Deep Space 9
24 messages in this thread
Well, even if I could accept the handling of the energy of converting a
person to energy, eactly how does one convert energy to matter at a remote
location. I have some spare energy laying about, and I could really use a
new car, hmmm, Porsche 928 should be no harder the a VW Bettle.
// .An Ameoba on AutoPilot 🙂
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You are absolutely correct. Converting an unlimited amount of energy into
a Porsche 928 would be no harder than converting it into a VW Beetle.
But WE don't have the capability. Or the unlimited energy.
Remember, E=mc(squared). Which means that m=E/c(squared). So it takes a
BUNCH of energy to make the tiniest bit of mass. By the 24th Century,
technology has advanced to the point that they can make all sorts of
things (what do you think a "replicator" does? It converts energy into
whatever you can describe. The more massive the thing you need, the more
energy it requires).
Oh, and don't forget, it's unlikely that the process is loss-less, so you
need some energy to lose in the effort of converting energy into your
Porsche.
My point is THEY don't seem to want to obey basic laws of physics. Yes I
know Einstien's Law ( I read General Relativity – leaves me wondering
about their traveling at >speed of light ). If we apply the law to just
food replication which seems to be their main source of food the numbers
are astounding. Assuming 2lbs ( 1Kg ) of food a day for one person the
total energy needed is 9EE16 Joules times maybe 1000 people on the ship is
9EE19 Joules which is 2.5EE13 kWh per day over a deep space journey of one
month is a total of 7.5EE14 kWh (750,000,000,000,000kWh or 750 trillion
kWh).. For food alone that is, lets not forget they use replicators to
build doo dads and what nots 🙂 for themselves and others plus they need
energy for operating a ship, creating holo-deck realities, maintaining
navigation and defensive sheilds, propelling it at >c speeds, sensors,
large computer systems, etc. All from a matter – anti-matter reactor, yet
they don't seem to want to explain where they get anti-matter from, since
it can't occur naturally in our universe, and creating it would again be
an enormous energy expenditure. Do they use a matter anti-matter reactor
to create anti-matter? It has to be able to produce more energy and
anti-matter than it uses or it wouldn't work, period.
Then there is the problem of warp speed travel. Back to Relativity
here, another basic law says as speed increases to near the speed of
light, mass increases also in a direct proportion. The math looks like
the following: mass = (rest mass)/(1-(v^2/c^2))^1/2. Plugging in warp 1
Scotty 🙂 for just one person one the ship we get:
m = (80kg)/(1-(3.6EE8^2/3EE8^2))^1/2
m = 80kg/(1-1)^1/2
m = 80kg/0^1/2
m = 80kg/0 ???????
As we get infinitely close to speed of light mass increases to infinity.
If we go beyond c we would end up with 80kg/ the square root of a negative
number ( an imaginary number actually ).
They seem to live in a universe that we don't, one of unlimited energy
<continued>
Regarding the replicators: While they do indeed create matter from energy,
your calculations are assuming that it's a one way process. Presumably,
although this hasn't been covered in detail in the series, waste matter of
all sorts is probably run back into the system and converted to energy,
the majority of which can then be used to create new matter. This would
be a much more closed system, although there are almost certainly losses
in the cycle.
–>Steve Bennett
I would certainly hope they would reach the ultimate level of recycling –
the re-use of matter for energy back to usable matter. I must admit
though I hadn't thought of that though. But even then, I would assume
converting the matter to energy would use energy, but it would create a
better balance. Probably one you could drive ship over a long term with.
There would have to be losses, entropy is pretty much a fact we live with.
But the losses to recovered energy ratio could probably be made
bearable.
// .An Ameoba on AutoPilot 🙂
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and no basics laws of physics that govern ours. Simple and not-so-simple
physics kills sci-fi every time, our at least pop sci-fi.
// .An Ameoba on AutoPilot 🙂
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Well, see, of course the science breaks down. That's why the FICTION part
of the title in Science Fiction.
Obviously, in an Einstein-ian Universe, travel at greater than C is
impossible. We know that, and the people who make Star Trek know that.
However, a weekly show in which the ship is still enroute to it's next
adventure for several weeks, and we watch an hour of "transit" wouldn't be
very interesting, and so they bend the rules. They make a
"pseudo-scientific" explanation, that sounds good, but that a real
physicist could punch holes in quickly. The writers, for the most part,
aren't physicists, and just use the jargon that was used in previous shows
and hope it holds up (which is where the fans come in. WE go to great
pains to "fix" the mistakes the writers make, and show how they weren't
mistakes. I remember a several week (month?) long discussion about how the
Warp figures in ST:TNG are different than the Warp figures in the original
series. In one early episode, they gave a distance and a time to travel at
Warp 9. From that, the math was simple, but it didn't match similar data
from 20 years earlier).
