What is an "Isoton"?
Weyoun the Dancing Borg
"Listen to me. The fact that we're here means that the ship hasn't
exploded yet. When it does, over 4 trillion isotons of antimatter waste
is going to ignite. Everything within 3 light years [radius] will be
destroyed."
Not "contaminated", not "affected"... "Destroyed". Just like everything
within 100m of an atomic weapon will be "destroyed".
So, let's assume there's more than 4 trillion, but less than 5 trillion
isotons there.
Call it 4 trillion to be conservative.
So 4 trillion isotons = 3 light year damage in a radial explosion.
Therefore 1 trillion isotons means everyting within .75 light year is
destroyed.
1 light year = 9,460,528,404,846 km.
So everything within 9,460,528,404,846 km would be destroyed. Possibly
stars and planets, but I assume he means ships, stations and people. Anyway:
If 1 trillion isotons = 7,095,396,303,634.5 km,
and if 1 trillion = 1,000,000,000,000 (?)
Then 1 isoton will destroy / affect upto 7095396303634.5 / 1000000000000
= 7km
A 1 iso-ton exlosion will destory things within 7km, assuming they are
un-shielded.
Maybe this will explain some stuff in Trek? How much are P-torps meant
to be in isotons?
Can this be converted into "megatons"?
George Recker Jr
episode where they reawaken the Vaadwaur, and the atmosphere is contaminated by
isorems of radiation.
Photon torpedoes have been given ratings of 20 and 200 isotons. Based on the
values given for the amount of reactants in the warhead, and the efficiency of
the MAM reaction, the above values would give a conversion factor of 2.5
megatons and 250 kilotons respectively per isoton.
Of course, when they were trying to destroy the Omega molecule, they were going
to use a gravimetric warhead with a yield of 80 isotons, and Harry commented
that it would be enough to destroy a small moon. Maybe the type of warhead also
contributes to the damage.
Graham Kennedy
You can't scale explosions like that. Doubling the amount of
explosive doesn't double the damage radius. It's an incredibly
complicated subject, depends on the conditions and the kind
of blast you are talking about, but as a rule of thumb the
blast radius of a bomb in the atmosphere is proportional to
the cube root of the yield.
if 4 trillion isotons destroyed everything within 3 light years,
1 isoton would destroy everything within about 1.7 billion km.
That would take a helluva nuke. But of course, there's no
atmosphere in space so it doesn't compare all that well.
--
Graham Kennedy
Creator and Author,
Daystrom Institute Technical Library
http://www.ditl.org
Jack Bohn
>Weyoun the Dancing Borg wrote:
>>
>> So 4 trillion isotons = 3 light year damage in a radial explosion.
>>
>> Therefore 1 trillion isotons means everyting within .75 light year is
>> destroyed.
>
>You can't scale explosions like that. Doubling the amount of
>explosive doesn't double the damage radius. It's an incredibly
>complicated subject, depends on the conditions and the kind
>of blast you are talking about, but as a rule of thumb the
>blast radius of a bomb in the atmosphere is proportional to
>the cube root of the yield.
>
>if 4 trillion isotons destroyed everything within 3 light years,
>1 isoton would destroy everything within about 1.7 billion km.
>
>That would take a helluva nuke. But of course, there's no
>atmosphere in space so it doesn't compare all that well.
If the destructive forces cover the surface of a sphere, they
would drop with the square of the distance (as the surface area
of the sphere increases with distance). Unleashing one quarter
the destructive forces means you destroy things out to half the
distance, 1.5 ly.
Even if the explosion were contained in a plane, (or, possibly, a
Praxis ring, with enough third dimension height that ships can't
just fly "up" out of it,) and drops linearly with distance, if it
even just rocks a boat 4 ly out it must be hellaciously powerful
a mile out.
Coupling the explosion to subspace has the advantage of shunting
most of the energy away from physical things (the planet Qo'nos
in the case of Praxis) but doesn't do anything for the
dispersion...at least I've never heard them use the explanation
that distances are smaller in subspace.
I wonder if we could treat subspace as a hydraulic fluid, in that
pressure put in at one point is transferred equally to all
points. An explosion is sent out nearly instantaneously, as they
all seem to be, until it is pulled into interaction with matter
through the warp coils. Or until it naturally drops out of
subspace 22 ly out, adding a little bit to the background
radiation.
