"Star Wars: Death Star" and the destruction of Ald

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Jedi Master Spock
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Post by Jedi Master Spock » Sun Apr 13, 2008 6:35 pm

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Kane Starkiller wrote:
Jedi Master Spock wrote:Short of physically burying you in college algebra texts - which is more money than I'd care to spend on your education - what do you want?
Evidence that comparing logarithmic values is mathematically unsound?
Jedi Master Spock wrote:log(A)/log(B) does not convert back to a linear quantity. It converts back to a root.
log(10)/log(1000)=1/3
log^-1(1)/log^-1(3)=10/1000
See? Very simple.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:We explicitly have power. Not "logarithmic scale X," power.
Yes whose quantity may have been expressed in a non linear value.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:The difference between a car accident that kills 3 people and a building collapse that kills a thousand. That difference.
You evaded the point: that you can indeed compare logarithmic values.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:All completely whacked out and arbitrary.

And even the first shot is more than 1e13 joules. So.
As opposed to your completely undefined chain reaction theory which are not arbitrary? Mine is at least perfectly mathematically defined.
And the formula example I gave was:
Power_log=log(Power_lin-10^25)
Put 1 for Power_log and you'll see you don't end up with 10^13 joules.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:With 1e13 logarithmic base and simplification disallowed, you're defining "one third" to mean "1e-26 as much."
Again a strawman. I am saying that enumerator and denominator of the fraction are logarithmic values of power as opposed to linear. The definition of a fraction is completely beside the point.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:You have redefined "one third." You have redefined "power." These are simple facts that you have no grounds to dispute.
No I did not. Taking a logarithmic value of power is not "redefining" power nor is assuming that enumerator and denominator are logarithmic values redefining a fraction.
OK, so I'm about done with this argument.

You have not been convinced by the fact that you would fail (terribly) any algebra or science unit relating to logarithms, by using your "technique."

You have not addressed, or understood, the unit type problem, or the unit size problem.

You have not acknowledged the problem of consistency, namely, that we have three shots, each of identical or near-identical power, in the Death Star novel.

You not only redefine, but deny that you are redefining both "one third" and "power."
Jedi Master Spock wrote:On the back? Crushing the Death Star like an egg sandwiched between two pistols, in other words?
Unless it's structure can take which it obviously can.
That notion is completely ridiculous. We're talking about e30 N forces here.

SpanishInquisitor
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Post by SpanishInquisitor » Sun Apr 13, 2008 8:33 pm

Kane Starkiller wrote:How exactly did you come to this conclusion? The quote states superlaser is actually neutrinos which then bypass the shields. But like any other particle neutrino must give it's energy to the target. So what exactly is "exotic" about it? The second part of the quote explicitly states a portion of the surface is vaporized and if heated enough it will expand with enough force to shatter the planet and even vaporize it like it did to Alderaan. This is exactly the "DET" mechanism and no exotic chain reactions in sight.
Well, let me explain:
Dark Empire Sourcebook p.125 (about Planetary Shields, bold is mine) wrote:Instead of weakening a shield, the superlaser is able to pierce through it by using a coupled neutrino charge.
The key word here is "coupled". It does not say that *is* a neutrino beam. The superlaser beam is coupled (joined) with a neutrino charge. Note that all this fits nicely with the "composite beam" name given to the LAAT turrets, adding an additional meaning. Also this piece of technobabble is not a pure EU author fantasy, there are RL scientific articles talking about neutrino-plasma interactions. See an example here: http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/1402-4896/2004/T107/001/
This neutrino charge not only plunges through the shield, but it penetrates the mantle and lower levels of the planet.
Neutrinos and matter penetration. This is clearly a reference to the RL matter penetrating properties of neutrino particles. Because of this, a neutrino beam would be a *very* inefficient way to do a DET weapon. So neutrinos here must serve another purpose, and it seems that it is enhancing somehow the penetration effects of the superlaser.
Great chunks of the crust can be vaporized, sometimes sending the surface exploding outward with enough force to shatter the world.
Of course, there are cataclysmic DET side effects involved due to the superlaser *penetration* of the planet's crust and mantle.

