Carbon Neutronium?
Nathan Palovcik
out of the Dyson's Sphere with the phasers. (Worf replies that phasers
will be ineffective against it due to its composition from carbon neutronium)
Now... wouldn't this be a great material to build ship hulls from?
Obviously it's a known substance (they could identify it), and it can't
be radioactive (the builders of the sphere lived on it) and it would seem
to be impervious to phaser fire. (according to Worf)
So why aren't Starfleet vessels made from carbon neutronium? Does anyone
know more about this than what was presented in the episode?
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"I would cut off the more disreputable parts of the body, and use the
space for playing fields." - Monty Python's Flying Circus
Nathan Palovcik (Cardinal Fang)
npal...@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca
Joshua Bell
>So why aren't Starfleet vessels made from carbon neutronium? Does anyone
>know more about this than what was presented in the episode?
It weighs a hell of a lot. Neutronium is the stuff that neutron
stars are made out of. The gravity has compressed the star to
such a degree that the atoms can get over an energy hump and
collapse down to being just nuclei, and the electrons and protons
go past another hump and wind up being neutrons and other bits
and bobs. So you've got a star that is one big atomic nucleus
(basically) which is a heck of a lot denser than normal matter.
Of course, doing anything with it requires some sort of
gravitational control, otherwise it evaporates. (Robert L.
Forward's _Dragon's_Egg_ has an interesting story built around
this sort of stuff).
The Doomsday Machine (from TOS) had a neutronium hull, so it is
possible in the Trek universe to make things out of it.
Carbon neutronium springs to mind tiny-but-massive massive
neutronium chunks suspended in Buckyballs (aka Fullerines aka
carbon cages aka C60 & friends) or Buckytubes (like rolled-up
chain link fences of carbon). Perhaps some sort of exclusion
principle dohickey related to virtual verteron decay (!) keeps it
all together.
Joshua
--
"Where am I?" -- Ryouga Hibiki, Ranma 1/2: "Big Trouble in Nekonron, China"
<jsb...@acs.ucalgary.ca> University Computing Services, University of Calgary
Paul Carver
>So why aren't Starfleet vessels made from carbon neutronium? Does anyone
>know more about this than what was presented in the episode?
Presumably for the same reason that airplanes aren't made of lead. It's much
too heavy.
James Palmese
>>So why aren't Starfleet vessels made from carbon neutronium?
Does anyone know more about this than what was presented in the
episode?
>
>Presumably for the same reason that airplanes aren't
>made of lead. It's much too heavy.
I hate to nitpick, but the weight of the material that a
starship is made of should have absolutely no bearing on
whether or not it can be used. Remember, space is a vacuum and
their is no air resistance for a ship to encounter. I think
its more feasible that Federation engineers are unable to
construct ships from Carbon Neutronium because the technology
necessary to mold it into a malleable state useful for ship
design doesn't exist yet.
jamesp . . . . . . .the Master of All That Is Gulag
James Palmese
Maspeth, New York
Michael Begley
>>>So why aren't Starfleet vessels made from carbon neutronium?
>Does anyone know more about this than what was presented in the
>episode?
>>
>>Presumably for the same reason that airplanes aren't
>>made of lead. It's much too heavy.
>
>I hate to nitpick, but the weight of the material that a
>starship is made of should have absolutely no bearing on
>whether or not it can be used. Remember, space is a vacuum and
>their is no air resistance for a ship to encounter. I think
>its more feasible that Federation engineers are unable to
>construct ships from Carbon Neutronium because the technology
>necessary to mold it into a malleable state useful for ship
>design doesn't exist yet.
Well if we're into nitpicking......:-).
Actually I think the orginal poster meant mass. True in space it would have no
"weight", but it would have mass and one of the reasons that Carbon Neutronium
wouldn't be used is it is much too dense.
But of course you are also correct in stating that the Fed. probably does not
have the technology to work with Carbon Neutronium, after all if it is
impervious to phasers, well lets just say it must be a bitch to weld.
All IMHO of course,
Mike.
Paul Carver
>I hate to nitpick, but the weight of the material that a
>starship is made of should have absolutely no bearing on
>whether or not it can be used. Remember, space is a vacuum and
>their is no air resistance for a ship to encounter. I think
>its more feasible that Federation engineers are unable to
>construct ships from Carbon Neutronium because the technology
>necessary to mold it into a malleable state useful for ship
>design doesn't exist yet.