--
-Jack
Graham Kennedy
> Graham Kennedy wrote:
>
>
>>Weyoun the Dancing Borg wrote:
>>
>>>So 4 trillion isotons = 3 light year damage in a radial explosion.
>>>
>>>Therefore 1 trillion isotons means everyting within .75 light year is
>>>destroyed.
>>
>>You can't scale explosions like that. Doubling the amount of
>>explosive doesn't double the damage radius. It's an incredibly
>>complicated subject, depends on the conditions and the kind
>>of blast you are talking about, but as a rule of thumb the
>>blast radius of a bomb in the atmosphere is proportional to
>>the cube root of the yield.
>>
>>if 4 trillion isotons destroyed everything within 3 light years,
>>1 isoton would destroy everything within about 1.7 billion km.
>>
>>That would take a helluva nuke. But of course, there's no
>>atmosphere in space so it doesn't compare all that well.
>
>
> If the destructive forces cover the surface of a sphere, they
> would drop with the square of the distance (as the surface area
> of the sphere increases with distance).
Yes, but this is only the case for the thermal effects emitted
by an explosion. With blast, the explosion transfers energy
to all the particles it passes through - it's not just
contained within the blast front itself. So the effect is
proportional to the volume the blast encompasses, not the
area.
Radiation is something of a cross between the two - it is
distributed over a spherical front like thermal effects,
but it is also absorbed by the air it passes through like
blast.
As I said though, all this is for explosions in the atmosphere.
In space it would indeed be more like an inverse square law as
you suggest (unless you're in a nebula or something.)
On that basis, a 1 isoton blast would destroy everything
within about 14,000,000 km.
> Unleashing one quarter
> the destructive forces means you destroy things out to half the
> distance, 1.5 ly.
>
> Even if the explosion were contained in a plane, (or, possibly, a
> Praxis ring, with enough third dimension height that ships can't
> just fly "up" out of it,) and drops linearly with distance, if it
> even just rocks a boat 4 ly out it must be hellaciously powerful
> a mile out.
>
> Coupling the explosion to subspace has the advantage of shunting
> most of the energy away from physical things (the planet Qo'nos
> in the case of Praxis) but doesn't do anything for the
> dispersion...at least I've never heard them use the explanation
> that distances are smaller in subspace.
>
> I wonder if we could treat subspace as a hydraulic fluid, in that
> pressure put in at one point is transferred equally to all
> points. An explosion is sent out nearly instantaneously, as they
> all seem to be, until it is pulled into interaction with matter
> through the warp coils. Or until it naturally drops out of
> subspace 22 ly out, adding a little bit to the background
> radiation.
If you invoke subspace effects then all bets are off because
we just don't know enough about how it works to say anything
with any certainty. But I would say that the line that
*everything* within 3 light years would be destroyed would
imply that it would not be a planar explosion.
Weyoun the Dancing Borg
It can't be treated "hydrolically" (water) since Omega is a sub-space
explosion, but only the "local" area is affected. Simiarly, when Praxis
exploded, the entire universe would feel it, if they were at warp.
Although, it would explain why the Excelsior felt it, whilst lightyears
away.
Species 8472 felt the "pressure wave" when Voyager materialised inside
Fluidic space.
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Jack Bohn
>Jack Bohn wrote:
>
>> I wonder if we could treat subspace as a hydraulic fluid, in that
>> pressure put in at one point is transferred equally to all
>> points. An explosion is sent out nearly instantaneously, as they
>> all seem to be, until it is pulled into interaction with matter
>> through the warp coils. Or until it naturally drops out of
>> subspace 22 ly out, adding a little bit to the background
>> radiation.
>
>
>It can't be treated "hydrolically" (water) since Omega is a sub-space
>explosion, but only the "local" area is affected.
Alas, I am as ignorant of this episode of VOY as I was of the one
you started this thread with. How big is "local" to an Omega
particle? A few angstroms, a few meters, a few hundred thousand
kilometers, a few light-years?
>Simiarly, when Praxis
>exploded, the entire universe would feel it, if they were at warp.
>Although, it would explain why the Excelsior felt it, whilst lightyears
>away.
True, I think in trying to avoid something embarrassingly small
(the explosion energy dissipated by at least the distance to the
edge of the Klingon home system) I've created something
embarrassingly large (the energy divided by the number of warp
coils near the Klingon home system, particularly if Klingons keep
as few starships near Qo'nos as Humans do near Earth).