In any case, the "Warp" process bends space, and thus the Enterprise
doesn't actually travel faster than C, but arrives in an amount of time
such that it appears to have travelled faster than C. Higher Warp, you get
there exponentially faster, and use more fuel.
Where does the anti-matter come from? Good question. They have a magnetic
field to contain it, and they control it with Dilithium Crystals
(techno-babble, meaning they made it up), but they never discuss where it
comes from. But! Remember the original series, Kirk had to constantly sign
Fuel reports. So, you are right, it must come from SOMEWHERE! But
logistics doesn't make such a good TV show, either, so they never delve
into it (though we HAVE seen Dilithium mines).
Well if a Warp bends space and they travel at lower speeds, then the FX
department is pulling a fast one on us. As the ship accellerates and goes
into warp sure enough the stars go by them faster and faster until they
deform into dopler effect lines streaking by the ship. Seems to me the
are trying to mimic speed above c. And if the ship does do a "so-called"
warping of space, why is it a warp drive not a warp feild generator. A
drive implies it imparts motion, while feild generator implies creating a
feild of some sort, such as a deformation of space.
I know, I ask to many question from mere mortal writers trying to get
ratings!!!! But to many holes spoil the broth for me.
// .An Ameoba on AutoPilot 🙂
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The pretty flashing lights aren't stars per se, they are the light from the
stars bending dramatically due to the ship's near-c velocity.
Actually, the term "Warp Field Generator" has been used many times. Since
the effect of the Warp Field Generator is to move the ship to someplace it
wasn't (it still moves, it simply doesn't move faster than light) at a
very fast pace, I imagine it was referred to as a Warp Drive, and the name
stuck. Very few people refer to things by their full technical-description
name.
The stars don't move very fast at sub-light speeds, but usually the
Enterprise is shown turning as it enters Warp, which increases the
apparent motion, as the camera moves with it. They go by pretty fast in
Warp, but they are going a much shorter DISTANCE, so they don't have to be
going as fast. If the distance between Earth and Alpha Centauri is reduced
to, say, 50 feet (relative), due to the warping of space, you don't have
to go very fast to pass it rather quickly. By the way, one rule that has
been "bent" a bit too often is that going into Warp near a large mass
(like a planet) is VERY dangerous. In Star Trek IV, Kirk orders Sulu to go
to Warp One in ATMOSPHERE, a VERY, VERY bad thing to do (the warp field
would rip some of the atmosphere off). However, most of us assume that
Sulu, correctly, used Impulse Power, rather than damaging the Earth,
figuring Kirk was over-excited, and we just didn't get to see the scene
where they discuss it later. (See how creative fans are?)
Oh, and you are right about the FX people pulling a fast one. Notice that
when the ship zooms by, there is a "woosh" sound. Always has been, always
will be. They are quite aware that there is no sound in space, and the Big
E wouldn't "woosh". However, having it totally silent actually distracted
the viewers and took their minds off the story. Television is a dramatic
medium, and if things get in the way of the drama, they must be
sacrificed. It uses "Suspension of disbelief" to accomplish it's goals.
You, obviously, choose not to participate in that suspension. Your right,
of course. Trek generally has fewer holes than most of the things on the
<continued>
air, but you are free to nitpick it to death if you choose.
There is some sci-fi that is willing to stay closer to the bean the ST.
Example is the Alien series of movies, they accepted that star travel
would be a long haul proposition, and therefore put their crews in
cryogenic sleep. Same situation in 2001, HAL ran the ship while Dave
slept blissfully unaware of HALs mischeif.
Holes is holes even if you cover it with a hologram.
BTW: I invented a nit picker, any please call me if you have any nits that
need to be picked.
// .An Ameoba on AutoPilot 🙂
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<<The writers, for the most part, aren't physicists,…>>
Ah, but I do know of one (science fiction writer) who audited a special
relativity class I was taking.
-Sean
Actually, the difference in Warp figures between the old show & TNG
has been explained. The Warp engines work by generating a "tube" of
warped(?) space in which the ship can move though. As they came to the
end of the warp tube, a new tube was generated. Warp 9, was the old
limit due to the pairing of the warp tubes.
TNG use a newer Warp generating system that allows 4 warp tubes to be
generated at a time, allowing at least a three fold increase in speed.
However, instead of saying "Warp 27", they changed the warp measuring
scale so that "Warp 9" was still near the maximum.
I compare it to a "submarine" that can generate a vacuum of air in the
direction it is moving — allowing it to escape the forces of friction
that moving through water causes.
Ron.
– ap'ing with AP. (Eagles may fly, but weasles aren't sucked
into jet engines.)
This all assumes space is a field, which I may be willing to concede. But,
if it is a feild, and the Warp drives can bend and distort it, wouldn't
that disrupt gravity to a significant degree?
If a sub could generate a tube of air, and stay suspended in it, the fish
would fall out our be moved out of the way.
