but it isn't a reactor in the usual technolgical sense because it doesn't produce energy that can be made to do useful work. To turn the Sun into an actual power generator you'd have to build a dyson sphere of energy collectors.

Weapons don't have the requirement that their energy be convertable into arbitrary forms of work the way reactors do; they just need to output the energy in a form destructive to the enemy. Sometimes this makes a difference and sometimes it doesn't, depending on whether the energy conversion step is the hard part of the design or not. Modern turbogenerator machinery can turn arbitrary sources of heat into electrical power fairly efficiently, but it has problems with very high but intermittent power outputs, because of the difficultly of producing a strong enough containment chamber and enough thermal buffer mass. This is one reason why the plan to produce fusion power by exploding fusion bombs in an underground cavern (surrounded by what amounted to a compact geothermal power station) was not terribly practical - the other was the high cost of fabricating the devices themselves. Using a total-conversion effect that had similarly demanding (relative to the civilisation's technology base) minimum energy requirements to generate power would have similar problems to the fusion-bomb-power-station concept.

It's just a matter of scale.

Exactly; gravitational confinement does not work (for generating fusion reactions) at anything less than the mass of a brown dwarf, as the Jupiter demonstrates by not supporting fusion. Similarly to make any sense at all this hypothetical chain-reaction effect would have to fail to work at anything less than (very high) superlaser energy densities.

Similarly, there was a natural nuclear fission reactor running for centuries.

Sometimes there are good natural prototypes and sometimes there aren't. Trees struck by lightning were an excellent natural prototype for open fires. The natural nuclear reactors would've been a moderately interesting prototype if we'd known about them, in that they illustrate how to solve the neutron moderation issue, but we didn't discover them early enough to help. Stars don't help as examples of how to build fusion reactors at all; aside from using the utterly impractical gravitational confinement, they use an elaborate fusion reaction chain that fuses protium, which has far too low a cross section and too high a minimum energy for practical power or weapon use. The best stars can contribute is the most basic proof of concept. AFAIK there were no natural prototypes for steam engines at all.

The earliest gunpowder applications were rockets, before cannons became practical (a rocket doesn't have to hold together, after all).

An artillery rocket only has to hold together for the duration of its flight, but more importantly its nozzle operates at a much lower pressure than the breech of a cannon, because the fuel burns so much slower. Thus it's much less of a materials challenge.

[Batman]

The sun doesn't produce energy that can be made to do useful work. Drat. Somebody tell the world everything done with solar power was apparently a hoax.

[Starglider]

The sun doesn't produce energy that can be made to do useful work. Drat. Somebody tell the world everything done with solar power was apparently a hoax.

Page me when you start utilising more than 0.0000001% of the Sun's energy output. Though perhaps in the mean time you'd like to invest in my revolutionary 0.0000001% efficient power station design.

[Ryan Thunder]

The sun doesn't produce energy that can be made to do useful work. Drat. Somebody tell the world everything done with solar power was apparently a hoax.

Wha?!

You can't be serious. Think, man; sunlight reflected off of an array of mirrors is focused on a boiler, creating steam, which powers a turbine.

What's so useless about that?

[Ryan Thunder]

And of course, good ol' photovoltaic shiz.

[Batman]

The sun doesn't produce energy that can be made to do useful work. Drat. Somebody tell the world everything done with solar power was apparently a hoax.

Wha?!
You can't be serious. Think, man; sunlight reflected off of an array of mirrors is focused on a boiler, creating steam, which powers a turbine.
What's so useless about that?

Dunno. Ask Starglider.

[Ryan Thunder]

Blargh, my bad. I only skimmed his post.

Starglider, what the fuck is that supposed to mean?

[Batman]

The sun doesn't produce energy that can be made to do useful work. Drat. Somebody tell the world everything done with solar power was apparently a hoax.

Page me when you start utilising more than 0.0000001% of the Sun's energy output. Though perhaps in the mean time you'd like to invest in my revolutionary 0.0000001% efficient power station design.

You didn't claim we didn't use ALL of the sun's power. You claimed it wasn't useful PERIOD, which reality says it is. Incidentally, that example is complete and utter garbage.

[Darth Wong]

Stars don't help as examples of how to build fusion reactors at all

Neither do thermonuclear bombs. All I'm saying is that if we're talking about the underlying reaction, it's the same, and it's easier to get it running at a low rate than a high one. That's true of most reactions, and weapons usually require a very high reaction rate. Nuclear weapons actually require a spectacularly high reaction rate: much greater than anything the Sun could accomplish. In order to create a nuclear fusion weapon, we had to actually go beyond what the Sun does.

