187 replies to this topic

[Pht]

Loganauer, on 30 August 2014 - 05:18 PM, said:

Could you share the numbers of it? I read a thread where someone suggested that for every 5% of heat, cooling dissipation would slow down by 3%, so at 100% heat it would be cooling off at 40% efficiency. This was mentioned as a method to discourage high alpha builds.

I also seem to remember that in Mechwarrior: Dark Age, which I played heavily as an adolescent, you could "vent" the 'mech to make it lose a click of heat. Is that anywhere in canon? Physical pilot actions to cool the mech down?


*edit*

If both of these are true and in canon, an excellent balance mechanism for the game would be for heat to dissipate slower (encouraging heat neutral builds) and powering down to "vent" would drastically improve dissipation despite the high heat by giving it circulation.

Specifically, it's in Tactical Operations, pg 105, under "heat-sink coolant failure."

In-lore the coolant fluids have to absorb the heat concentrated into them by the heat pumps and carry them to radiators, but the more heat the coolant has to absorb, the higher the pressure it has to operate at, and 'mech heat systems are ... extensive, to say the least - if you think of the HSS system in total as the "vascular" system I suspect you'd be pretty close to right.

Well, the coolant system can only handle so much pressure, so above certain levels a 'mech will HAVE to do a emergency vent to keep it's coolant lines/components from exploding due to the pressure caused by heat being concentrated into the coolant fluid - rather like how a pressure-spring in the pressure tank/radiator on your car works as a safety valve on your car.

On an off note, this can be one of the reasons the battlefield is VERY dangerous in the BT lore - 'mechs can and do spill coolant even if their systems aren't punctured by weapons damage, and some forms of 'mech coolant are toxic. Not a nice place to be!

The actual numbers on the rules - and remember, this is working against a heat-dumping rate of x per ten seconds for you math heads who want to figure conversion - for every turn (ten seconds real time) where you have more than 5 points or more of waste heat (waste heat = heat left over after heatsinks dump everything they can in 10 seconds) you roll 2D6 and add the number from the HSCF table to the result of the roll. If this roll ever results in 10 or more, the coolant capacity will degrade by 1 point, meaning in the next 10 seconds and thereafter the heat sink system can dump 1 point less heat.

HSCF table:

heat level modifier
5-10 +0
11-15 +1
16-20 +2
21-25 +3
26-30 +4
31-35 +5
36-40 +6
41-45 +7
46-50 +8

Now, you have to remember - this doesn't account for a heatsink suffering a heat-caused "critical hit" - this is just addressing the heatsink system coolant. Beginning at 36 points of waste heat, you can suffer an internal system failure - this means you could possibly lose a heatsink.

Coolant starts breaking down badly at about 26 waste heat. Heatsinks themselves can be destroyed at 36 waste heat.

YES - coolant degradation can tip you into enough waste heat to destroy a heatsink itself which can easily cause a spiral down in cooling capacity so bad that a 'mech virtually can not cool itself without outside help. This would be why coolant trucks and bodies of water deep enough to cover a 'mech's heatsinks are SO useful for 'mechs. Puts a whole new terrifying light on inferno (think napalm but worse) SRMS, flamers, fires, lava, and all that, doesn't it? Besides basic overheating, think ... ammo explosions.

Sort of makes this scale even more scary:

Quote

As I understand it, thermodynamics would dictate that an object would dissipate heat to heat sinks slower as it heats up in an environment with little circulation, as the engine reaches thermal equilibrium with the heat sinks. That's what's going on in my mind with dissipation, the engine is getting hotter and dispersing the heat to heat sinks. "Venting" would give a lot of circulation to help dissipation.

In this thread
http://mwomercs.com/...ussion-on-heat/
Strum Wealh explains these are not similar to modern heat sinks and that external heat sinks pump heat -out- of the 'mech and internal heat sinks use a regenerative cooling mechanism. So I'm not certain if the same principle would apply.



