| Topic: |
Science > Physics |
| User: |
"Lawrence" |
| Date: |
08 Jan 2005 02:36:48 PM |
| Object: |
"teleporting electrons"? |
Is it correct to describe electrons as teleporting
themselves from places to places around the nucleus
of an atom?
Quantum Mechanics deals with discreteness. Do you
really think the electrons can kinda teleport
from places to places within around the nucleus and not
behave in a continuous manner? Many just focus on the
mathematics and disregard the physical correlates. But
the latter is important too. Or do you think that Quantum
Mechanics is about not thinking of the physical correlates
as there is none or unimaginaable?
Suppose you are an electron and you are docking in the
hydrogen atom. What do you think would you be doing
at this very moment? What do you think?
Lawrence
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| User: "Franz Heymann" |
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| Title: Re: "teleporting electrons"? |
08 Jan 2005 04:36:38 PM |
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"Lawrence" <quantummechanicswhat@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1105216608.301330.316570@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
Is it correct to describe electrons as teleporting
themselves from places to places around the nucleus
of an atom?
It is pointless speculating about unobservable phenomena.
Franz
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| User: "Old Man" |
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| Title: Re: "teleporting electrons"? |
08 Jan 2005 03:21:24 PM |
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"Lawrence" <quantummechanicswhat@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1105216608.301330.316570@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
Is it correct to describe electrons as teleporting
themselves from places to places around the nucleus
of an atom? ....
No. Each atomic state occupies a phase space volume
of h^3. The wave function yields a complete description
of the electron's location within that phase space volume.
A detailed "place to place" description isn't realizable in
principle or from empirical observation.
....
Lawrence
[Old Man]
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| User: "Lawrence" |
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| Title: Re: "teleporting electrons"? |
08 Jan 2005 04:40:22 PM |
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Old Man wrote:
"Lawrence" <quantummechanicswhat@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1105216608.301330.316570@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
Is it correct to describe electrons as teleporting
themselves from places to places around the nucleus
of an atom? ....
No. Each atomic state occupies a phase space volume
of h^3. The wave function yields a complete description
of the electron's location within that phase space volume.
A detailed "place to place" description isn't realizable in
principle or from empirical observation.
....
Lawrence
[Old Man]
Hope someone can reword the above. What's phase space
volume and what's h^3? I just want to have a rough
layman idea of the elecron behavior like whether it
moves continuously even though we can't observe one
due to the Uncertainty Principle. When an electron
jumps from one enery state to another, it does so
continuously? I mean, there is never a chance
or occasion that it teleports at all?
Also I can't understand what made the electrons
move at all and what created the ground state
such that it can't fall to the atom's nucleus. Some
suggested "angular momentum" but angular
momemtum of what prevented the electron from
falling into the nuclues??
Sorry. Can someone explain everything in layman term?
Lawrence
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| User: "Franz Heymann" |
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| Title: Re: "teleporting electrons"? |
09 Jan 2005 01:59:19 AM |
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"Lawrence" <quantummechanicswhat@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1105224022.250216.190380@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
Old Man wrote:
"Lawrence" <quantummechanicswhat@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1105216608.301330.316570@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
Is it correct to describe electrons as teleporting
themselves from places to places around the nucleus
of an atom? ....
No. Each atomic state occupies a phase space volume
of h^3. The wave function yields a complete description
of the electron's location within that phase space volume.
A detailed "place to place" description isn't realizable in
principle or from empirical observation.
....
Lawrence
[Old Man]
Hope someone can reword the above.
Old Man said that it is impossible to know anything about the atom
which is not calculable from its wavefunction, and that you cannot
locate an electron any more precisely than the information contained
in the shape of the wave function.
Franz
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| User: "Old Man" |
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| Title: Re: "teleporting electrons"? |
08 Jan 2005 08:44:16 PM |
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"Lawrence" <quantummechanicswhat@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1105224022.250216.190380@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
Old Man wrote:
"Lawrence" <quantummechanicswhat@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1105216608.301330.316570@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
Is it correct to describe electrons as teleporting
themselves from places to places around the nucleus
of an atom? ....
No. Each atomic state occupies a phase space volume
of h^3. The wave function yields a complete description
of the electron's location within that phase space volume.
A detailed "place to place" description isn't realizable in
principle or from empirical observation.
....
Lawrence
[Old Man]
Hope someone can reword the above. What's phase
space volume
Phase space is momentum vs. position space, (p, x).
and what's h^3?
"h" is Planck's constant. "h^3" is the cube of Planck's
constant. Planck's constant has physical dimensions
of [momentum x distance].
What does "teleport from place to place" mean when
one cannot uniquely determine the location, x, and
momentum, p, of an electron that's in a state whose
total varience in phase space is given by
delta_x * delta_p > h / 2*pi
The electron's wave function yields a complete description.
There is nothing else to be known.
I just want to have a rough
layman idea of the elecron behavior like whether it
moves continuously even though we can't observe one
due to the Uncertainty Principle.
Quantum mechanics predicts that which can be observed,
nothing more or less. There is nothing "really going on"
that can't be predicted or observed. Lawrence asks for
that which isn't predicted or observed.
When an electron
jumps from one enery state to another, it does so
continuously? I mean, there is never a chance
or occasion that it teleports at all?
The two states of a transition occupy different volumes
in phase space. For a transition to occur, the two
volumes must partially overlap. That is, the electron's
position and momentum must have common values in
the overlap region.
The probability amplitude for the transition is proportional
to the volume of the overlap region The greater the overlap,
the quicker the transition.
Under this semi-classical interpretation, the transition
is continuous. There is no "jump" in momentum or
position.
Also I can't understand what made the electrons
move at all and what created the ground state
such that it can't fall to the atom's nucleus. Some
suggested "angular momentum" but angular
momemtum of what prevented the electron from
falling into the nuclues??
Angular momentum prevents classical systems from
collapsing. The existence of a ground state with null
angular momentum, such as that of the hydrogen atom,
is a unique result of quantum mechanics. Collapse
is prevented via a finite value for Planck's constant.
Sorry. Can someone explain everything in layman term?
No. Some effort on the part of the "layman" is essential.
Act upon your curiosity by doing some work, or live in
ignorance.
Lawrence
[Old Man]
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| User: "Bjoern Feuerbacher" |
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| Title: Re: "teleporting electrons"? |
10 Jan 2005 05:24:12 AM |
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Lawrence wrote:
Old Man wrote:
"Lawrence" <quantummechanicswhat@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1105216608.301330.316570@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
Is it correct to describe electrons as teleporting
themselves from places to places around the nucleus
of an atom? ....
No. Each atomic state occupies a phase space volume
of h^3. The wave function yields a complete description
of the electron's location within that phase space volume.
A detailed "place to place" description isn't realizable in
principle or from empirical observation.
....
Lawrence
[Old Man]
Hope someone can reword the above. What's phase space
volume
In classical mechanics, one can completely describe a
particle (to be precise, an elementary particle, i.e. one
without internal structure) by giving its position x
and its momentum p (or, alternatively, its velocity). Both
are three-dimensional vectors. The six-dimensional space
spanned by those is called "phase space". So, roughly,
the phase space is the set of all possible states of a
particle in classical mechanics.
