Star Trek Physics: Whats cool, whats bull ?

Which of the devices (phasers, warp drive, beaming etc.) in "Star Trek" do you think are (remotely) realistic, and which can be prooved to violate the laws of physics ?

 

hmmm well its hard to say outright which are crap. Beaming is an obvious place to start, that violates the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Im not a huge fan so dont know the ins and outs, but im sceptical about a warp drive, i seem to remember they have some convoluted way to explain how it works but as a rule going faster than light creates all kinds of infinities. Dont see whats wrong with some of the weapons, dont entirely sure how much damage anti-matter would cause but nvm.

 

Here's A really good link that examines this very idea

http://ssdoo.gsfc.nasa.gov/education/just_for_fun/startrek.html
I have read up a lot about the Alcubierre Warp Drive, and, provided we could find an energy source powerful enough, believe that FTL travel could be possible someday. A recent study confirmed the existence of 'dark matter', which means that space isn't full of nothing, so if this matter can be manipulated, who knows how fast or how far we could travel.

 

The Enterprise can be a bumpy ride for a space ship. I have problems with interstellar gunk (various kinds in various episodes) causing the crew to bounce around the bridge, but the ship not breaking apart.

 

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I guess that anti-matter should be the ULTIMATE weapon ! If you shoot a lump of antimatter of mass m at, say, a spaceship that consists of normal matter, the antimatter would annilhiate together with the same mass of the normal matter from the spaceship and been converted into the energy E = 2mc^2.

There are just two problems I can think of at the moment:

1) If the lump of antimatter would meet some dust during its way to the target, the mass of it that corresponds to the dusts mass would be annilhiated and the resulting explosion would most probably desintegrate the rest of the anti-matter lump before even coming close to the target.

2) Even if it would reach the target, the part of the lump that would reach the target first would react with it, creating a enormous impulse that would act to propell the rest of the lump backwards, i.e. away from the target so that not the whole mass of the anti-matter would take part in the annilhiation process.

 

Yeah but most of that energy would be converted into gamma rays. The matter-antimatter reaction yields the highest energy density reaction in physics to solve your equation you get photons of 511keV. However how much energy would be released as an explosive force I dont know, you may be better trying a reaction that gives of other particles there are many hadronic processes that give of other particles that may provide more of an explosive force. That said an intense burst of radiation may provide a good weapon in its own right.

 

The impulse would slow the incomming lump, slowing it down so that it made a bigger hole than if it weren't slowed.

Besides, I don't recall anti-matter torpedoes. "Photon torpedos" where the ship killers. Anti-matter was the Enterprises's power source, which required a dilithium crystal to work properly.

 

I dont quite understand why this should be so. The biggest energy would be liberated when ALL of the anti-matter would react with the matter of the target. I the lump would be moving too slowly and the impulse would be too big, parts of the anti-matter would be propelled back into space and would not contribute to the explosion.

 

That might be true, though I think that RESEARCH on this kind of engine has already been done (even here in Germany) several DECADES ago.

 

You're right. Faulty thinking on my part.

 

You all know there is actually a book called 'the physics of Star Trek" in which they go over and break down exactly what is and what isn't possiable. Its pretty neat.

 

Yeah, I guess if the target would not either be made of a material thats either total transmissive or total reflective at the wavelength you mentioned, the absorbed energy should provide for enough heating and a nice explosion.

I dont think such a material will ever exist - but it would be interesting whether one can prove from first principles that it cannot be made...

 

Its not a question of absorption, when you turn on a light there is a large amount of EM radiation being released yet you do not feel a force simply because light does not impart much momentum. Incidentally light does impart a momentum in a star where a lot of radiation is generated its actually enough to stop the star collapsing under its own gravity. So if you want to propel a craft you better using a massive particle such as those used in ion craft that I read in another post (or further back in this one) have actually been launched. Here momentum is imparted by a massive particle, so ideally your looking for a reaction that does not completely annihilate the matter but leaves some massive particles.

This assumes of course that your trying to create thrust in the traditional way if you simply want as much energy as possible and a transducer for the hypothetical engine that can use gamma rays then of course complete annihilation is by far the best option.

 

The gamma rays that are released in all directions equally and that penetrate the ship and shielding offer no biased or directional thrust potential what so ever. At our present level of technology anti matter would better be used as a catalyst to initiate fusion reactions. The fusion fuels could be chosen so that the by-products could be mostly an-neutronic (low in neutrons) and therefore high energy ions that could be directionalized. Excessive gamma rays and neutrons result in little more that direct heating of the ship by absorption and increased mass due to extra shielding to stop the radiation. Ion streams could be used as direct thrust or to generate electricity. Mine the moon for He3 or use lithium6 or boron reactions that result in fewer neutrons.

If you can produce antimatter in particle accelerators then you can also produce muons. Muons can also be used to catalyse fusion reactions. All of these technologies would give you freedom to roam the solar system but fail in energy densities enough to give you the stars. For that we might need to re-engineer the engineer. A one hundred year trip to the nearest stars isn't as bad if the pilots live for two or three thousand years.

 

You maybe able to produce muons, you'll be doing very well to keep them. The muon decays weakly in a few microseconds. Only the electron and proton (and associated anti-particles) are stable and thus storable, of course atoms are also stable.

 

There was work done during WWII by the Japanese and then later by American scientist to use muons created by cosmic rays to catalyze fusion reactions to power airplanes. Of course there were not enough available muons and collecting the ones that were there was never properly solved. It was an interesing concept, however.

 

None of them are viable
there is a book out called the physics of star trek
http://rucus.ru.ac.za/~wolfman/Essays/Trek/trektalk.html

 

hmmm as the worlds biggest startreck nerd, i can say that all of the technology used in startreck was chosen by gene rodenbery because it had some fact. warp drive, for example, is an actuality, but not in the sense startreck has made it out to be. in reality, we would warp the space around a vessel to form a pocket of time and space that is sepperate from the surrounding space. this would enable the ship to move faster than light because it really isnt moving...its kinda hard to explain, but it relies on Michio Kakus Superstring theory and the exsistance of 11 dimensions of superstrings...

you people need to read up!


also, transporting is also very plausable, but beyond our current technology....if anyone has skype, i would be happy to discuss this, because it is rather annoying to type all this out...

PM me with your skype and we can talk. my skype is barteky_dude.

 

No you do - just click the link here
http://rucus.ru.ac.za/%7Ewolfman/Essays/Trek/trektalk.html
where you will see that warp drives are an impossibility
and here
http://www.b5tech.com/index.htm