Also while trying to find info on venting, I came across this

http://mwomercs.com/...ttletech-fluff/

"Flamers - A weapon that draws the heat straight from the fusion reactor and vents it! How it should work is obvious: The hotter your reactor is running, the more potent the damage that can be fueled through your flamer is. Since it's venting heat, it should cause either no heat, or actually lower it. .. except it doesn't. It spikes your heat to dump heat out of your 'mech into the atmosphere. What?

Any thoughts on that?

If you read the thread pinned in the top of this off topic forum there's a discussion about how heat is handled in the lore.

Yes, a hot environment makes it harder to dump heat out of a radiator. The fusion engine, btw, isn't the only - or the major - source of waste heat in a battlemech. You really should read that pinned thread on the topic.

"venting" - it depends on what you mean. 'mechs can't open up grills and plates and all that to dump heat - that's one of their downsides, they HAVE to conceal the radiator part of their heat sinks to keep them from being destroyed. Shutting down helps because you have stopped ALL internal heat sources from generating heat. All 'mech radiators are concealed quite well behind armor.

Yes, mech "heat sinks" aren't passive heat sinks. They're actually much more like air conditioning units and yes they do use heat pumps/concentrators, like AC units.

Flamers - I'm not sure on the specifics of flamers. If it does work like you've blurbed it - yes, it could cause a heat spike, for a very simple reason - if you're venting plasma out of the fusion reactor, the engine probably has to spike the reations up and add excess fuel to keep the plasma running at acceptable levels, meaning a spike of heat in the fusion engine AND down the entire plasma routing.

Ps. 'Mech jump jets do NOT vent fusion engine plasma. Only areofighters dump plasma out of their ports.

Edited by Pht, 31 August 2014 - 09:32 AM.

[990Dreams]

I thought we covered this.

Let's say I have five weapons. They are the same, and we'll call them WSA (Weapon System A).
Let's say I have two Heat Sinks, HS1 and HS2.
Let's say each heat sink dissipates one unit of heat per second.
Let's say WSA produces one unit of heat per second and has a burn time of five seconds.

Now, for the cases.

Case 1: I fire one WSA. HS1 and HS2 each kick in, dissipating heat 2x as fast as if there were just one HS.
Case 2: I fire two WSAs. HS1 and HS2 each kick in, dissipating heat 1x as fast since each can't 'focus' on one WSA unit. No heat will appear to build, because the HSs cancel the heat build from WSA.
Case 3: I fire three WSAs. HS1 and HS2 each kick in. Now there are more weapons firing than each heat sink can handle, so I have a gain in total heat.
Case 4: I fire four WSAs. HS1 and HS2 each kick in. Now there are even more weapons firing than each sink can handle, so my total heat has an even higher gain.
Case 5: I fire all five WSAs. HS1 and HS2 each kick in. Now there are significantly more weapons firing than each sink can handle. The heat gain is not a linear scale, but a complex algebraic scale.

The situation is different if you fire them in a chain, or if you're using a ballistic style projectile (it instantly drops all it's heat instead of a build like a laser).

Now, I don't agree with the Ghost Heat we have in place. But stacking penalties should be a part of the physics system.

Edited by DavidHurricane, 31 August 2014 - 09:39 AM.

[Koniving]

DavidHurricane, on 14 September 2013 - 08:46 AM, said:

For clarification about the fusion reactors: Sarna says that they use pure hydrogen (1 proton) and NOT deuterium or tritium (1 proton 1-2 neutrons).

Only partly on topic due to this part, but it got me curious thinking about it.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't hydrogen volatile? As in a rupture could cause an explosion, fusion or fision? Yes, there's safety measures for Fusion reactors and the intended reaction takes a lot of work and produces a lot of power, and Fusion Reactors will shutdown under stress as a safety procaution (hence why shutdown chances begin at 50% threshold in Battletech).