Note that if there are several particles, the dimension
of the phase space gets bigger proportionally.
and what's h^3?
h is Planck's constant. Due to the uncertainty principle,
it is not possible to determine the position and momentum of
a particle simultaneously with arbitrary accuracy - one
even says that position and momentum do not both simultaneously
*exist* with arbitrary accuracy. The best one can do is
saying that the position and momentum are somewhere in a
certain part of the phase space. And that part has the volume
h^3.
I just want to have a rough
layman idea of the elecron behavior
It's hard to visualize what QM actually says. If you
are really interested and are willing to invest some
effort, I recommend "The strange world of QM" to you.
like whether it moves continuously
Yes, in a sense, it moves continously. The problem is:
it has no well-defined trajectory. One possible viewpoint
is that it moves on several (in fact, on infinitely many,
on all possible) trajectories at once. That's Feynman
"sum over paths" approach. I recommed his book "QED" to you
for further information.
even though we can't observe one
due to the Uncertainty Principle. When an electron
jumps from one enery state to another, it does so
continuously?
Yes. There is not really a jump. The probability to find
it in one state decreases smoothly, the probability to
find it in the other state increases smoothly.
I mean, there is never a chance
or occasion that it teleports at all?
No.
Also I can't understand what made the electrons
move at all
You mean, what accelerated them in the first place? That
would seem to be a question about the origin of the universe,
not about QM.
and what created the ground state
such that it can't fall to the atom's nucleus.
That the ground state is the lowest possible state follows
from the fact that electrons show wave-like behaviour. It's
the standing wave with the smallest possible wavelength. So
essentially you are asking what created the rules of geometry.
;-)
Some
suggested "angular momentum"
Then they are wrong. The ground state has angular momentum
zero.
but angular
momemtum of what prevented the electron from
falling into the nuclues??
Sorry. Can someone explain everything in layman term?
No. If one could explain everything in layman terms,
then studying physics wouldn't take five years and more!
Bye,
Bjorn
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| User: "John Sefton" |
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| Title: Re: "teleporting electrons"? |
08 Jan 2005 05:05:01 PM |
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Lawrence wrote:
Old Man wrote:
"Lawrence" <quantummechanicswhat@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1105216608.301330.316570@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
Is it correct to describe electrons as teleporting
themselves from places to places around the nucleus
of an atom? ....
No. Each atomic state occupies a phase space volume
of h^3. The wave function yields a complete description
of the electron's location within that phase space volume.
A detailed "place to place" description isn't realizable in
principle or from empirical observation.
....
Lawrence
[Old Man]
Hope someone can reword the above. What's phase space
volume and what's h^3? I just want to have a rough
layman idea of the elecron behavior like whether it
moves continuously even though we can't observe one
due to the Uncertainty Principle. When an electron
jumps from one enery state to another, it does so
continuously? I mean, there is never a chance
or occasion that it teleports at all?
Also I can't understand what made the electrons
move at all and what created the ground state
such that it can't fall to the atom's nucleus. Some
suggested "angular momentum" but angular
momemtum of what prevented the electron from
falling into the nuclues??
Sorry. Can someone explain everything in layman term?
Lawrence
The proton rotates/precesses at great speed.
It is a black hole, literally, because it is
constantly emptying itself by creating the
negative electron.
The electron is constantly being flung out
as charged dust which is also constantly
falling back in so as to recharge.
The form of this electron is a spiral dust
cloud from nucleus to atom's edge; it is
flat because its rotation creates a north
magnetic field on one side and a south on the other.
It is theoretically possible to have all such
flat discs in a piece of matter be precessing
together so they all present their edges
in the same direction at the same time. In
this state it should be
invisible and have zero inertia.
i.e. Could be moved instantaneously by
the power
of a thought.
John
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| User: "Franz Heymann" |
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| Title: Re: "teleporting electrons"? |
09 Jan 2005 01:59:20 AM |
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"John Sefton" <vegan16@accesscomm.ca> wrote in message
news:41e065fb$1@news.accesscomm.ca...
Lawrence wrote:
Old Man wrote:
"Lawrence" <quantummechanicswhat@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1105216608.301330.316570@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
Is it correct to describe electrons as teleporting
themselves from places to places around the nucleus
of an atom? ....
No. Each atomic state occupies a phase space volume
of h^3. The wave function yields a complete description
of the electron's location within that phase space volume.
A detailed "place to place" description isn't realizable in
principle or from empirical observation.
....
Lawrence
[Old Man]
Hope someone can reword the above. What's phase space
volume and what's h^3? I just want to have a rough
layman idea of the elecron behavior like whether it
moves continuously even though we can't observe one
due to the Uncertainty Principle. When an electron
jumps from one enery state to another, it does so
continuously? I mean, there is never a chance
or occasion that it teleports at all?
Also I can't understand what made the electrons
move at all and what created the ground state
such that it can't fall to the atom's nucleus. Some
suggested "angular momentum" but angular
momemtum of what prevented the electron from
falling into the nuclues??
Sorry. Can someone explain everything in layman term?
I snipped what John Sefton had to say, because it contains exactly
zero physics.
[snip]
Franz
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| User: "John Sefton" |
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| Title: Re: "teleporting electrons"? |
09 Jan 2005 09:26:32 AM |
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Franz Heymann wrote:
"John Sefton" <vegan16@accesscomm.ca> wrote in message
news:41e065fb$1@news.accesscomm.ca...
Lawrence wrote:
Old Man wrote:
"Lawrence" <quantummechanicswhat@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1105216608.301330.316570@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
Is it correct to describe electrons as teleporting
themselves from places to places around the nucleus
of an atom? ....
No. Each atomic state occupies a phase space volume
of h^3. The wave function yields a complete description
of the electron's location within that phase space volume.
A detailed "place to place" description isn't realizable in
principle or from empirical observation.
....
Lawrence
[Old Man]
Hope someone can reword the above. What's phase space
volume and what's h^3? I just want to have a rough
layman idea of the elecron behavior like whether it
moves continuously even though we can't observe one
due to the Uncertainty Principle. When an electron
jumps from one enery state to another, it does so
continuously? I mean, there is never a chance
or occasion that it teleports at all?
Also I can't understand what made the electrons
move at all and what created the ground state
such that it can't fall to the atom's nucleus. Some
suggested "angular momentum" but angular
momemtum of what prevented the electron from
falling into the nuclues??
Sorry. Can someone explain everything in layman term?
I snipped what John Sefton had to say, because it contains exactly
zero physics.
The proton rotates/precesses at great speed.
It is a black hole, literally, because it is
constantly emptying itself by creating the
negative electron.
The electron is constantly being flung out
as charged dust which is also constantly
falling back in so as to recharge.
The form of this electron is a spiral dust
cloud from nucleus to atom's edge; it is
flat because its rotation creates a north
magnetic field on one side and a south on the other.
It is theoretically possible to have all such
flat discs in a piece of matter be precessing
together so they all present their edges
in the same direction at the same time. In
this state it should be
invisible and have zero inertia.
i.e. Could be moved instantaneously by
the power
of a thought.
John
Actually it is more than theoretical
since this is exactly how UFOs operate.
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| User: "Gregory L. Hansen" |
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| Title: Re: "teleporting electrons"? |
09 Jan 2005 01:47:41 PM |
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In article <41e14c0c@news.accesscomm.ca>,
John Sefton <vegan16@accesscomm.ca> wrote:
Franz Heymann wrote:
I snipped what John Sefton had to say, because it contains exactly
zero physics.