[Darth Servo]

You mean Darkstar's bizarre idea that SW weapons have the magical ability to convert any kind of matter into pure energy at point of contact in a self-sustaining chain reaction that would be the holy grail of efficient power generation, yet their power generation is limited to nuclear fusion?

Much as I hate to defend Darkstar in any sense, has he actually made any claim that SW weapons other than the DS superlaser work like this? Of course ATOC's micro-superlasers made the 'the DS superlaser uses entirely different physics to the rest of SW tech' argument even weaker than it was previously.

[Rabid Trektard]
b-b-but the Death Star was designed by the separatists, a completely differnet group than those who made the Republic gunships so you can't really say its the same technology
[/rt]

Yes, I know. Pathetic. Its like saying a Chevy and a Toyota use completely different technology.

[Starglider]

Stars don't help as examples of how to build fusion reactors at all

Neither do thermonuclear bombs.

Actually historically they did. Unlike stars hydrogen bombs do use the same nuclear reactions as fusion reactors; D-T fusion (with D-D side reactions) and Li->T breeding. Fusion bomb tests confirmed the reaction rates of thermal deuterium plasma (that's what 'thermonuclear' means), at a time when no lab experiment could produce anything like the temperatures and presures required for sustained fusion (and no decent empirical models existed; that's why the first fusion test was so far over the expected yield). Fusion bomb secondaries are also quite a good model for laser-fusion pellets, which are basically scaled down versions lacking a plutonium 'spark plug' - thermonuclear bombs validated the whole concept of 'radiation implosion', which was originally highly speculative. Inertial confinement is still working on scaling that process down to a point where it produces useful power without producing too much power to contain in a practically small ignition chamber.

That's true of most reactions, and weapons usually require a very high reaction rate.

True. The artillery rockets you mention are something of an exception, but that's a reaction engine, not a warhead.

Nuclear weapons actually require a spectacularly high reaction rate: much greater than anything the Sun could accomplish. In order to create a nuclear fusion weapon, we had to actually go beyond what the Sun does.

Yes, because nuclear bombs substitute inertia for gravity - and we could only do this by using much more 'volatile' reactants, just as guns require much more volatile rectants than natural fires. This is drifting off the point a bit though; Darkstar's energy conversion notion doesn't seem to involve any sort of reactants at all, assuming the superlaser beam itself doesn't consist of some special sort of fuel (which is not so much stretching credulity as stamping on the remaining shreds).

[Darth Servo]

Isn't it implied in the existence of said micro-superlasers, not to mention the obvious fact that even if the Death Star was the only platform with this ability (a preposterous assumption for many reasons), it should also be able to use it to generate power? He claims that the DS superlaser has this magic holy grail super mass-energy conversion ability but its own power reactor is limited to nuclear fusion, because the Empire doesn't have the technology for anything more powerful.

Did you see his "analysis" of the ROTS novelilzation on the fusion issue?

Novelization: "Children on Tatooine tell each other of the dragons that live inside the suns; smaller cousins of the sun-dragons are supposed to live inside the fusion furnaces that power everything from starships to Podracers."

Darkstar: Once again, we have it clearly stated that Star Wars power systems are fusion-based like suns are, much as was seen in the other novelizations. It can hardly get any plainer.
This stands in stark contradiction to the claims made elsewhere.
EU-philes are attempting to claim that this quote is either non-literal, based on children's delusions, or is somehow supposed to refer to fusion of EU hypermatter, any of which are intended to maintain the claim of ridiculously-large energy generation numbers for SW vessels. Just reading the quote, however, shows that none of these attempted reinterpretations have any basis in reality. Sun-type fusion is the power system of Star Wars vehicles.

Yes, Darkstar is actually insisting on a literal interpretation of a statement that talks about DRAGONS living in stars.

I called him on this years ago, and he tried to defend it by saying that it's historically always been harder to make power reactors than weapons out of any given scientific principle. But that's quite false; it's much easier to make a nuclear reactor than a nuclear bomb. It's easier to make a primitive fire than a primitive firearm. Etc.

He also insisted even the smallest reactor breech would destroy the ship.

[Darth Servo]

I'm uncertain how to procede now that JMSpock has pulled out a Darkstar "chain reaction" theory, since I have little idea what I would be talking about to contradict the claim.

If anyone would be willing to take over in that respect, I would appreciate it.