Of course, as Graham says, we could write our own rules by
invoking subspace. It feels wrong to stipulate that all such
events only put enough energy into subspace to *almost* destroy a
starship; perhaps we could say that a ship's warp coils can only
capture enough of the energy to almost destroy it? Fortunately,
there is the contention that subspace signals naturally decay to
normal space after about 22 ly. This allows most of the energy
to diffuse out to the surface of a sphere that wide. (Note I am
giving up the idea of a planar explosion, it would require
incredible coincidence or cretinous incompetence for our heroes
to be caught in such an event.) Think of a hydraulic system with
an open relief valve: the taps would only feel the pulse of an
input until enough of the fluid squirted out the valve.
What of "The Q and the Gray", when Voyager was caught in a field
of novae (another example of shockwaves traveling at warp)? Was
there any mention of distance? Could they all have been within
22 ly of the Voyager?
--
-Jack
Weyoun the Dancing Borg
> Weyoun the Dancing Borg wrote:
>
>
>>Jack Bohn wrote:
>>
>>
>>>I wonder if we could treat subspace as a hydraulic fluid, in that
>>>pressure put in at one point is transferred equally to all
>>>points. An explosion is sent out nearly instantaneously, as they
>>>all seem to be, until it is pulled into interaction with matter
>>>through the warp coils. Or until it naturally drops out of
>>>subspace 22 ly out, adding a little bit to the background
>>>radiation.
>>
>>
>>It can't be treated "hydrolically" (water) since Omega is a sub-space
>>explosion, but only the "local" area is affected.
>
>
> Alas, I am as ignorant of this episode of VOY as I was of the one
> you started this thread with. How big is "local" to an Omega
> particle? A few angstroms, a few meters, a few hundred thousand
> kilometers, a few light-years?
a couple of kg would stop warp-travel and destroy subspace across the
delta quadrent.
Jack Bohn
urk.
Did I say "alas"? I meant, "Thank heavens I am as ignorant of
this episode of VOY as I was of the other one."
Can we throw "Omega Directive", "Demons", and "Juggernaught" on
the same trash heap as "Threshold"?
--
-Jack
Weyoun the Dancing Borg
No - The Omega Directive kinda made sense. And it was actually a good
episode, for once!
Watch it, I quite like it.
Christopher C. Stacy
> Can this be converted into "megatons"?
An isoton is the amount of antimatter that
fits inside a form-fitting glove.
CaptJosh
IIRC, the progression works like this(Anyone, feel free to correct me if
I get any of the prefixes out of order):
deka, hecta, kilo, mega, giga, tera, peta, iso.
So, a megaton being a million tons, an isoton is then a quintillion
tons, thus, assuming I'm doing my math correctly, an isoton should be a
billion megatons. So much for Star Wars weapons being more powerful than
those in Star Trek. :D
--------
CaptJosh
There are only 10 kinds of people in the world;
those who understand binary and those who don't.
Graham Kennedy
> Christopher C. Stacy wrote:
>
>> Weyoun the Dancing Borg <weyounthed...@gmail.com> writes:
>>
>>> Can this be converted into "megatons"?
>>
>>
>>
>> An isoton is the amount of antimatter that fits inside a form-fitting
>> glove.
>
>
> IIRC, the progression works like this(Anyone, feel free to correct me if
> I get any of the prefixes out of order):
>
> deka, hecta, kilo, mega, giga, tera, peta, iso.
>
> So, a megaton being a million tons, an isoton is then a quintillion
> tons, thus, assuming I'm doing my math correctly, an isoton should be a
> billion megatons.
Er, no. Exa comes after Peta, then Zetta and Yotta. Iso is
not a prefix under the current system at all.
Phillip Thorne
>> IIRC, the progression works like this(Anyone, feel free to correct me if
>> I get any of the prefixes out of order):
>>
>> deka, hecta, kilo, mega, giga, tera, peta, iso.
On Sun, 13 Mar 2005, Graham Kennedy <gra...@ditl.org> wrote:
>Er, no. Exa comes after Peta, then Zetta and Yotta. Iso is
>not a prefix under the current system at all.
To expand upon Graham's correction: the "iso-" prefix, like "kiloquad"
and "warp factor" before it, is something the Trek scriptwriters
created to avoid being too specific -- about explosive yields,
computer memory, FTL speeds, etc.