Snipped it? Franz, this is precious! Dirk's "Fumbles" page isn't worthy
of it as it isn't a fumble, it's an inspiring example of pure creation
of the imagination. It has no place among Androclese's algebra errors.
I especially liked how the theory is shown to have concrete application in
the operation of UFOs.
The proton rotates/precesses at great speed.
It is a black hole, literally, because it is
constantly emptying itself by creating the
negative electron.
The electron is constantly being flung out
as charged dust which is also constantly
falling back in so as to recharge.
The form of this electron is a spiral dust
cloud from nucleus to atom's edge; it is
flat because its rotation creates a north
magnetic field on one side and a south on the other.
It is theoretically possible to have all such
flat discs in a piece of matter be precessing
together so they all present their edges
in the same direction at the same time. In
this state it should be
invisible and have zero inertia.
i.e. Could be moved instantaneously by
the power
of a thought.
John
Actually it is more than theoretical
since this is exactly how UFOs operate.
--
"Suppose you were an idiot... And suppose you were a member of
Congress... But I repeat myself." - Mark Twain
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| User: "Bjoern Feuerbacher" |
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| Title: Re: "teleporting electrons"? |
10 Jan 2005 05:25:44 AM |
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John Sefton wrote:
Lawrence wrote:
Old Man wrote:
"Lawrence" <quantummechanicswhat@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1105216608.301330.316570@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
Is it correct to describe electrons as teleporting
themselves from places to places around the nucleus
of an atom? ....
No. Each atomic state occupies a phase space volume
of h^3. The wave function yields a complete description
of the electron's location within that phase space volume.
A detailed "place to place" description isn't realizable in
principle or from empirical observation.
....
Lawrence
[Old Man]
Hope someone can reword the above. What's phase space
volume and what's h^3? I just want to have a rough
layman idea of the elecron behavior like whether it
moves continuously even though we can't observe one
due to the Uncertainty Principle. When an electron
jumps from one enery state to another, it does so
continuously? I mean, there is never a chance
or occasion that it teleports at all?
Also I can't understand what made the electrons
move at all and what created the ground state
such that it can't fall to the atom's nucleus. Some
suggested "angular momentum" but angular
momemtum of what prevented the electron from
falling into the nuclues??
Sorry. Can someone explain everything in layman term?
Lawrence
The proton rotates/precesses at great speed.
It is a black hole,
Evidcence, please.
literally, because it is
constantly emptying itself by creating the
negative electron.
Evidence, please.
And what has that to do with the proton being a black
hole?
The electron is constantly being flung out
as charged dust which is also constantly
falling back in so as to recharge.
Evidence, please.
The form of this electron is a spiral dust
cloud from nucleus to atom's edge;
Evidence, please.
it is
flat because its rotation creates a north
magnetic field on one side and a south on the other.
And what has that to do with the cloud being flat?
It is theoretically possible to have all such
flat discs in a piece of matter be precessing
together so they all present their edges
in the same direction at the same time. In
this state it should be
invisible and have zero inertia.
Hwow does that follow?
[snip]
Bye,
Bjoern
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| User: "John Sefton" |
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| Title: Re: "teleporting electrons"? |
11 Jan 2005 09:33:23 AM |
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Bjoern Feuerbacher wrote:
John Sefton wrote:
Lawrence wrote:
Old Man wrote:
"Lawrence" <quantummechanicswhat@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1105216608.301330.316570@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
Is it correct to describe electrons as teleporting
themselves from places to places around the nucleus
of an atom? ....
No. Each atomic state occupies a phase space volume
of h^3. The wave function yields a complete description
of the electron's location within that phase space volume.
A detailed "place to place" description isn't realizable in
principle or from empirical observation.
Bzzzzt!
We can't find the needle therefore it can't be found
by anyone!!
....
Lawrence
[Old Man]
Hope someone can reword the above. What's phase space
volume and what's h^3? I just want to have a rough
layman idea of the elecron behavior like whether it
moves continuously even though we can't observe one
due to the Uncertainty Principle. When an electron
jumps from one enery state to another, it does so
continuously? I mean, there is never a chance
or occasion that it teleports at all?
Everything moves classically, i.e. there is
no magic. If you mean 'teleport', like a
falling waterfall from one level to another,
ok.
Vanishes here and reappears there? Only if
going so fast or in such a manner that light
can't interact with it. But it always
IS somewhere or other.
The electron? Is a standing wave; parts of it
flowing here and there by a pre-determined
and lowest energy expenditure route.
Also I can't understand what made the electrons
move at all and what created the ground state
such that it can't fall to the atom's nucleus. Some
suggested "angular momentum" but angular
momemtum of what prevented the electron from
falling into the nuclues??
Sorry. Can someone explain everything in layman term?
Lawrence
The electron is separated from its proton by
spin.
Spin separates positive from negative. The negative
wants to go back but is repelled by spin, which
gives opposite magnetic poles to opposite
electric charges; therefore electron and
proton are held apart by the magnetic field
generated by the spin.
The spin is the energy.
The proton rotates/precesses at great speed.
It is a black hole,
Evidcence, please.
literally, because it is
constantly emptying itself by creating the
negative electron.
Evidence, please.
And what has that to do with the proton being a black
hole?
Not a black hole as those who
conceive of such as being caused by
gravity. Gravity has a limit.
When you and I say black hole we are talking of
different things. You believe in
impossibilities.
The electron is constantly being flung out
as charged dust which is also constantly
falling back in so as to recharge.
Evidence, please.
Galactic structure.
The form of this electron is a spiral dust
cloud from nucleus to atom's edge;
Evidence, please.
Galactic structure.
it is
flat because its rotation creates a north
magnetic field on one side and a south on the other.
And what has that to do with the cloud being flat?
Where is a bar magnet's field exactly zero?
It is theoretically possible to have all such
flat discs in a piece of matter be precessing
together so they all present their edges
in the same direction at the same time. In
this state it should be
invisible and have zero inertia.
Hwow does that follow?
Hwow indeed.
And wow.
It is a wow thought.
Atoms having galaxies' structures
if all oriented with edges towards
an impetus such as light or gravity/
inertia should have that impetus pass
right through.
[snip]
Bye,
Bjoern
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| User: "tj Frazir" |
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| Title: Re: "teleporting electrons"? |
08 Jan 2005 05:17:20 PM |
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Converted is the word your looking for
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| User: "Uncle Al" |
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| Title: Re: "teleporting electrons"? |
08 Jan 2005 08:27:39 PM |
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Lawrence wrote:
Is it correct to describe electrons as teleporting
themselves from places to places around the nucleus
of an atom?
No. "Star Trek" is crap.
[snip maunder]
--
Uncle Al
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/
(Toxic URL! Unsafe for children and most mammals)
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/qz.pdf
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| User: "The Ghost In The Machine" |
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| Title: Star Trek: The Final Frontier -- Of Ridiculousness (was Re: "teleporting electrons"?) |
09 Jan 2005 01:01:52 AM |
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In sci.physics, Uncle Al
<UncleAl0@hate.spam.net>
wrote
on Sat, 08 Jan 2005 18:27:39 -0800
<41E0969B.2F0D7862@hate.spam.net>:
Lawrence wrote:
Is it correct to describe electrons as teleporting
themselves from places to places around the nucleus
of an atom?