But a rupture. Whether or not its during a controlled reaction or not, what we have is a machine with many Hydrogen fuel rods and a reactor that whether actively causing a reaction or inertly dispensing the power it has already generated, still has a number of rods whether in the chamber or in storage that it needs in order to power both the mech and the lasers. Hydrogen which has proven itself, by itself, as a viable and highly explosive compound.

Here is Ivy Mike

The first yet very haphazardly put together (compared to modern standards) hydrogen bomb.

And its Russian counterpart.


And granted this is a Fission reactor and ultimately a very minor failure of a powered-off Hydrogen reactor without a meltdown where only "mostly spent" rods detonated when their cooling was insufficient. I emphasize that the reactor was indeed not powered, however it did still have inactive rods in the cooling chamber, something a Fusion reactor will have long after the reaction has generated ample power and is a risk that exists for both kinds of reactors.


Documentary, which includes the specifics about the reactor's status and what led to the reaction.


<.<; It makes for an interesting case argument for Stackpoling.

On a side note, industrial mechs (to include the 6 to 8 ton police mechs) that use energy weapons run on a single Fuel Cell battery, and those that don't use energy weapons are more typically ICE (internal combustion engine) powered.

Edited by Koniving, 31 August 2014 - 10:37 AM.

[9erRed]

Greetings all,

@ Koniving,

Fusion reactors have no 'rods', therefor no 'left over material' that causes issues.
- They do eradiate the lining of the chamber after some time and this does cause issues when servicing is required.

We currently, IRL, have two methods of 'attempting a fusion reaction' that are being tested, with some success.
- Laser inducement.
- Magnetic inducement.

Within the BattleTech verse they are stated as using a combination of both, one to start the reaction and the other to maintain the stable system within.
- Fusion reactors generate huge quantities of electrical power by fusing light elements like hydrogen into heavier elements like helium. Nuclear fission, on the other hand, splits heavy elements like uranium into lighter materials.
The usual fuel used in modern fusion engines is normal hydrogen, the protium isotope to be specific.
- In modern (BattleTech) fusion reactors, the normal hydrogen used for fuel is extracted from any number of sources - particularly water. Because of this most military fusion engines include an electrolysis unit to extract hydrogen from water.

The fusion engine utilizes a super hot (tens of millions of degrees Celsius) ball of hydrogen plasma which converts into helium to create energy. In order to keep the plasma ball from melting the engine it is contained within a magnetic field. This is possible because plasma is electrically charged and thus it can be positioned and shaped by magnetic fields. There are magnetic fields inside the plasma ball and fields generated outside the plasma. In fact, the plasma never (normally) touches the walls of the engine. The reactor chamber is kept as a vacuum for heat insulation.

As a note, this entire reaction is produced from only a few grams of the Hydrogen isotope. And if the engine is not overtasked the main fuel can last for years. The engine's them self normally only require servicing for parts wear out or damage, so if nothing of critical requirements breaks the engines could last for the life of the Mech. Sometimes a few centuries.

Ref:
http://www.sarna.net...i/Fusion_Engine

And a very good essay about all aspects of BattleMechs.
http://www.sarna.net...#Fusion_Engines

Now in actual real testing of a controlled Fusion reactor, they went with the laser method to gain the reaction temperature and 'trigger' that allowed for the 'reaction' to start.
- To date they have produced a few tests that have achieved more energy than was applied to start the reaction.
- Although the reaction was short lived it was an early success in 'getting this thing going'.

As the method and equipment is fine tuned we will probably see rapid advancement in this field, with industrial sized units probable within 10 years, or sooner. (if there is a big push from government and Tech to see this through.)

9erRed

Edited by 9erRed, 31 August 2014 - 03:16 PM.

[990Dreams]

Koniving, on 31 August 2014 - 10:28 AM, said:

Only partly on topic due to this part, but it got me curious thinking about it.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't hydrogen volatile? As in a rupture could cause an explosion, fusion or fision?