Sometimes I worry about this group. When I said that carbon neutronium was
probably to heavy to build a starship out of I thought it would be perfectly
obvious that I was refering to mass. i.e. if you are in zero gravity and you
need to move a five tonne piece of equipment you will get help even though you
could theoretically move it yourself. You would refer to it as heavy.
I have never heard any use of the word heavy that implied air resistance.
F=MA a more massive object will require more force to accelerat it. i.e.
more fuel.
If you use the theory of submerging mass into subspace then more mass would
require more fuel to submerge it.
The point is that you are trying to travel large distances with few refueling
points so you don't want to be carrying unnecessary weight.
Question: Gauss's Law applies to gravitation, correct? So the people on the
interior of the Dyson sphere wouldn't feel any gravitation from it. Since the
Enterprise isn't symetrically shaped people inside would feel a gravitational
attraction to the sections of the ship with the most carbon neutronium. Are
the artificial gravity generators up to the task of counter-acting this large
force?
Paul
Jay Windley
>
>I hate to nitpick, but the weight of the material that a
>starship is made of should have absolutely no bearing on
>whether or not it can be used. Remember, space is a vacuum and
>their is no air resistance for a ship to encounter.
Can you say "inertia"?
A GALAXY class starship weighs in at around 5 million metric tons.
The Tech Manual says that this mass was a problem for the designers of
the impulse engines, which have to overcome the starship's inertia.
No engines could be made powerful enough to achieve the necessary
acceleration, yet be small enough to fit in the space frame. The
solution was to employ non-propulsive subspace field coils to reduce
the effective mass of the ship. (Apparently we are to believe that
matter in a subspace field can be "decoupled" from the continuum in
such a way that its effective mass is reduced.)
There is no advantage to constructing a spaceship with more mass than
necessary if Newtonian propulsion is used.
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jay Windley * University of Utah * Salt Lake City
jwin...@asylum.cs.utah.edu
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Adam Nash
Nathan Palovcik <npal...@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca> wrote:
>out of the Dyson's Sphere with the phasers. (Worf replies that phasers
>will be ineffective against it due to its composition from carbon neutronium)
>
Neutronium usually refers to a substance where pressure, usually from gravity,
has forced the electrons inward to annihilate with the protons, leaving a
plasma of neutrons alone. Since well over 99.99% of the space in an atom
is empty, w/ the elctron probablity densities far from the nucleus,
this results in a material that is unbelievably dense, aka a neutron star.
I have no idea what Carbon Neutronium would be, since elements are designated
by proton count, and neutronium has no protons...
-Adam
Tim Meushaw
: Weight does matter in a sense of Maneuverablity (sp). The Galaxy class,
: Nebula Class etc.. all are combat ships. So if it is heavier it requires
: more impulse engines and subsequently power to fling it around as if it
: weighed less. Also for acceleration as well
True...weight doesn't matter, mass does. And assuming that since it
weighs more, it's safe to say that it's more massive (usually; I'll
take this as the case for Carbon Neutronium). So it would take more
power to move something more massive.
--
------------------------
Timothy A. Meushaw tme...@gl.umbc.edu http://umbc8.umbc.edu/~tmeush1/
University of Maryland, Baltimore County
"May whatever god you believe in have mercy on your soul."
Tycho Schenkeveld
>I hate to nitpick, but the weight of the material that a
>starship is made of should have absolutely no bearing on
>whether or not it can be used. Remember, space is a vacuum and
>their is no air resistance for a ship to encounter.
Well, a bigger mass has a bigger momentum and so requires more energy to
bring it to a certain speed.
BTW: Air resistance has nothing to do with mass, only with the amount and
type of surface.
Tycho
Buddy Knight
James,
The weight is a factor, even in space. In 0-g, the "weight" is really
an indicator of the MASS of an object. The more massive the material
you build a starship (or anything else, for that matter) out of, the
more force required to move/accelerate the object. F=ma applies.
This the the same reason that 20th Century Naval ships went to aluminum for
spuperstructures (among others) and why many sport craft are made of
fiberglass rather than steel. It is also the reason that aluminum/plastic
cars are more efficient that steel cars with the same power plant.