No. "Star Trek" is crap.
[snip maunder]
How much crap is there? Let me count the nuggets.
[1] Antimatter annihilation. Not enough power. Crap.
From a Newtonian viewpoint, in order to move 1 kg
of matter to lightspeed, one would have to annihilate
1/sqrt(2) kg total of matter and antimatter. If one
wants to go faster, one has to annihilate quite a bit
more; 2c would require 2 * sqrt(2) kg fuel; 4c would require
8 * sqrt(2); 8c would require 32 * sqrt(2), etc.
(And this is assuming perfect energy extraction.)
SR also gets in the way here, since nobody can go past
c anyway.
[2] Antimatter. No existence in sufficient amounts to be useful.
Crap.
[3] Transporter. While there are some intriguing results
for such things as quanta, macroscopic transportation,
if it exists at all, is decades or centuries off, and
has some major problems such as energy and momentum
imbalance. There are even worse issues in ST:TNG
(one episode had the transporter remove viruses from
the person's bloodstream; another had it remove an
*evil personality*). _Spock Must Die!_ asks some
interesting theological questions but also hypothesizes
conversion of matter to tachyons. For now, crap.
[4] Shuttlecraft. This is actually *not* crap; one could
liken such to dinghys or lifeboats from aircraft carriers
or battleships. But they don't do much anyway
beyond ferrying people around in ST:TOV at low speed,
though in ST:TNG they get warp drives, IIRC.
[5] Phasers. Half-crap, and the half that is not crap
is unfortunately dependent upon a high-energy source
(lasers aren't all that efficient). The other half,
such as vaporizing a poor redshirt (as opposed to
simply causing a cauterized hole, or maybe blowing him
up into giblets from the explosion of water into
steam) is crap.
[6] Photon torpedoes. The entire notion of space warfare
is an interesting one -- and hopefully one we never
have to encounter. However, one would presume that
a photon torpedo would be (a) invisible, and (b)
lightspeed-capable. The idea of an enemy ship being
able to see them coming and then be blown to bits
thereby is crap. Of course more conventional munitions
(e.g., nuclear warheads) are still available.
[7] Deflector screens. An electrostatic or electromagnetic
screen of some sort may be possible, but it's mostly crap
otherwise. Such a "screen" would have to be huge; one
possibility is a coil surrounding the spacecraft.
[8] Subspace. Crap. SR flatly states that FTL is impossible.
[9] Galactic barrier. Unknown, but probably crap, as there's
no particular reason for it.
[10] Prenova star + advanced civiliation + time travel: Crap.
All novas are red giants or blue giants AFAIK.
Time travel is just crap, period, for reasons similar
to [8]. A star's output will increase to the point
of non-survivability, if the planet starts out in the
"life ring" initially; in about 1 billion years our
Earth will get rather too hot for us, and that's well
before the Sun decides to play "bloat up and fry us".
[11] G-force nullification (implied by FTL travel in [8]). Crap.
At 1g a starcruiser would take more than a year to
get even close to lightspeed, assuming Newtonian mechanics.
g = 10 m/s/s; c = 3 * 10^8 m/s; 1 year = 3.156 * 10^7 seconds.
Go 10 times faster and crew is plastered to their seats;
hope they're comfy! Go 100 times faster and they're dead.
Go 1000 times faster and they're probably meat jam.
[12] ESP (implied by a number of episodes in ST:TOV and ST:TNG).
Crap. The brain might broadcast a 20W noise signal, but
that's about it; it would take some doing to pick it up.
[13] Replicator technology (ST:TNG). Unclear, but unless there's
a far better energy source than matter-antimatter available,
it's crap. (The main reasons are related to QM.)
[14] Tame wormhole. I can't say for sure, but my understanding
is that it's crap; the wormhole would have to be *huge*,
over a light-day in diameter, to even be remotely useful.
The notion that it simply pops into space on a whim (either
of a shuttle or of the deity controlling it) is ridiculous crap.
[15] Berthold rays. Presumably, this is some variant of
gamma radiation and/or other such. The notion that flower
spores can simultaneously defend against such radiation and
simultaneously change one's personality in a manner similar
to either a narcotic or lobotomy (I'm not sure which)
is crap.
[16] Transporter beam intercept: Crap. Not that transporters
are useful anyway but assuming the divergence similar to
standard lasers, it would take some doing to even detect
its existence, let alone yank the information beam
into one's receptor as opposed to duplicating it.
[17] Soulswap: This gets into delicate territory because of
theology, but as I am atheist, I can state with some
certainty that it certainly looks like crap, smells like
crap, and feels like crap. Absent further evidence, it is
therefore crap.
[18] Si-based lifeforms. Unknown, but probably crap. Silicon
atoms don't chain nearly as readily as carbon atoms do,
nor do they produce compounds such as Si6, the silicon
analogue of benzene. However, this is more an issue
regarding chemistry than physics.
[19] Computer malfunctions: For the most part, crap.
Not that computers don't malfunction, but at least one
ST:TOV episode had the computer trying to seduce the
Captain and other crewmembers. Another had an evil
entity hijack the computers; still another had an
advanced life-form burn out the computers by simply
waving his fingers at it.
[20] Computer locking: Crap, and a general Hollywood failing.
Fire a phaser at a computer and it go kaboom, taking
neighboring units with it? Nice visual, but a far
more likely result would just melt a hole in the
casing and possibly damage the electronics, causing
it to malfunction (see [19]) and cease operation,
if it hits a vital spot at all. For example, it
might just hit a video chip, which means that the rest
of the computer is still functional. Shielding a
computer is one of the few places where reflective
tinfoil might actually be *useful*.
[21] Klingon sonic weapon: Crap. Not enough energy.
Also, the sound would most likely blow out
everyone's eardrums, not just the target's.
[22] Sleeper ship: Unknown. Of course it helps to have
a power source; otherwise the person simply dies as
the water crystallizes, damaging cell walls. (This
is assuming the person survives his heart stopping.)
[23] Sound-based irritant + adrenaline dispelling spores
(see [15]). Probably crap; an infection is going to
have to be a little more robust than that to survive
such things as human phagocytes and killer T-cells.
The sound itself would not cause the itch, although one
might speculate as to what sounds would cause various
feelings such as revulsion -- but that's not a physical
thing; that's more sociological.
[24] Mindbeam (see [17]). Crap. I could see an electromagnetic
feeder surrounding the brain (as opposed to a single
device beaming towards it) but it would have to be
*very* precise, and would probably fry the brain anyway.
[25] Lifeform feeding off emotions (love, hate, etc.) Crap.
I could see lifeforms feeding off energy -- plants come
close -- but emotions manifest in far too many different
manners for a lifeform to extract much therefrom; a
person in love might energetically tidy house or
simply mope, for example. This also feels related
to [17].
[26] Large Single-cell animal destroyable by antimatter bomb. Crap,
mostly for scaling reasons.
[27] Doomsday device. As specified, crap. Also, there's a lot
of problems in oxygen and silicon fusion (the presumed
power source); I'd have to look but doubt there's enough
energy to even make up for the slicing up of the planet
(because of the gravity warp). I won't even bother with
"neutronium."
[28] Instant sunshrinker missile: Crap. See [10]. Also,
shrinking the sun doesn't change its mass, or its
ability to warp space (at least, not as a first
approximation).