Wrong and wrong. Hydrogen is volatile around oxygen, because of it's chemical proprieties. Not nuclear.

Summary of nuclear reactions:

Fission: Neutrons infiltrate atom, destabalize it, cause it to split into two smaller atoms and a few neutrons. These are slowed by graphite and then hit other atoms. Control rods can catch the neutrons to stop a reaction.

Fusion: Light atoms are fused into heavier atoms and release energy. Cleaner and more powerful than fission.

Marack Drock, on 31 August 2014 - 01:57 PM, said:

While we are TRYING to make this work... lets just quote NASA "The amount of power to contain a Fusion reaction would be more than the Earth itself could generate, at least for ones seen in movies."

A true fusion blast is a NUCLEAR BOMB trying to be contained. Once it is started though, the temperatures would exceed the hotness of the sun 12 times over. NOTHING could take that for more than milliseconds. Until we find some unknown metal that can withstand the surface of the sun our chances at a BT reactor are close to NONE.

Our Government tried to do stuff like this in the past: "Mess with forces out of Human control" and we ended up creating a Particle Accelerator that could have possibly created A BLACK BLOOMING HOLE! If a Black hole was created THERE IS NO WAY WE COULD CONTROL IT! A Black hole absorbs ALL matter even light. Do you really think it could be harnessed? Answer: No.

The same with a Nuclear Bomb. You are telling me, that we have anything that can withstand temps 12x hotter than the sun that can DESTROY matter. Remember in Physics and Chem they taught us that Matter isn't destroyed but transferred? But a Nuclear Bomb can destroy an Atom therefore defying those laws. The only thing to do so besides a Black hole. It was so hot that when it was first tested in the 40s it turned the desert floor to glass faster than you can blink. There is no way we could harness the full power of a Nuclear bomb. Even if we did the slightest penetration or ding on the reactor would mean active bomb.

The problem with controlling it magnetically is, Magnets are attracted to what? Mostly Ferris atoms but if powerful enough sometimes other atoms. A Fusion bomb DESTROYS atoms therefore is the opposite of what it can control. Plus the heat generated would surely destroy it.

Also the heating fusion reactors used in factories is actually not a full reactor. It only initiates short bursts of the energy to heat water. It is not controlled enough to generate said power and we have not the technology to generate and control and full reaction.

• 1. Wrong. Use magnetics to contain the plasma, since plasma responds to magnetic fields.
  
• 2. Wrong. The Fermi collider and the LHC could produce black holes, but those would fizzle out before they could grow. They just don't have enough mass.
  
• 3. Wrong. It just disintegrates matter into atoms, doesn't "destroy them". The only matter that is "destroyed" is the matter in the initial fusion reaction. It is converted to energy by E=mc^2.
  
• 4. Wrong. The plasma would be kept at a safe distance from the coils. And, once again, matter isn't destroyed.
  
• 5. Wrong. The ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) is designed to continually fuse the gases.
  
• 5. Black holes don't destroy matter. Simply put, they compress it into the singularity.
  
• 6. Currently efficient nuclear reactors weigh 27k tons (or some other awful number). So it will take a long time to compress the technology to Mech scales.
  
• 7. We aren't harnessing a fusion bomb. It is a very small fusion reaction in a contained vessel. Orders of magnitude smaller than a bomb.

I can source all of my info from reliable books and leading physicists.

Not to sound like a jerk, you have read too much sci-fi Marack .

Edited by DavidHurricane, 31 August 2014 - 03:34 PM.

[990Dreams]

Even though this has been done before, I am going to (later) write essays on the (realistic) aspects of BT (and believe me, I know my sci-fi-that-I-wish-was-reality science).

[9erRed]

Greetings all,

Reference Fusion,

Correction update:
- combining two isotopes to create a different one is not the same as trying to induce a full on explosive reaction by splitting materials. Much less (relatively) energy requirements.
(sorry about the correction, was rather deep into the Lawson documents at the time.)