JMSpock apparently doesn't even know what the 'greater-than' sign (>) means. He's a complete Mindless Scooter Cockgoblin with heavy emphasis on 'mindless'

[Starglider]

Fusion bomb secondaries are also quite a good model for laser-fusion pellets, which are basically scaled down versions lacking a plutonium 'spark plug' - thermonuclear bombs validated the whole concept of 'radiation implosion', which was originally highly speculative. Inertial confinement is still working on scaling that process down to a point where it produces useful power without producing too much power to contain in a practically small ignition chamber.

I forgot to add, this similarity is reversible; intertial confinement fusion pellets are quite good models for fusion bomb secondaries in many ways. This is why the US National Ignition Facility is dual use technology; one of its primary missions is 'stockpile stewardship', i.e. collecting data to verify how US fusion weapons will perform without actually setting them off.

[Darth Wong]

Actually historically they did. Unlike stars hydrogen bombs do use the same nuclear reactions as fusion reactors; D-T fusion (with D-D side reactions) and Li->T breeding. Fusion bomb tests confirmed the reaction rates of thermal deuterium plasma (that's what 'thermonuclear' means), at a time when no lab experiment could produce anything like the temperatures and presures required for sustained fusion (and no decent empirical models existed; that's why the first fusion test was so far over the expected yield). Fusion bomb secondaries are also quite a good model for laser-fusion pellets, which are basically scaled down versions lacking a plutonium 'spark plug' - thermonuclear bombs validated the whole concept of 'radiation implosion', which was originally highly speculative. Inertial confinement is still working on scaling that process down to a point where it produces useful power without producing too much power to contain in a practically small ignition chamber.

Well obviously, anything at all that we learn is potentially useful. I suppose I was thinking of something we could use to make a tokomak work, and there wasn't a whole lot of that from the bomb tests.

Yes, because nuclear bombs substitute inertia for gravity - and we could only do this by using much more 'volatile' reactants, just as guns require much more volatile rectants than natural fires. This is drifting off the point a bit though; Darkstar's energy conversion notion doesn't seem to involve any sort of reactants at all, assuming the superlaser beam itself doesn't consist of some special sort of fuel (which is not so much stretching credulity as stamping on the remaining shreds).

Well, he seems to be assuming that the reactants come from the planet itself. As I said earlier, he is assuming that the Empire has discovered a magic chain reaction which can be initiated at low energy cost, which propagates itself to many orders of magnitude greater than the initiation energy, and which converts any kind of ordinary terrestrial mass into energy. And yet, despite discovering this fantastic holy grail of energy conversion physics, he figures their power generation technologies are so weak that it should be a miracle that they can even move their ships.

[Starglider]

As I said earlier, he is assuming that the Empire has discovered a magic chain reaction which can be initiated at low energy cost, which propagates itself to many orders of magnitude greater than the initiation energy, and which converts any kind of ordinary terrestrial mass into energy.

Warhammer 40K used to have this problem too; there was originally a man-portable conversion beam weapon that converted target matter into energy, in a reasonably controllable way, yet the effect was not used everywhere for power generation. Of course 40K can always pull the 'semi-lost, no longer understood tech' argument.

However the weapon was apparently dropped from the latest edition of the game anyway (which is kind of a shame since as I recall the unique rules for it made it quite fun in play).

[Alien-Carrot]

AFAIK there were no natural prototypes for steam engines at all.

geysers

[Starglider]

geysers

Because the hard part of a steam engine is producing the steam, not turning that steam into circular motion... oh no wait that's bollocks.

[Lord Poe]

Did you see his "analysis" of the ROTS novelilzation on the fusion issue?

Novelization: "Children on Tatooine tell each other of the dragons that live inside the suns; smaller cousins of the sun-dragons are supposed to live inside the fusion furnaces that power everything from starships to Podracers."

Darkstar: Once again, we have it clearly stated that Star Wars power systems are fusion-based like suns are, much as was seen in the other novelizations. It can hardly get any plainer.
This stands in stark contradiction to the claims made elsewhere.
EU-philes are attempting to claim that this quote is either non-literal, based on children's delusions, or is somehow supposed to refer to fusion of EU hypermatter, any of which are intended to maintain the claim of ridiculously-large energy generation numbers for SW vessels. Just reading the quote, however, shows that none of these attempted reinterpretations have any basis in reality. Sun-type fusion is the power system of Star Wars vehicles.

Yes, Darkstar is actually insisting on a literal interpretation of a statement that talks about DRAGONS living in stars.

Nothing new, once again. Timmy Jones did the same thing. Funny how the opening crawl (the highest form of canon) says the Death Star itself has the power to blow up planets.

And of course, the Star Wars novelization says Chewbacca's eyes were yellow, and Luke was Blue 5 during the Battle of Yavin.