[29] Energy-based lifeforms with telepathic abilities: Crap.
[30] Pseudo-gravity: There are a number of issues here. One
can postulate that each and every crew member has a
ferromagnetic strip in their boots and that the floor is
in actuality a gigantic AlNiCo magnet. If one assumes that,
it's not crap. Otherwise, it's crap. Of course,
other aspects would not work quite as desired -- e.g.,
a nonferromagnetic device such as a standard #2 pencil would
not stay put on a desk, but tend to float away. Also, the
crewmembers would not be restricted to the AlNiCo magnet if
they take off their boots.
A more likely scenario would simply have the boots have the
magnets, with ferromagnetic floors, walls, ceilings, etc.;
the effect would be rather interesting if a bit disorienting
to the novice. An even more likely scenario of course would
simply eschew pseudo-grav entirely, and simply have the
crewmembers float in the air.
(The book _2001_ postulated velcro, which is probably cheaper.)
[31] Long range sensor beams. Probably crap. Had they used "detectors"
or just "sensors", they might have gotten away with it.
Many instruments on contemporary spacecraft are quite passive;
those that are active are short-range, probably
involving laser beams.
[32] Cloaking device: Crap.
[33] Flying city: Crap.
[34] Flying brain cells able to take over a person's mind: Crap.
[35] Lights from a dying planet representing "souls" able to
take over a person's mind (and lay waste to a substantial
fraction of a library complex in the process): Crap.
[36] Landru/Archons: Crap. See [12], [20].
[37] Computer warfare/suicide: Not crap as such, but one wonders;
the failings here are not physical, but societal/mental.
The actual implementation of the annihilation machines (a
chamber into which the "dead" person steps, and gets zapped
and killed) is the crap here; they could have at least painted
the interior black, signifying carbonization.
[38] Cat/woman transmutation: Crap. (One wonders what Gary Seven
likes to do in his spare time with respect to recreational
substances, though. Then again, it was Captain Kirk who
had the hallucination, with Spock's help. See [39].)
[39] "Vulcan mind meld": Crap, mostly because there's no obvious
evolutionary value in it; nor is it clear how the fingertips
can contain the requisite EM antennae to beam/broadcast/affect
energy into the brain.
[40] "Vulcan death pinch": Crap.
[41] "Vulcan vacation shutoff": Unknown, probably crap. However, the
power of hypnosis and self-delusion cannot be dismissed too
lightly.
[42] Tractor beams: Crap. Of course, one could always assume
ferromagnetics here, for some of the lifting work.
_Enterprise_ assumes a magnetic grapple, which probably makes
a lot more sense.
[43] Holographic doctor: Crap. While holograms are very convincing
illusions, the idea of a holographic projector as such
is slightly ridiculous (most holograms require the user
to view light through a transparent film; the light might
be coherent, or non-coherent (rainbow hologram)). Research
in this area is continuing, however, and there is at least
one patented device that can generate a 3-D image over itself,
probably by beaming something upward (I'd guess light
into dust particles and/or water vapor). There's also the
problem of simulating depth properly for more than one person
in the "hologram chamber".
[44] Dr. McCoy's Feinbergers: Unknown, probably crap, though there's
some research that suggests one can locate painful bits of the
body by simply looking for slight fluctuations in temperature.
However, that's far more easily done with a camera-like device
than with a scanner the size of one's thumb that makes
rather odd noises. Perhaps these are Nurse Chapel's toys? :-)
[45] Trichorder: Crap. The main problem is that it does way too much.
[46] Q: Crap. (Presumably, that's also the general reaction
Jean Luc Picard has when seeing him.)
[47] Movable planetoid: Crap for the most part; the energy problem is
even worse for such than for a starship. There's also the
square-cube problem to consider regarding thrust.
[48] Asteroid deflector beam: Crap. The amount of energy required
would be ridiculous.
[49] Salt-eating creature: Crap. While one might consider consuming
salt as part of such things as electrolytic balance, as a primary
fuel source there are far better available.
[50] "Buzzing sound" during high-speed playback: Crap, AFAICT.
This is the only part of the episode that even is questionable;
the rest is pure crap, except for the refrigeration device.
[51] "Split-personality" malfunction of transporter: Crap.
[52] "Whoosh" sound of passing spacecraft: What do you think? :-)
There's probably more, but this fills a whole deck of cards already...
--
#191,
It's still legal to go .sigless.
.
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| User: "William Oertell" |
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| Title: Re: Star Trek: The Final Frontier -- Of Ridiculousness (was Re: "teleporting electrons"?) |
10 Jan 2005 08:25:25 PM |
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Most Star Trek enthusiasts know that the engines don't rely on Newtonian
physics to get past light speed. They supposedly work by generating a
"sub-space" bubble, which doesn't really exist in normal space, and
therefore isn't subject to this universe's physical laws. The "sub-space"
bubble is then extended in the direction of desired travel, and the ship
simply goes with it, sort of like a piece of wood in a stream. This scheme
does not rely on force and reaction to move a ship. (The writers really
screwed-up in putting in things like inertial dampers, because the ship
wouldn't feel any acceleration inside the "sub-space" bubble, as it's
position inside the "sub-space" bubble doesn't change).
Of course, such a thing is impossible with today's technology, and there
is no science that we know of today to accomplish such a scheme. So for all
intents and purposes, yeah, it's crap.
As for photon torpedos: I always thought the term "photon" had to do
with the warhead, not the speed or propulsion system of the torpedo. When
the torpedo got to its target, it released an extremely high intensity,
omnidirectional, coherent pulse of light. The so-called multi-phasic device
introduced in "Voyager" emitted several different simultaneous random but
coherent frequencies.
None of this is real science, but I believe that's why they call it
"Science Fiction."
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| User: "Gregory L. Hansen" |
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| Title: Re: Star Trek: The Final Frontier -- Of Ridiculousness (was Re: "teleporting electrons"?) |
10 Jan 2005 08:45:14 PM |
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In article <10u6e8m92v07o2c@news.supernews.com>,
William Oertell <oertell_NOT@pacbell.net> wrote:
As for photon torpedos: I always thought the term "photon" had to do
with the warhead, not the speed or propulsion system of the torpedo. When
the torpedo got to its target, it released an extremely high intensity,
omnidirectional, coherent pulse of light. The so-called multi-phasic device
introduced in "Voyager" emitted several different simultaneous random but
coherent frequencies.
I thought "Photon" was more like a brand name, like a Bird of Prey class
cruiser, or a Sparrow missile. Towards the end of Deep Space Nine they
were flinging "quantum torpedoes" around, but they seemed to do the same
thing. That being, to explode.
--
"Coincidences, in general, are great stumbling blocks in the way of that
class of thinkers who have been educated to know nothing of the theory of
probabilities." -- Edgar Allen Poe
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| User: "The Ghost In The Machine" |
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| Title: Re: Star Trek: The Final Frontier -- Of Ridiculousness (was Re: "teleporting electrons"?) |
11 Jan 2005 12:01:32 AM |
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In sci.physics, Gregory L. Hansen
<glhansen@steel.ucs.indiana.edu>
wrote
on Tue, 11 Jan 2005 02:45:14 +0000 (UTC)
<crvejq$prf$4@rainier.uits.indiana.edu>:
In article <10u6e8m92v07o2c@news.supernews.com>,
William Oertell <oertell_NOT@pacbell.net> wrote:
As for photon torpedos: I always thought the term "photon" had to do
with the warhead, not the speed or propulsion system of the torpedo. When
the torpedo got to its target, it released an extremely high intensity,
omnidirectional, coherent pulse of light. The so-called multi-phasic device
introduced in "Voyager" emitted several different simultaneous random but
coherent frequencies.