Generating the controlled steps to bring the material only to the point of starting the reaction, holding the plasma at this state, and maintaining the controlled environment, is what separates the two.

With the bomb scenario you want the reaction to become a runaway situation, and there is no requirement to attempt any control. (the material partials are not destroyed, just converted into a higher form of matter. As you said, never destroyed, just changed or converted into another form of matter/energy)

Here's the actual experiment that was conducted at the US facility. With a rather basic explanation of what was happening at the reaction point. The energy, pressure, and temperatures are 'right out of this world', but they worked for what they were challenged to do. Not yet at the point of having a perpetually self-generating and sustained reaction but the promise is there.
http://www.scientifi...y-breakthrough/

Ref:
Fusion reactions combine light atomic nuclei such as hydrogen to form heavier ones such as helium. In order to overcome the electrostatic repulsion between them, the nuclei must have a temperature of several tens of millions of degrees, under which conditions they no longer form neutral atoms but exist in the plasma state. In addition, sufficient density and energy confinement are required, as specified by the Lawson criterion.
Magnetic confinement fusion attempts to create the conditions needed for fusion energy production by using the electrical conductivity of the plasma to contain it with magnetic fields. The basic concept can be thought of in a fluid picture as a balance between magnetic pressure and plasma pressure, or in terms of individual particles spiraling along magnetic field lines.

For those interested here Lawson's requirements. (warning much math ahead)
http://en.wikipedia....awson_criterion

9erRed

Edited by 9erRed, 31 August 2014 - 04:36 PM.

[990Dreams]

9erRed, on 31 August 2014 - 04:18 PM, said:

Greetings all,

Reference Fusion,

- splitting an isotope to create or release some of it matter is not the same as trying to induce a full on explosive reaction.
Generating the controlled steps to bring the material only to the point of starting the reaction, holding the plasma at this state, and maintaining the controlled environment, is what separates the two.

With the bomb scenario you want the reaction to become a runaway situation, and there is no requirement to attempt any control. (the material partials are not destroyed, just converted into a higher form of matter. As you said, never destroyed, just changed or converted into another form of matter/energy)

Here's the actual experiment that was conducted at the US facility. With a rather basic explanation of what was happening at the reaction point. The energy, pressure, and temperatures are 'right out of this world', but they worked for what they were challenged to do. Not yet at the point of having a perpetually self-generating and sustained reaction but the promise is there.
http://www.scientifi...y-breakthrough/

Ref:
Fusion reactions combine light atomic nuclei such as hydrogen to form heavier ones such as helium. In order to overcome the electrostatic repulsion between them, the nuclei must have a temperature of several tens of millions of degrees, under which conditions they no longer form neutral atoms but exist in the plasma state. In addition, sufficient density and energy confinement are required, as specified by the Lawson criterion.
Magnetic confinement fusion attempts to create the conditions needed for fusion energy production by using the electrical conductivity of the plasma to contain it with magnetic fields. The basic concept can be thought of in a fluid picture as a balance between magnetic pressure and plasma pressure, or in terms of individual particles spiraling along magnetic field lines.

For those interested here Lawson's requirements. (warning much math ahead)
http://en.wikipedia....awson_criterion

9erRed

Correct. Except for the first part:

- splitting an isotope to create or release some of it matter is not the same as trying to induce a full on explosive reaction.
Generating the controlled steps to bring the material only to the point of starting the reaction, holding the plasma at this state, and maintaining the controlled environment, is what separates the two.

You aren't splitting an isotope. Your fusing atoms. Not sure what you meant there, it kinda confused me .

[Darth Futuza]

Marack Drock, on 31 August 2014 - 01:57 PM, said:

Our Government tried to do stuff like this in the past: "Mess with forces out of Human control" and we ended up creating a Particle Accelerator that could have possibly created A BLACK BLOOMING HOLE! If a Black hole was created THERE IS NO WAY WE COULD CONTROL IT! A Black hole absorbs ALL matter even light. Do you really think it could be harnessed? Answer: No.