To this point, even with neutrinos, DET alone could have been said to be enough to explain all the *terminal* effects on Alderaan. The EU publications like the Death Star Technical Companion, the EGVV, Darksaber, ICS, ITW etc seems to assume this, all them talking about the great energies involved etc. But they don't explain anything more than that about the way the superlaser works, so there are room for a more detailed explanation. And when the ring effect was added in 1997 to the explosion in the SE of the movies, something that cannot be accounted by a pure DET effect was added. This means the necessity for another more detailed explanation:
Holonews site (bold is mine) wrote:Ministry of Science Continues Hypermatter Studies

MINISCI ARCOLOGY, CORUSCANT - A sizable grant from Republic Sienar Systems has allowed the Ministry of Science to continue its research into translational hypermatter energy applications. "Today, we use hypermatter reactions to power the largest of lightspeed drives, but there are millions of other uses just waiting to be exploited," said scientist and engineer Paldis Doxin of the Magrody Institute. "Properly harnessing this energy could handle planetary power needs and revolutionize deep space mining."
http://www.holonetnews.com/50/business/1344_2.html. A hint of the things to come. This article, published around AOTC, both in RL an in-universe talks about other uses of hypermatter *reactions* different of power generation. Sienar built the hypermatter reactor of the DS. Translational, translation, means movement. Keep in mind this.
Death Star novel (bold is mine) wrote:Tarkin watched the projection as the effects of the beam manifested on the planet. [...] The chain reaction was massive.
Explicit mention of a "chain reaction" related to the superlaser effects. *Maybe* it could be taken as a reference to collateral damage outside of the DET point of impact, but the next quote...
At full charge, the hyper-matter reactor provided a superluminal "boost" that caused much of the planet's mass to be shifted immediately into hyperspace.
There you have it, ultimately a great part of the mass of Alderaan was shifted (moved) into hyperspace. This links with the holonews quote above, and it is a pretty explicit description of specifically non-DET chain reaction damage to the planet. Note that whatever were the energies used to create the beam, the energy *requirements* to make Alderaan to lose gravitational integrity become significantly lower with much of the mass of it gone!.
As a result, Alderaan exploded into a fiery ball of eye-smiting light almost instantaneously, and a planar ring of energy reflux-the "shadow" of a hyperspatial ripple-spread rapidly outward.
The gold quotes about the explosion and the ring effect. Once the mass of the planet is gone into hyperspace (don't forget this!), something happens as a result that makes it explode.

Since both the DS and the DS2 reactor core explosions featured said ripples, whatever the hypermatter reactor does with the superlaser, is not not only providing it with energy. The reactor itself somehow must take part in the mass movement damage effects. This also fits nicely with this quote about the DS2:
The Glove of Darth Vader (bold is mine) wrote:"The intense gravity of black holes and other interstellar forces cause warps, folds, and buckles in space," explained Grand Moff Hissa. "Asteroids and spaceships have tumbled into these space warps and have suddenly reappeared millions of miles away. The same thing must have happened to this debris from the Imperial Death Star."
This also explains why the DS2's reactor core explosion didn't affect Endor as could be expected, since much of its mass was moved too into hyperspace. (Yeah, this novel sucks, but still is a canon source.)

It is true that there was no visible ring in the destruction of Despayre, but the superlaser was working at reduced levels of energy, and it can be said that the ring was a smaller one and hidden by the remaining planet mass.

The absence of a ring in the destruction of he Lucrehulk carrier, the Liberty, and the Home One look-alike can be explained by even a smaller version of the above, or (yes in this case) with only the superlaser DET side effects, that should be more than enough to deal with any starship. In the latter case the reactor could be only generating energy without "turning on" the more "exotic" effects.

Of course, there must be still a source for the energy that accelerated the *remaining* mass in a explosive form. The precise mechanism is not explained more in detail anywhere that I know.