(Well, probably not the scriptwriters themselves. There's a tradition
amongst the Trek writing staff of dropping the placeholder "TECH" into
scripts, then letting specialists write something that sounds good and
is consistent with established Treknology. The usual TNG-era suspects
are Rick Sternbach and Mike Okuda, but they may have been superseded
these past few years; I dunno.)
"Someone will demonstrate that our math is wrong," the writing staff
says; or "The advance of technology will make our numbers seem
foolish. We'd better use a term that sounds cool, but which we won't
define."
In math/science, "iso-" usually means "equivalent." "Isoceles
triangle" -- two of its angles are the same. "Isomorphism" -- a
transformation that leaves things unchanged. "Isometric exercises" --
exercises in which the muscles don't change length.
HTH (hope this helps).
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mdic...@seds.lpl.arizona.edu
CaptJosh wrote:
> Christopher C. Stacy wrote:
> > Weyoun the Dancing Borg <weyounthed...@gmail.com> writes:
> >
> >>Can this be converted into "megatons"?
> >
> >
> > An isoton is the amount of antimatter that
> > fits inside a form-fitting glove.
>
> IIRC, the progression works like this(Anyone, feel free to correct me
if
> I get any of the prefixes out of order):
>
> deka, hecta, kilo, mega, giga, tera, peta, iso.
There is no "iso" prefix as a unit of quantification like that.
After "peta" it goes "zeta", then "yotta".
> So much for Star Wars weapons being more powerful than
> those in Star Trek. :D
Despite certain Rabid Warsies rantings and intentional distortions,
that was never true at all.
http://www.st-v-sw.net/STSW.hi2.html
-Mike
Timo S Saloniemi
>Christopher C. Stacy wrote:
>> Weyoun the Dancing Borg <weyounthed...@gmail.com> writes:
>>
>>>Can this be converted into "megatons"?
>>
>>
>> An isoton is the amount of antimatter that
>> fits inside a form-fitting glove.
>
>IIRC, the progression works like this(Anyone, feel free to correct me if
>I get any of the prefixes out of order):
>
>deka, hecta, kilo, mega, giga, tera, peta, iso.
Umm, looks all right, save for the "iso" part.
deka = 10^1
hecta = 10^2
kilo = 10^3
mega = 10^6
giga = 10^9
tera = 10^12
peta = 10^15
exa = 10^18
zetta = 10^21
yotta = 10^24
The last three are extremely seldom used in any connection, as are
the first two. "Iso" is not part of the scheme at all. Rather,
"iso" means "same".
Timo Saloniemi
Graham Kennedy
> Perhaps it's actually ISO, the International Standards Organization
> (www.iso.org). In that case, an isoton would be a unit of measurement
> different from a short ton, long ton or metric ton; a new standard of
> tonnage set and regulated by the ISO.
>
> Perhaps a new unit of mass was needed because different materials
> change their mass at different rates in a subspace warp field and the
> new unit compensates for this fact. 1 isoton may equate to something
> which has 1 ton of mass after being enclosed in a non-propulsive warp
> field of 1 cochran, or some such thing.
I did an article on this a while back where I came up
with a similar suggestion - ISO as Interplanetary Standards
Organisation. But I suggested it was just a new definition
of the standard units introduced to harmonise measurement
systems. I suggested that people *always* mean ISO-ton when
they talk about tons or ISO-metres when they talk about metres
- it's just that they don't bother with the ISO most of the
time, much as we don't often say "UK gallons" or "metric tons".
Kris Bone
> To expand upon Graham's correction: the "iso-" prefix, like "kiloquad"
> and "warp factor" before it, is something the Trek scriptwriters
> created to avoid being too specific -- about explosive yields,
> computer memory, FTL speeds, etc.
>
> (Well, probably not the scriptwriters themselves. There's a tradition
> amongst the Trek writing staff of dropping the placeholder "TECH" into
> scripts, then letting specialists write something that sounds good and
> is consistent with established Treknology. The usual TNG-era suspects
> are Rick Sternbach and Mike Okuda, but they may have been superseded
> these past few years; I dunno.)
>
Apparently Isoton was coined by Science Advisor Andre Bormanis.
Thats all I know .. lets find him and beat it out of him.
Ron Hubbard
"Kris Bone" <kr...@boneworld.net> wrote in message
news:42612...@news.iprimus.com.au...
I'll bring the rope. ;-)
Ron