General > Discussion
Particle Beam Weapons: More Than Just Flashlights?
ghosta:
The Problem here is storing Energy for our particles.
My idea to solve this is this: Let us suppose, we have a gas on a certain Temperature. On low temperatures, the whole Energy is stored in 3 degrees of freedom, that are movement in x-, y-, and z-Direction. If you increase the temperature to around 3000K (i guess it was around that) you "activate" additional degrees of freedom, like rotation around the x-, y- and z-Axis and oscillation. Now think about the method to isolate a molecule and start to activate every degree of freedom except the translation. Then take it, put it into a portable device and if you want to shoot with it you just disturb the rotation and you get more and more Energy into translation. How? No idea, but imagine a rotating ball getting in contact with the ground --> It starts to move.
The question is, how many Energy can u store? First I would not recommend using a Bucky Ball, it wont be durable to more than 1000K then it starts to break. So u should use single and heavy atoms, like Pb or U. Then u can start rotating them until the atomic bond starts to break and neutrons and protons start to fly around. If this is not enough u can use the protons and neutrons that are quite hard to destroy.
Just the way how I would try storing this amount of energy.
DanielOR:
Darkpriest667,
yes, compact energy sources are a serious issue. Keep in ming, however, that matter-antimatter interaction is no picnic either: again into the realm of stuff I learned a while ago... A particle-antiparticle interaction, i.e. annihilation, would produce a huge release of energy (straight E=mc^2, baby) in forms of high energy X-rays. Theoretically - great. Practically - very hard to harvest, and even harder to store - need high vacuum plus a margnetic field trap to hold the anti-particles in place and away from normal matter.
As far as carrying nuke plants into battle... We can fudge factor around that by saying that we solved cold fusion by 2084 - much better and closer alternative. -- you fuse two Hydrogen atoms together, get a Helium atom and a bunch of energy out. You need water and some Palladium electrodes, maybe - at least that's the level the quacks stopped at.
Darkpriest667:
Daniel you better hope one of those packs isnt damaged during a combat mission....
if the molecular reaction we are talking about is disturbed.. I think things get ugly with nukes or antimatter....
I love the points you guys bring up and the amount of detail in the mathematics that you give... It really helps me learn and I , for one, appreciate learning more than most :D
also ghosta.... about your idea of heating gas to a high temperature for energy.. its a good idea.. but i think possibly you will find some fatal flaws with it when you try to make it man portable in a very intimate setting *touching it, dropping it, putting it under the stresses of combat* its definitly something to look at.
DanielOR:
Darkpriest,
Glad to provide entertainment. :)
The cold fusion bit - which in reality turned out to be a fake - is supposed to not be so voletile. The nuke / anti-matter options are dangerous indeed, which is reflected clearly in the description of the research project in UFOpedia.
DanielOR:
ghosta,
I am not sure I understand you very well. Are you talking about a specific physical effect? Bose-Einstein condensation?
It is true that very cold matter (near absolute zero, -273 C) is less reactive - electrons hop to lowest states, mechanical vibration *almost* siezes. Latest work does, however, say that some movement exist. While it is true things like radiation are effetively "turned off" at low temp, it does not appear to me a good way to store energy. Reasons are two:
1. Thermodynamics: cold things want to get warm, warm things want to get cold, all wants to be uniform (result of second law of thermodynamics). So, the business of keeping things cold is very, very energy-costly.
2. Conservation of energy: say you have cold gas... If you want to heat that same gas, than somehow extract energy from it...you still have to heat the gas, which costs energy. So, you have to *give* the energy before you can *take* it. And since nothing is 100% effective, you will loose a bunch in the process. My gut tells me electromagnetic or chemical storage is better than using temperature of gasses.
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