I thought "Photon" was more like a brand name, like a Bird of Prey class
cruiser, or a Sparrow missile. Towards the end of Deep Space Nine they
were flinging "quantum torpedoes" around, but they seemed to do the same
thing. That being, to explode.
Yeah, they do that very well. :-) And they make nice
"bang" noises while doing so, in the interior of the
doomed ship.
(ST:TNG torpedoes and phasers even make noises when hitting
deflector screens as observed outside of the spacecraft. How
they do this has never been adequately explained. Also,
ST:TOV phasers and photon torpedoes had characteristic noises
when being fired -- and one usually hears these noises from
somewhere outside the spacecraft. I don't remember offhand
what ST:TNG photon torps sounded like; the phasers sounded
a bit softer than the ST:TOV.)
--
#191, -- insert random explosion here
It's still legal to go .sigless.
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| User: "Gregory L. Hansen" |
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| Title: Re: Star Trek: The Final Frontier -- Of Ridiculousness (was Re: "teleporting electrons"?) |
11 Jan 2005 08:25:30 AM |
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In article <i33cb2-olh.ln1@sirius.athghost7038suus.net>,
The Ghost In The Machine <ewill@sirius.athghost7038suus.net> wrote:
In sci.physics, Gregory L. Hansen
<glhansen@steel.ucs.indiana.edu>
wrote
on Tue, 11 Jan 2005 02:45:14 +0000 (UTC)
<crvejq$prf$4@rainier.uits.indiana.edu>:
In article <10u6e8m92v07o2c@news.supernews.com>,
William Oertell <oertell_NOT@pacbell.net> wrote:
As for photon torpedos: I always thought the term "photon" had to do
with the warhead, not the speed or propulsion system of the torpedo. When
the torpedo got to its target, it released an extremely high intensity,
omnidirectional, coherent pulse of light. The so-called multi-phasic device
introduced in "Voyager" emitted several different simultaneous random but
coherent frequencies.
I thought "Photon" was more like a brand name, like a Bird of Prey class
cruiser, or a Sparrow missile. Towards the end of Deep Space Nine they
were flinging "quantum torpedoes" around, but they seemed to do the same
thing. That being, to explode.
Yeah, they do that very well. :-) And they make nice
"bang" noises while doing so, in the interior of the
doomed ship.
(ST:TNG torpedoes and phasers even make noises when hitting
deflector screens as observed outside of the spacecraft. How
they do this has never been adequately explained. Also,
ST:TOV phasers and photon torpedoes had characteristic noises
when being fired -- and one usually hears these noises from
somewhere outside the spacecraft. I don't remember offhand
what ST:TNG photon torps sounded like; the phasers sounded
a bit softer than the ST:TOV.)
TNG was sometimes very good about that sort of thing. For instance, the
view from the bridge as a phaser or photon torpedo is fired, with no noise
except a beep from the console, and the view proceeds silently on the big
screen as something explodes.
But it's a TV show. You could debunk it all day long, and you won't find
many people to disillusion.
--
"Very well, he replied, I allow you cow's dung in place of human
excrement; bake your bread on that." -- Ezekiel 4:15
.
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| User: "Mark Martin" |
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| Title: Re: Star Trek: The Final Frontier -- Of Ridiculousness (was Re: "teleporting electrons"?) |
11 Jan 2005 09:25:25 AM |
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Gregory L. Hansen wrote:
But it's a TV show. You could debunk it all day long, and you won't
find
many people to disillusion.
That's exactly right. TV & movies are delivery systems for mythology,
which people have a huge hankerin' for. Star Trek and Star Wars are not
even ostensibly lessons in the clinical realities of physics. They are
plays in which the stage is a galaxy. They aren't about physics &
astronomy at all. They're about peoples' neuroses and confusions.
-Mark Martin
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| User: "Gregory L. Hansen" |
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| Title: Re: Star Trek: The Final Frontier -- Of Ridiculousness (was Re: "teleporting electrons"?) |
11 Jan 2005 10:19:20 AM |
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In article <1105457125.254683.96390@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>,
Mark Martin <qed100@hotmail.com> wrote:
Gregory L. Hansen wrote:
But it's a TV show. You could debunk it all day long, and you won't
find
many people to disillusion.
That's exactly right. TV & movies are delivery systems for mythology,
which people have a huge hankerin' for. Star Trek and Star Wars are not
even ostensibly lessons in the clinical realities of physics. They are
plays in which the stage is a galaxy. They aren't about physics &
astronomy at all. They're about peoples' neuroses and confusions.
-Mark Martin
In many cases they could do a lot better. Breaking through the wall of
the black hole you're trapped inside? At least don't call it a black
hole!
But bitching to the viewers won't do much about that.
For some reason I've actually been bothered more by procedural things.
Like Riker holding his phaser, set to "Vaporize City Block", and he
turned around, sweeping the muzzle across everyone in the room. Worf was
injured in one episode when an improperly secured cannister fell from a
shelf and landed on him. The prisoners escape because the power goes out
and the force field goes away. It would have been easy and proper to tie
down the cannister and to put doors on the cells.
There was an episode of Deep Space 9 where a bad guy shot someone and
vaporized him. He thought his weapon was set to "stun". I'd thought of
that before. Sure, all those Star Fleet bridge officers running around on
planets always set their phasers to "stun", shooting people willy-nilly
because it will cause no serious harm. But mistakes can be made, and
what a mistake it could be! It seems dangerous to combine both functions
in a single weapon.
--
"Suppose you were an idiot... And suppose you were a member of
Congress... But I repeat myself." - Mark Twain
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| User: "Mark Martin" |
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| Title: Re: Star Trek: The Final Frontier -- Of Ridiculousness (was Re: "teleporting electrons"?) |
11 Jan 2005 02:37:48 PM |
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Gregory L. Hansen wrote:
In article <1105457125.254683.96390@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>,
Mark Martin <qed100@hotmail.com> wrote:
Gregory L. Hansen wrote:
But it's a TV show. You could debunk it all day long, and you
won't
find
many people to disillusion.
That's exactly right. TV & movies are delivery systems for
mythology,
which people have a huge hankerin' for. Star Trek and Star Wars are
not
even ostensibly lessons in the clinical realities of physics. They
are
plays in which the stage is a galaxy. They aren't about physics &
astronomy at all. They're about peoples' neuroses and confusions.
-Mark Martin
In many cases they could do a lot better. Breaking through the wall
of
the black hole you're trapped inside? At least don't call it a black
hole!
But bitching to the viewers won't do much about that.
For some reason I've actually been bothered more by procedural
things.
Like Riker holding his phaser, set to "Vaporize City Block", and he
turned around, sweeping the muzzle across everyone in the room. Worf
was
injured in one episode when an improperly secured cannister fell from
a
shelf and landed on him. The prisoners escape because the power goes
out
and the force field goes away. It would have been easy and proper to
tie
down the cannister and to put doors on the cells.