Regards,
_____________________________________________________________________
Buddy Knight Note: These views are mine and
bkn...@lobby.ti.com not those of my employer.
fm...@msg.ti.com (E-mail address)
Live the Golden Rule!
_______________________________________________________________________
Buddy Knight
Paul,
Do we have data to support the application of Gauss' Law to gravity?
(non-flammable interrogative.)
Jon Vinson
>So why aren't Starfleet vessels made from carbon neutronium?
Maybe it's so dense and heavy as to be impractical for space vehicles (as
opposed to space stations, which don't move). Or maybe the Federation lacks
the necessary technology to use the material in any kind of construction.
Or maybe it's too expensive. Or...
Paul Carver
>Paul,
>Do we have data to support the application of Gauss' Law to gravity?
>(non-flammable interrogative.)
I don't know, but I think that the mathematical symmetry implies it.
F(electric)=(1/(4*pi*ezero))*(q*Q/r^2) F(grav)=(G)*(m*M/r^2)
Paul
Timothy Miller
Joshua Bell
>So, what IS the density of Neutronium in grams/cm^3?
>
A followup to this article pointed out that in many cases neutron
stars aren't this dense or are much denser, but this isn't that
far off:
From: sic...@csa1.lbl.gov (SCOTT I CHASE)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: Degenerate Matter
Date: 8 Aug 1994 21:03 PST
Message-ID: <8AUG1994...@csa1.lbl.gov>
>Let's use that number to answer the original poster's question. If
>the density of nuclear matter is normal nuclear density, or about 250 MeV/fm^3,
>(that's one proton mass in one proton volume with r0 = 1 fm, which gives
>a good order of magnitude energy density for bulk nuclear matter without
>worrying about details of compressibility constants, etc,) then .09 solar
>masses will have a mass of 10^29 kg * 1 MeV/1.7x10^-30 kg = 0.5 x 10^59 MeV,
>and a volume of (1 fm^3/250 Mev)*0.5 x 10^59 MeV = 2 * 10^56 fm^3 =
>2 * 10^9 m^3.
So that's 5 * 10^19 kg/m^3, or 5 * 10^16 g/cm^3. Unless my use of
units has gone REALLY astray in 2 years of non-use. :)
Who uses g/cm^3 anyway?
Joshua
--
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __Joshua_Sean_Bell__(jsb...@acs.ucalgary.ca)__
\ \/ \/ /\/ \/ /\/ \/ / |"There's far too much to take in here, more to|
\__/\__/\__/\__/\__/\__/ |__find than can ever be found..." - Tim Rice__|
http://www.ucalgary.ca/~jsbell/home.html
Carl Dershem
: I hate to nitpick, but the weight of the material that a
: starship is made of should have absolutely no bearing on
: whether or not it can be used. Remember, space is a vacuum and
: their is no air resistance for a ship to encounter. I think
: its more feasible that Federation engineers are unable to
: construct ships from Carbon Neutronium because the technology
: necessary to mold it into a malleable state useful for ship
: design doesn't exist yet.
???? Excuse me? Air resistance has no bearing on mass and intertia.
The problem with Neutronium is that it masses millions or even billions
of tons per cubic centimeter, so that the warp engines would probably
have to go all out just to budge the ship, and impulse drive would be as
ineffective as... trying to move the QE II with a pair of oars.
Dan Stieneke
Ah but you forgot about the inertial dampeners and the subspace field.
The actual mass and the effective mass of the Enterprise are two very
different amounts. When the enterprise has all its little doohickys
running it has a very low effective mass. They used those doohickys
to make a moon weight less in that episode where Q was human and they
are part of the normal workings of the ship.
I have just one thought, you wouldn't be able to ram with it (momentum
is a function of mass) but you sure could take a hit unlike the ships
they have now ;b
M. Sun
>In article <cdershemC...@netcom.com>,
>Carl Dershem <cder...@netcom.com> wrote:
>>James Palmese (jam...@pipeline.com) wrote:
>>
>>: I hate to nitpick, but the weight of the material that a
>>: starship is made of should have absolutely no bearing on
>>: whether or not it can be used. Remember, space is a vacuum and
>>: their is no air resistance for a ship to encounter. I think
>>: its more feasible that Federation engineers are unable to
>>: construct ships from Carbon Neutronium because the technology
>>: necessary to mold it into a malleable state useful for ship
>>: design doesn't exist yet.