Lol wut? Micro blackholes are hardly dangerous (and they're really just a theory anyway, since we don't have any proof yet), since they
a) Evaporate instantly through Hawking radiation
Have no more gravitational pull then an atom of the same size would.
Black holes could be very useful for all sort of things, it isn't really much more different from a star. Believing they could never be harnessed and used usefully is rather paranoid and silly.

DavidHurricane, on 31 August 2014 - 03:32 PM, said:

Wrong and wrong. Hydrogen is volatile around oxygen, because of it's chemical proprieties. Not nuclear.

I thought that was the point he was making, that mech's might explode from hydrogen supply fires, not from nuclear issues.

[990Dreams]

Darth Futuza, on 31 August 2014 - 04:53 PM, said:

I thought that was the point he was making, that mech's might explode from hydrogen supply fires, not from nuclear issues.

That is why you keep the hydrogen in a vacuum. Introduce the H and O into the reactor at the same time and the O will boost the reactor energy. Otherwise, you could separate the H and the O and use the O for Oxygen supply to the pilot.

Edited by DavidHurricane, 31 August 2014 - 05:02 PM.

[Darth Futuza]

DavidHurricane, on 31 August 2014 - 05:01 PM, said:

That is why you keep the hydrogen in a vacuum. Introduce the H and O into the reactor at the same time and the O will boost the reactor energy. Otherwise, you could separate the H and the O and use the O for Oxygen supply to the pilot.

How are you suppose to keep it safe in a vacuum when people keep shooting it with gauss rounds?

[990Dreams]

Darth Futuza, on 31 August 2014 - 05:05 PM, said:

How are you suppose to keep it safe in a vacuum when people keep shooting it with gauss rounds?

A tungsten carbide shield guards the reactor. It composes most of the reactor's weight. Just before the shield penetrates, sensors shut the reactor off. There is still a fantastic explosion, but it is non-nuclear. It is the plasma creating a fire and the hydrogen forming water. Read the sarna.net article for that.

Also, even when the reactor is breached (which it normally is, it normally doesn't shut down) it still isn't a huge explosion. Tremendous volumes of gas would be needed to produce anything super spectacular.

Edited by DavidHurricane, 31 August 2014 - 05:11 PM.

[Darth Futuza]

DavidHurricane, on 31 August 2014 - 05:08 PM, said:

A tungsten carbide shield guards the reactor. It composes most of the reactor's weight. Just before the shield penetrates, sensors shut the reactor off. There is still a fantastic explosion, but it is non-nuclear. It is the plasma creating a fire and the hydrogen forming water. Read sarna.net for that.

...so finally, to conclude this Q&A session, why doesn't MWO feature this plasma/hydrogen fire when I crit the center torso?

[990Dreams]

Darth Futuza, on 31 August 2014 - 05:11 PM, said:

...so finally, to conclude this Q&A session, why doesn't MWO feature this plasma/hydrogen fire when I crit the center torso?

Ya know that big yellow/blue flame when a Mech dies? That's it. Although I'd like it if it were more fantastic.

A large plume of white hot yellow flame, producing blue sparks and plasma like dragon's breath, grew from the chest of the Dire Wolf, as though it were alive and wanted to kill all nearby for tampering with the power of the stars.

[9erRed]

Greetings all,

There's quite a bit of 'eye candy' that can be created for what we have in game now.

The effect of a large red mist cloud explosion when there is a cockpit kill.
The effect of a reactor breach, with the bright light and heat release.
Longer and more detailed explosions for ammo cook-offs.
More detailed effects for missiles launching and flight.
- just to name a few.-

Lots of items that could be added, but all requiring the same individuals that are currently working on CW, maps, and other in game details. And as I stated, it's eye candy for now and would not change anything. Cost time and money to produce with no immediate return.
- I'm sure it's 'on the list', of items they want to eventually have, but not high enough priority to pull designers and artists off there current tasks.