There was an episode of Deep Space 9 where a bad guy shot someone and
vaporized him. He thought his weapon was set to "stun". I'd thought
of
that before. Sure, all those Star Fleet bridge officers running
around on
planets always set their phasers to "stun", shooting people
willy-nilly
because it will cause no serious harm. But mistakes can be made, and
what a mistake it could be! It seems dangerous to combine both
functions
in a single weapon.
Yeah I agree. There's been a lot of laziness in sci-fi scriptpwriting,
especially for TV. I always thought the wharehouses onboard the TNG
Enterprise were somewhat 19th century looking in the way stuff was
packed & secured. We do better than that even today. Force-fields are
dumb too, for the reason you gave, and simply because it's a gratuitous
drain on power.
Your comment on the combo functions of the phasers reminds me of the
revolvers used in "Westworld". They were supposed to be real guns, with
electronic modifications. They were smart guns, that could tell the
difference between paying guests and the robots. Point at a guest, and
it locks up. Point at a robot, and you're free to drill it full o'
lead. Seems to me that in the Star Trek world the technology would be
well past the stage where the weapons could make their own surveys of
the circumstances and 2nd guess the person pressing the trigger.
-Mark Martin
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| User: "Gregory L. Hansen" |
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| Title: Re: Star Trek: The Final Frontier -- Of Ridiculousness (was Re: "teleporting electrons"?) |
11 Jan 2005 02:54:48 PM |
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In article <1105475868.051059.301790@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com>,
Mark Martin <qed100@hotmail.com> wrote:
Gregory L. Hansen wrote:
Your comment on the combo functions of the phasers reminds me of the
revolvers used in "Westworld". They were supposed to be real guns, with
electronic modifications. They were smart guns, that could tell the
difference between paying guests and the robots. Point at a guest, and
it locks up. Point at a robot, and you're free to drill it full o'
lead. Seems to me that in the Star Trek world the technology would be
well past the stage where the weapons could make their own surveys of
the circumstances and 2nd guess the person pressing the trigger.
-Mark Martin
Yeah, well, that reminds me of a scene in the movie "Top Secret" where
Nazis and French Resistance are in a room brawling, and a resistance
fighter burstin and sprayed the room with an automatic weapon, and only
the Germans fell.
--
"The preferred method of entering a building is to use a tank main gun
round, direct fire artillery round, or TOW, Dragon, or Hellfire missile to
clear the first room." -- THE RANGER HANDBOOK U.S. Army, 1992
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| User: "Mark Martin" |
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| Title: Re: Star Trek: The Final Frontier -- Of Ridiculousness (was Re: "teleporting electrons"?) |
11 Jan 2005 05:22:02 PM |
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Gregory L. Hansen wrote:
Yeah, well, that reminds me of a scene in the movie "Top Secret"
where
Nazis and French Resistance are in a room brawling, and a resistance
fighter burstin and sprayed the room with an automatic weapon, and
only
the Germans fell.
Ah yes, the Zucker brothers! Hilarious!
Did you ever see the movie "Runaway"? It was written & directed by
Michael Chricton, back in the early '80s. (Now that I think of it, he
also wrote & directed "Westworld", home of the smart revolver.) It was
placed a few years in the future, when robots & software were at a
stage where everything could be made 'smart'. In one scene an
antagonist fires a pistol at a human target. What came out was a smart
bullet, a little cruise missile, which quickly learned to recognise &
track the moving target, and then followed it into buildings and around
corners. I personally found the way it was portrayed too much to
swallow. The police cut one of the spent bullets in half, to study its
innards. It had little attitude rockets for steering... but nothing to
generate sustained lift!
-Mark Martin
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| User: "tj Frazir" |
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| Title: Re: Star Trek: The Final Frontier -- Of Ridiculousness (was Re:"te... |
11 Jan 2005 11:24:21 PM |
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p0000246.jpg
Address:http://dell1500sc.nmefc.gov.cn/product/jidi/tupian/images/s-xuelong/p0000246.jpg
Changed:2:23 PM on Tuesday, September 24, 2002
ya shoulda saw tat commin mark
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| User: "The Ghost In The Machine" |
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| Title: Re: Star Trek: The Final Frontier -- Of Ridiculousness (was Re: "teleporting electrons"?) |
10 Jan 2005 11:00:10 PM |
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In sci.physics, William Oertell
<oertell_NOT@pacbell.net>
wrote
on Mon, 10 Jan 2005 18:25:25 -0800
<10u6e8m92v07o2c@news.supernews.com>:
Most Star Trek enthusiasts know that the engines don't
rely on Newtonian physics to get past light speed. They
supposedly work by generating a "sub-space" bubble, which
doesn't really exist in normal space,
Or in any other space. Runny, bilious crap.
and
therefore isn't subject to this universe's physical laws.
Laws? What laws?
The Universe doesn't need laws. *We* define the "laws",
which are chunked observations of what we understand.
The notion that E = mgh, for instance, is derived from
a large number of observations, probably by Galileo
initially rolling balls down ramps. And of course they're
occasionally wrong, superceded by new "laws". SR is an
excellent example of this upgrade; for v << c SR =~ Newtonian.
Of course, the "laws" commonly used here -- such as Maxwell's
equations, SR, GR, and QM -- so far have explained the
universe pretty darned well, and don't allow for such things
as subspace bubbles, at least, not that I know of.
The "sub-space"
bubble is then extended in the direction of desired travel, and the ship
simply goes with it, sort of like a piece of wood in a stream. This scheme
does not rely on force and reaction to move a ship. (The writers really
screwed-up in putting in things like inertial dampers, because the ship
wouldn't feel any acceleration inside the "sub-space" bubble, as it's
position inside the "sub-space" bubble doesn't change).
Not that inertial dampers are any less crap. Of course the
dampers are useful during impulse (sublight) power; otherwise it
would take more than a year to accelerate to something approaching
c without smashing everyone against the bulkhead -- which the
crew tended to do all too often anyway. :-)
Of course, such a thing is impossible with today's technology, and there
is no science that we know of today to accomplish such a scheme. So for all
intents and purposes, yeah, it's crap.
As for photon torpedos: I always thought the term "photon" had to do
with the warhead, not the speed or propulsion system of the torpedo. When
the torpedo got to its target, it released an extremely high intensity,
omnidirectional, coherent pulse of light. The so-called multi-phasic device
introduced in "Voyager" emitted several different simultaneous random but
coherent frequencies.
None of this is real science, but I believe that's why they call it
"Science Fiction."
Definitely fiction. Dunno about the science. :-)
--
#191,
It's still legal to go .sigless.
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| User: "Bjoern Feuerbacher" |
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| Title: Re: Star Trek: The Final Frontier -- Of Ridiculousness (was Re: "teleportingelectrons"?) |
10 Jan 2005 05:39:14 AM |
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The Ghost In The Machine wrote:
In sci.physics, Uncle Al
<UncleAl0@hate.spam.net>
wrote
on Sat, 08 Jan 2005 18:27:39 -0800
<41E0969B.2F0D7862@hate.spam.net>:
[snip]
No. "Star Trek" is crap.
[snip maunder]
How much crap is there? Let me count the nuggets.
[snip]
[10] Prenova star + advanced civiliation + time travel: Crap.
All novas are red giants or blue giants AFAIK.