>>
>>???? Excuse me? Air resistance has no bearing on mass and intertia.
>>The problem with Neutronium is that it masses millions or even billions
>>of tons per cubic centimeter, so that the warp engines would probably
>>have to go all out just to budge the ship, and impulse drive would be as
>>ineffective as... trying to move the QE II with a pair of oars.
>Ah but you forgot about the inertial dampeners and the subspace field.
>The actual mass and the effective mass of the Enterprise are two very
>different amounts. When the enterprise has all its little doohickys
>running it has a very low effective mass. They used those doohickys
>to make a moon weight less in that episode where Q was human and they
>are part of the normal workings of the ship.
Um, I thought that the inertial dampers simply _dissipated kinetic
energy, or at least spread out its absorption over a period of time. This is
mostly to protect everyone and everything on board from the huge accelerations
that the Enterprise goes through. The subspace field is totally different, and
I'd assume all mass is affected in the same way (so if the ship becomes super-
light, then its okay since the crew can function in their own nearly-massless
state, and the photon torpedoes fired at the ship don't utterly destroy it
because they become ultra-light as well).
Either way, a heavy ship is still hard to move, and a neutronium ship
would be basically impossible to budge. Not to mention the strange tidal
forces that the crew would have to endure (unless an ultra-powerful gravity-
control system were used)!
>I have just one thought, you wouldn't be able to ram with it (momentum
>is a function of mass) but you sure could take a hit unlike the ships
>they have now ;b
See above.
--
-M. Sun
Mark Browning
What if it was moleculary<sp>, bonded with other metals, could it then
be considered for armor, meaning to put it in with other metals at a
subatomic level, creating a light armor with Neutronium in it.. metals
such as well I only read about them I don't know if there real:
Lomite and Zersium
Mark
Mark Browning
In a previous article, anon...@nox.cs.du.edu (EQM) says:
>In article <34ucub$9...@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu>, eo...@cleveland.Freenet.Edu
>Neutronium will still mass 10^6 (or whatever) tons per cc no matter
>how thin it is.
>Secondly I see of no way to make neutronium than thin. It is only possible
>to form in situations where there is an extreme amount of mass (therefore
>large gravity). I don't think it will remain stable in a low mass
>environment.
>
>--
>*********************************************************************
>EQM
>'Just two lost souls...'
>
>"You will be assimilated..." Spam Collective
>*********************************************************************
>
It won't even be solid, I'm talking about taking the molecules of the
metal and bonding it with others, then solidifing it... Mark
EQM
Neutronium will still mass 10^6 (or whatever) tons per cc no matter
EQM
(Mark Browning) wrote:
> In a previous article, anon...@nox.cs.du.edu (EQM) says:
>
>
> >Neutronium will still mass 10^6 (or whatever) tons per cc no matter
> >how thin it is.
> >Secondly I see of no way to make neutronium than thin. It is only possible
> >to form in situations where there is an extreme amount of mass (therefore
> >large gravity). I don't think it will remain stable in a low mass
> >environment.
> >
> >--
> >*********************************************************************
> >EQM
> >'Just two lost souls...'
> >
> >"You will be assimilated..." Spam Collective
> >*********************************************************************
> >
> It won't even be solid, I'm talking about taking the molecules of the
> metal and bonding it with others, then solidifing it... Mark
What moelcules??? Neutronium is collapsed matter, it's basically nothing
more than a bunch of neutrons stuck together by gravity. I don't think they
can form molecules is small numbers since it is their mutual gravitation
attraction that holds them together.
Thomas Bagwell
: (Mark Browning) wrote:
: > It won't even be solid, I'm talking about taking the molecules of the
: What moelcules??? Neutronium is collapsed matter, it's basically nothing
: more than a bunch of neutrons stuck together by gravity. I don't think they
: can form molecules is small numbers since it is their mutual gravitation
: attraction that holds them together.
Even further, I believe that neutronium is supposed to be a
superfluid...although maybe some type of field effect might be able to
lock it into some sort of matrix. Definitely some sort of magitech
solution would be required.
--
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"...A wild, weird clime |
That lieth, sublime, | Thomas N. Bagwell
Out of Space, | tbag...@netcom.com
Out of Time." |
--Edgar Allen Poe |
'Dreamland' | ____\|/_____________________\|/____
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