9erRed

Edited by 9erRed, 31 August 2014 - 05:25 PM.

[9erRed]

Greetings all,

Reference the NARC,

The missile contains multiple items all crammed into a usable size.
- It has similar flight and control components as the SRM's
- It contains a very strong signal generator and broadcast transmitter, enough to saturate the target Mech's sensors.
- And it is equipped with a very strong magnetic clamping device.
(if you have ever picked up any industrial sized magnet they are very dense and heavy, the electro magnetic ones sometimes even more so.)

All this probably leads to a rather heavy missile for it's size. Density, size and weight are all separate items, so items that are larger do not necessary have to be heavier. Similarly smaller items can be extremely heavy.

The referenced sarna image:


Note here: sarna lists this device as only having '6' reloads.

9erRed

[Pht]

... I could have SWORN I first found this thread in the Off Topic forum...

DavidHurricane, on 31 August 2014 - 09:38 AM, said:

I thought we covered this.

Let's say I have five weapons. They are the same, and we'll call them WSA (Weapon System A).

...

The heat gain is not a linear scale, but a complex algebraic scale.

Which I wasn't disagreeing with.

What's interesting is the spike in heat that the HSCF table describes may just be the heat spike, time wise, describing the actual heat over time capacity of the coolant itself. Too bad we don't know the actual weapons recycle times - not even the solaris books, AFAIK, give us the actual recycle times.

Still, we have numbers in ten second chunks, so it could be plotted on a scale that way to give outside paramaters of the cooling system capacity over time.

Darth Futuza, on 31 August 2014 - 05:05 PM, said:

How are you suppose to keep it safe in a vacuum when people keep shooting it with gauss rounds?

Obscenely capable and redundant shutoffs + the natural fact that the plasma ball will shut it self off extremely quickly if you don't continuously add fuel to it. Even if/when the plasma ball IS exposed *before* the shutoffs can turn it off, it doesn't take (relatively) very much thermal mass at all to "kill" the plasma reactions, because the plasma ball doesn't contain anything more than active reactions.

Edited by Pht, 01 September 2014 - 05:44 AM.

[The Great Unwashed]

[redacted]

Marack Drock, on 01 September 2014 - 06:07 AM, said:

Still it actually does DESTROY matter when starting therefore defying the rules that matter cannot be destroyed.

You've got to be careful and must use relativistic and invariant mass unambiguously; if you heat an object, its relativistic mass increases. So, here matter is 'created' or 'destroyed'. Most energy exchanges are paired with such mass changes, albeit very very small.

Plus, I'm a bit surprised that a physics major would say that 1) Theory is just a theory and 2) would use the concept of 'truth'. Science is not about truth---as truth is a philosophical concept only---and since arguments by Kuhn et al against Popper's falsifiability hypothesis, absolute truth pretty much went out of the window.

Edited by Egomane, 02 September 2014 - 06:13 AM.
talk in the realm of religion

[990Dreams]

Marack Drock, on 01 September 2014 - 06:07 AM, said:

That is wrong also. Since it NEVER created a black hole with it we had NO idea what would have happened. Mainly because we don't even know what a black hole is. If it was created THEORETICALLY it would die out but we do not know. I could just eat its way through Earth.

Still it actually does DESTROY matter when starting therefore defying the rules that matter cannot be destroyed.

Once again in theory. NO ONE has ever seen or discovered what a Black hole is or what it does. We assume it compresses it but for all we know destroys it. Saying something is fact when it is infact theory is rather dumb. Same reason Evolution is a Theory and not law (it was never observed, therefore also making it unscientific. One definition of science is Observable Data and Evolution is not observable).

Fusion is Fusion. A Nuc is a Nuc. You break it, it will nuc you. It is a bomb.

