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Realist energy sources...

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Alex:
Plasma is the fourth state of matter, Solid, Liquid, Gas, Plasma.  I can't remember the exact science but I'm pretty sure a plasma's electrons are unlinked from the nucleus and move about freely.  I could be wrong, so I'll probably look on wikipedia.

Voller:
I think you can get "cold" plasma as well as hot plasma. So that would explain why it is sometimes alright to just put it in a plastic bottle, but you'd need something more fancy at other times.

Gedaliah:

--- Quote ---  The reason nullification exists as a theoretical is because it is unknown if the particle would react in this dimension or the one the negative matter is retrieved from.  This energy would be as subatomic as heat, electricity, or gravity... all forms of energy, and all containable.  There is no matter moving from the point of cohesion to cause an uncontrolled chain reaction.
--- End quote ---


In theory yes, you can create a inverse waveform to stop it's progress or a lessor waveform of the same type to deflect it , I guess. Entropy would dissipate the energy in do course, but earth would be beyond saving at that point. What makes the reaction dangerous is there is nothing that can absorb said reaction to make it containable that wouldn't be as massive as a small planet(nothing earth could hold without adjusting it's orbit, or have gravity of it's own:P), or wouldn't require a equally dangerous energy source.

Edit: I take that back, if you could fold or bend space/time you could store it some out of the way place, but consider the energy needed to do that if the anti-matter reaction it's self doesn't warp space. It would be simpler, I would think, to harness the energy elsewhere and 'warp' it to a ship. The UFO, iirc, are warping in to near earth orbit, just outside of the human range to detect them.

Wanderer:

--- Quote from: "Gedaliah" ---
--- Quote ---  The reason nullification exists ....snip... There is no matter moving from the point of cohesion to cause an uncontrolled chain reaction.
--- End quote ---


In theory yes, you can create a inverse waveform to stop it's progress or a lessor waveform of the same type to deflect it , I guess. Entropy would dissipate the energy in do course, but earth would be beyond saving at that point. What makes the reaction dangerous is there is nothing that can absorb said reaction to make it containable that wouldn't be as massive as a small planet(nothing earth could hold without adjusting it's orbit, or have gravity of it's own:P), or wouldn't require a equally dangerous energy source.

Edit: I take that back, if you could fold or bend space/time you could store it some out of the way place, but consider the energy needed to do that if the anti-matter reaction it's self doesn't warp space. It would be simpler, I would think, to harness the energy elsewhere and 'warp' it to a ship. The UFO, iirc, are warping in to near earth orbit, just outside of the human range to detect them.
--- End quote ---


Well, at least we've stopped discussing uncontrolled chain reactions.  

You're right, though.  It is unlikely we could contain the equivalent of the sun's surface worth of energy condensed into a tight location with current materials and equipment.  In theory, as you've alluded too, the only way with our technology to even attempt controlling an explosion that powerful is to turn it on itself (inverse waveforms).  This dissipates to much of the energy to make the fuel source more economic to human technology then other forms.

However, a simplistic way of dealing with the issue would also be controlled containment forcing two equivalent blasts into each other, and siphoning off what was needed for the FTL and bleeding off the rest of the power... especially if you weren't there anymore when the spacetime was warped by the excess.  Proper venting is more required here then control if used in the middle of nothing, however, as the storyline reads, they also use it as a fuel source as they wander around the planet, nullifying this explaination.

Regarding the idea of storing the resultant energy: Energy would dissipate, or become it's own sun.  The volume of energy out of it's potential (once the pos and neg actually meet and becomes kinetic) is extraordinary and defeats the point of the ratio of size to power.  The ships would not be able to store the same volume of energy, making 'explode it, then fuel up' to be less then economical, size wise.

If you investigate recent findings in high-density atoms, the stable ones are being explored as use in shielding high-energy reactions.  It is chemically possible, if out of reach for our knowledge, to find one dense enough to contain these explosions without much bleed through of the energy itself.  With chemists actually 'making' new, denser elements, I don't think it unreasonable to make something that dense as a shielding.

Would it's erosion rate probably be high? Sure.  You'd probably replace the containment shell with every 'fill up'.  It's not, however, out of a theoretical reach to contain an immensely high-energy explosion for a short period as you shunted the results to storage locations.  The antimatter's existence itself is a whole different ballgame, however.

Gedaliah:
I'm being a showoff-no-nothing-snob, but I'm going to thank you for the replays Wanderer, and go back to my we're all "doomed" tone.

Edited this out by mistake:Short of a black hole I'm not sure how you would contain anti-mater, and I'm not even sure then. It would be like exposing a alkali metal to air(Flames to Boom, if I remember my high school chemistry.)

I'm going to go back to my first post, observes that a fission reaction shatters ,forceably releasing the energy that once bound the whole atom as one. Assuming energy doesn't arc from matter to anti-matter reducing them both to free floating debris. Which would mean no energy passed between them(sub atomic lighting :D), they just destroy the bonds holding the atom together releasing the sum total the atom's energy all a once.  That just means you have a lot of rapidly expanding energy, but let me risk a little logic here...


...A star doesn't totally annihilate a atom, but produces enough atomic energy to be self-sustaining , well at least until it's core fuses to some higher order element and it collapses or goes nova. If the release of part of a atom's energy is enough to sustain a sun, and a sun does all kinds of interesting things to matter; Then, What will a total release do?

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