You probably mean supernovas, not novas, here?
Novas are white dwarfs in binary systems.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nova
[snip]
Bye,
Bjoern
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| User: "The Ghost In The Machine" |
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| Title: Re: Star Trek: The Final Frontier -- Of Ridiculousness (was Re: "teleporting electrons"?) |
10 Jan 2005 11:01:44 AM |
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In sci.physics, Bjoern Feuerbacher
<feuerbac@thphys.uni-heidelberg.de>
wrote
on Mon, 10 Jan 2005 12:39:14 +0100
<crtph2$2ce$1@news.urz.uni-heidelberg.de>:
The Ghost In The Machine wrote:
In sci.physics, Uncle Al
<UncleAl0@hate.spam.net>
wrote
on Sat, 08 Jan 2005 18:27:39 -0800
<41E0969B.2F0D7862@hate.spam.net>:
[snip]
No. "Star Trek" is crap.
[snip maunder]
How much crap is there? Let me count the nuggets.
[snip]
[10] Prenova star + advanced civiliation + time travel: Crap.
(erp...forgot a z)
All novas are red giants or blue giants AFAIK.
You probably mean supernovas, not novas, here?
Novas are white dwarfs in binary systems.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nova
The episode I'm referring to -- I'd have to look; I'm only a
Trekkie :-) -- did not have a binary system, but merely a
white star going nova or supernova, plus a highly advanced
library and a time machine allowing all of the individuals
(including the librarian, at the very end) to go back into
the planet's past.
White dwarfs don't go bang, for the most part; IIRC they're
the core that's left after the explosion.
Either way, it's still crap. :-)
[snip]
Bye,
Bjoern
--
#191,
It's still legal to go .sigless.
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| User: "Uncle Al" |
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| Title: Re: Star Trek: The Final Frontier -- Of Ridiculousness (was Re:"teleporting electrons"?) |
10 Jan 2005 12:45:50 PM |
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The Ghost In The Machine wrote:
In sci.physics, Bjoern Feuerbacher
<feuerbac@thphys.uni-heidelberg.de>
wrote
on Mon, 10 Jan 2005 12:39:14 +0100
<crtph2$2ce$1@news.urz.uni-heidelberg.de>:
The Ghost In The Machine wrote:
In sci.physics, Uncle Al
<UncleAl0@hate.spam.net>
wrote
on Sat, 08 Jan 2005 18:27:39 -0800
<41E0969B.2F0D7862@hate.spam.net>:
[snip]
No. "Star Trek" is crap.
[snip maunder]
How much crap is there? Let me count the nuggets.
[snip]
[10] Prenova star + advanced civiliation + time travel: Crap.
(erp...forgot a z)
All novas are red giants or blue giants AFAIK.
You probably mean supernovas, not novas, here?
Novas are white dwarfs in binary systems.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nova
The episode I'm referring to -- I'd have to look; I'm only a
Trekkie :-) -- did not have a binary system, but merely a
white star going nova or supernova, plus a highly advanced
library and a time machine allowing all of the individuals
(including the librarian, at the very end) to go back into
the planet's past.
[snip]
Yeah, that makes it OK science - but only if there are strobes,
magnets, liquid nitrogen fog, superconductors, and the manual
transmission from a 1962 Honda to make it possible.
Idiot.
--
Uncle Al
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/
(Toxic URL! Unsafe for children and most mammals)
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/qz.pdf
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| User: "The Ghost In The Machine" |
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| Title: Re: Star Trek: The Final Frontier -- Of Ridiculousness (was Re: "teleporting electrons"?) |
10 Jan 2005 11:02:30 PM |
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In sci.physics, Uncle Al
<UncleAl0@hate.spam.net>
wrote
on Mon, 10 Jan 2005 10:45:50 -0800
<41E2CD5E.D97DEB8E@hate.spam.net>:
The Ghost In The Machine wrote:
In sci.physics, Bjoern Feuerbacher
<feuerbac@thphys.uni-heidelberg.de>
wrote
on Mon, 10 Jan 2005 12:39:14 +0100
<crtph2$2ce$1@news.urz.uni-heidelberg.de>:
The Ghost In The Machine wrote:
In sci.physics, Uncle Al
<UncleAl0@hate.spam.net>
wrote
on Sat, 08 Jan 2005 18:27:39 -0800
<41E0969B.2F0D7862@hate.spam.net>:
[snip]
No. "Star Trek" is crap.
[snip maunder]
How much crap is there? Let me count the nuggets.
[snip]
[10] Prenova star + advanced civiliation + time travel: Crap.
(erp...forgot a z)
All novas are red giants or blue giants AFAIK.
You probably mean supernovas, not novas, here?
Novas are white dwarfs in binary systems.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nova
The episode I'm referring to -- I'd have to look; I'm only a
Trekkie :-) -- did not have a binary system, but merely a
white star going nova or supernova, plus a highly advanced
library and a time machine allowing all of the individuals
(including the librarian, at the very end) to go back into
the planet's past.
[snip]
Yeah, that makes it OK science - but only if there are strobes,
magnets, liquid nitrogen fog, superconductors, and the manual
transmission from a 1962 Honda to make it possible.
Don't look at me, Unc; I didn't write the episode. :-)
However, a 1962 Honda tranny was probably what they used in
the model to make the engine thingys turn. (Either that, or
the good Doctor's instruments doubled as the nacelles.)
Idiot.
Not everyone can be super-brilliant.
--
#191, -- insert random crap here
It's still legal to go .sigless.
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: "teleporting electrons"? |
08 Jan 2005 04:52:47 PM |
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Lawrence wrote:
Is it correct to describe electrons as teleporting
themselves from places to places around the nucleus
of an atom?
That would really imply that at time t1 the electron is at position x1,
at t2 the electron is at x2, and so on-- it may change position rapidly
and even randomly, but at any given instant it's at some particular
point in space.
But it doesn't work that way. The two-slit experiment is the classic
thought experiment that illustrates that. Particles going through the
double slit form a diffraction pattern that's not the sum of the
magnitudes from slit 1 and slit 2 considered separately, but rather an
interference pattern of a wave that goes through slit 1 and slit 2
simultaneously. The particle didn't go through one slit or the other,
it went through both.
In practice that's hard to do with electrons. But they're routinly
scattered from crystals, forming diffraction patterns that are more
complicated than a two-slit pattern, but predictable from wave
mechanics. In fact, the phenomenon is well enough established that
it's a conventional tool to study materials when you want to know
something about their structure. When scattered from a large crystal
the Bragg peaks can be very narrow, but if the crystal size gets to the
nanometer regime the width of the peaks increase, and that's
understandable in the same way that a larger lens can form an image
with better resolution, or focus a light beam into a smaller spot. The
punch line is that the electrons must sample the entire crystal if the
crystal size is to have any effect on the scattering.
When electrons are bound in an atom, the same basic physics is at work.
It doesn't exist at a particular point in space, but over an extended
region.
Quantum Mechanics deals with discreteness. Do you
really think the electrons can kinda teleport
from places to places within around the nucleus and not
behave in a continuous manner? Many just focus on the
mathematics and disregard the physical correlates. But
the latter is important too. Or do you think that Quantum
Mechanics is about not thinking of the physical correlates
as there is none or unimaginaable?
Google on "interpretations of quantum mechanics".
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