And this will only work if we assume the Plasma will do its job. We don't know how the Plasma would keep the FUSION. For all we know the Fusion reaction would engulf the plasma reducing it to the point the Magnetics would not work. Then the reaction could easily feed off Oxygen until growing to a size big enough to destroy the reactor.

I am taking a College Physics course. I am not speaking out of my butt. Fusion technology is still 100% experimental and something of this magnitude could easily go astray to one create a nuclear bomb in your mech. Physics does not yet know how to create a BT level reactor nor does it know what a Black hole is. It is all theory (it could be true it could be wrong).

[redacted]

1. No, but the math that has been working for everything else says the black hole wouldn't grow. It would fizzle out. Black holes don't grow, unless they are fed enormous amounts of matter (enormous being a relative term to the size of the hole) (i.e it wouldn't be a noticeable growth unless it was fed a lot of matter relative to it's size).

2 & 3. No, it doesn't destroy matter. Any leading (not age old) physicist will tell you that. So far as all our observations tell, it simply absorbs it.

3. Fusion is Fusion. And a nuclear grade weapon uses significantly higher quantities in a run away, non controlled reaction to produce tons of energy. The heat simply can't transfer fast enough to create a run away reaction because of the

• Vacuum
  
• Lack of available gas

Thus, even if the reactor breached, all you'd get is a bunch of plasma transferring it's heat to the air and losing it's ability to fuse any longer. The only way to get a run-away reaction is to inject all available gas into the reactor at once and then to shut off the magnetic confinement. And I'm sure there are safety protocols and advanced magnetic field algorithms to prevent catastrophic failures of containment like that from occurring. And and, a supply of heat & electricity must be supplied in order to keep the reaction going. By simply turning off the cathodes & anodes and shutting off the electrical flow, it wouldn't be able to sustain heat on it's own and would rapidly cool off. And and and, if it ever touched the walls, it would transfer all it's heat away, destroy the magnet, and in effect, shut off the reaction on it's own.



4. Niice! I applaud you for your effort (even if you drop out, good job trying). But I'm not pulling stuff out of my butt either. I don't take courses on physics but I joy read about it. And, having read about the development of nuclear weapons, I can say that you'd have to try reeeaaally hard to get the fusion reaction in a small reactor like that to come anywhere near Ivy Mike (or even the Nagasaki bomb for that matter).

5. Correct. It is in the definition of the word Theory.

6. As for warp drives, there is one hope for it's existence. A gravity trick not involving worm holes can be used to warp space to make it so you 'travel faster than light' (you cover the distance light can faster than light moves, but if you were to trap light within this field, it would still move faster than you). In effect, you can call it "cheating" .

[redacted]

I'm tempted to start a thread about science in general in Off-Topic.

Edited by Egomane, 02 September 2014 - 06:12 AM.
talk in the realm of religion

[Darth Futuza]

Marack Drock, on 01 September 2014 - 06:07 AM, said:

Still it actually does DESTROY matter when starting therefore defying the rules that matter cannot be destroyed.

No, just no. E=mc^2 effectively says Matter == Energy. The matter is not destroyed, it is converted into energy. I don't even want to try with the rest of your response.

Pht, on 01 September 2014 - 05:43 AM, said:

Obscenely capable and redundant shutoffs + the natural fact that the plasma ball will shut it self off extremely quickly if you don't continuously add fuel to it. Even if/when the plasma ball IS exposed *before* the shutoffs can turn it off, it doesn't take (relatively) very much thermal mass at all to "kill" the plasma reactions, because the plasma ball doesn't contain anything more than active reactions.

I'm working off the assumption that they hydrogen is probably contained inside of some sort of container and that it isn't all converted on the fly, but has some sort of storage container for it that if ruptured would explode (not nuclear, just a regular old hydrogen fireball).

Edited by Darth Futuza, 01 September 2014 - 06:31 AM.