// .An Ameoba on AutoPilot 🙂
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Mark,
Something would have to maintain that "interface" between the water
and the air and make it stable. In effect…a wall would have to form.
And that wall would be as inpenetrable by a fish as it is by the water.
Don
Don,
But the actual displacement of the water would effect the fish. they
would feel an unexplained current where the was non before. If space is a
gravity feild as some think ( me included ), wouldn't the change in the
feild be also quite noticable? There are current plans for "gravity
telescopes" to eplore further distant parts of the universe that we can't
see based on sensing the changes in the feild. If a planet or system
moving in a undistorted gravity feild could be detected, certainly bending
the entire feild or distorting it would be a mojor effect on any systems
nearby that distortion – planets careening out of orbits from changes in
gravity nearby.
// .An Ameoba on AutoPilot 🙂
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Mark,
Ah…but you forget one thing. There is in fact, a "thingie" that
travels at the speed of light. Photons of light. While they have
properties of both waves and particles…I think everyone would certainly
agree that they have energy.
Energy and mass are interchangeable m = e/C^2 or the more popular
e = m * C^2.
Now popular theory does in fact state that mass increases in
proportion to the percent light speed. If that were in fact an absolute,
then (as you state) it would take infinite energy to accellerate an
infinitely large mass TO the speed of light.
Yet that breaks down if one presumes that the energy in a photon
(whatever it is) wasn't always moving at the speed of light. Because
something, or some effect, must have accellerated it to that state. The
nuclear reaction (in a star) released the photons from a nuclear
particle…and that particle wasn't moving at the speed of light. So
somehow or other…during the release…that packet of energy (which can
also be considered interchangeable with mass) got accellerated to the speed
of light.
Thus…if them little old photons can do it…so can we <grin>!!!
And then there's the theory that gravity is instantaneous. That
is, if a mass suddenly appeared at the other end of the galaxy…it's
gravity would be felt immediately in all other points of the galaxy (or
universe for that fact).
Don
Energy and mass are interchangeable, but they are not equivalent. A photon
can travel at c because a photon has no mass. It doesn't take infinite
energy to accelerate an infinite mass to c; it takes infinite energy to
accelerate ANY mass to c, from an electron up.
So unfortunately for your theory, FTL travel is not possible as we
currently understand physics. Barring a facility to translate mass into
energy without losing the mass' previous characteristics (like being a
human being named Don Curtis) we ain't gonna do it with our current
comprehension of physical reality.
Now, things could change. I would LIKE for things to change. But it will
be a fundamental breakthrough in physics (or some other science) that does
it, not playing word games. Sorry. ;-(
Bob
Actually both of you are incorrect. Mass and energy are equivalent, they
are not interchangable. A photon particle has an equivalent mass, but it
still doesn't have mass, so you can't say they are interchangable as that
implies they are the same, they are not.
When a photon of ENERGY is released it is a wave traveling at c ( note: c
is not capitalized for speed of light ). If that photon is converted to
mass, some or all of its kinetic energy is converted to mass. At that
point since it has lost kinetic energy, it also loses speed and the now
particle of mass can no longer reach c. Unless it is converted back to
energy. An example of this is a gamma ray passed near an atom disappears
and a positron and electron are produced. The gamma ray energy at c which
has no mass is converted to mass of atomic particles traveling at sub
light speeds.
If you check my original post it gives the formula for mass of a moving
object. It is m = m0/(1-(v^2/c^2))1/2 , m0 is rest mass. Since a photon
has no rest mass ( it cannot exist at rest ) you have mass at c = 0 / 0,
which is still zero, no mass.
Since…them little photons can't do it…I dought we can 🙂
// .An Ameoba on AutoPilot 🙂
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Thanks for the correction/clarification mark. Aptly phrased.
Mark,
I think you guys are talking about how much energy is required to
convert matter>energy and back for the transporter?
Answer: NONE. The transporter DOESN'T convert matter>energy, it `un-bonds'
matter and stores/sends it in a `matter stream' (I am sure you have heard
the term on the show) then it `re-bonds' the materials to their original
positions. No conversion to or from energy is done.
Information gathered from ST-TNG Tech Manual.
<<< Tony D. Tracer >>>
Anthony,
Actually we were discussing Star Treks disregard for the laws of
relativity, esp. the relationship of mass in direct proportion to speed.
How a ship cannot exceed the speed of lihgt because their mass would
become infinite.
As for the transporter using a matter stream, I never heard that one,
although I must admit I am not a "Trekkie", just a casual observer.
Although more pluasible then conversion to energy, how far down do they go
for the matter stream? If they go to the atomic level, storing the entire
pattern for a person would consume a vast amount of memory. Even stoping
at the molecular level would leave quite a task for storage and
reconstruction.
// .An Ameoba on AutoPilot 🙂
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