These are the basic related facts seen in canon:
* a planet hit by the superlaser loses most of it mass into hyperspace
* the HM reactor itself somehow must take part in the mass movement damage effects
* opening of a hyperspace ripple as an end result of the superlaser
* catastrophic results of losing containment in a HM reactor core, including a hyperspace ripple
* release of energy from HM tachyons when in realspace.
* SW starship's hyperdrives use HM to create a field to enter hyperspace
* radiation flashes are released when a starship comes or exits from hyperspace

From here we can speculate about the details, but at the bare minimum I see a energy release from a unquestionable violent hyperspace/realspace interaction.

In the end, the Death Stars were not different of other imperial superweapons like the Galaxy Gun, World Devastators, Sun Crusher etc, all of which used some kind of non-DET chain reaction mechanism to do its damage.

Colloquially speaking I think the "exotic" adjective is more than justified. However, if you want a more formal reason, I will point you to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exotic_matter, where you can read how "exotic" seems to be a accepted way in RL speculative physics to refer to concepts that in the SW universe usually seems related to hypermatter. Look under the "Imaginary mass" section of the article for a commentary on tachyons that I think you will find familiar.

Yeah, I know all this hyper-whatever is technobabble. But is officially approved EU canon technobabble. It does not contradict the movies in any way, and explains the ring effect. Whatever are the energy levels involved, any further speculations about the DS and its superlaser must take all this as a premise and a starting point.

So, what do you think?

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Post by Kane Starkiller » Sun Apr 13, 2008 9:26 pm

Roondar wrote:I've asked a mathematician I know (with a bachelors title in math) what he thought about the 1/3 stuff.

His answer: if it is not explicitly specified as being meant differently, 1/3 is not based on logarithms but just 1/3 of the original. It is factually incorrect to say "1/3" and mean something else without clarifying it.

This also goes for figures derived from logarithmic scales such as decibels, if you have a sound at 63 dB, the sound would be 60 dB when played at half strength, not 31,5 dB.

The rule is: if you're not using the standard definition, you specify so.
I agree with this general "rule" which is actually more of a guidance than some kind of law. However the point is that 1/3 in this case is demonstratabely not 3 times smaller than full power thus an explanation is required. Logarithmic scale explains it regardless of whether we would normally use it.
Praehmon wrote:I do not insist that we need to find your logarithmic scale anywhere in actual books, I do however insist that you stop redefining the scientific usage of the english language to suit your conclusions.
The book said "1/3 power level", not "1/3 logarithmic values quantifying the power level"...
And also not "1/3 linear value of power level" did it? You assume it implicitly means linear. Normally I would agree but in this case it obviously isn't the case since last shot was far more than simply 3 times more powerful.
Praethomin wrote:And no one in the novel specified that they weren't...
Which is not evidence is it?
Praethomin wrote:Or the DS could be using that strange, exotic material called
"Hypermatter" to create a no less exotic chain reaction in the planet...
Really? By all means explain how you came to that conclusion.
Mr. Orgahan wrote:In a way that is not fitting with simple DET systems, and incorporates exotic effects which you seem hellbent to ignore...
You keep repeating these "DET systems". What exactly do you mean by it? Why exactly does boosting planetary matter above lightspeed somehow mean that energy came from planet?
Mr. Oragahn wrote:Unless the DVD version has been tweaked on that point - thus far I've heard that only the colours have been slightly altered - you are dead wrong on that.
I invite to watch the video of the SE, for example, or look at these pictures.
You'll notice that while there's definitely stuff thrown into space from the region facing the Death Star, the crescent part remains relatively unharmed in comparison, besides the immediate additional whitish haze.
Until you can show me how the DVD version differs, evidence is on my side.
You keep claiming that the "whitish haze" on the left is somehow different from the planetary surface as opposed to itself being the surface which is expanding. Justify your claim.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:Which is bull because I very much doubt you can pass from intense white, to blue sort of luminosity, then to darker yellow within one or two frames. There's a lot of energy here you know, and that's going to take a hell of a time to radiate.

Not to say that I'd like you to prove that the planet can be heated up to that level to warrant a blue luminosity, and still retain its shape that much.
It's contradictory.
It is "bull" because you "very much doubt"? Do you even understand what evidence means? And of course there is the ultra precise "hell of a time". I honestly don't understand why you think your gut feelings somehow constitute evidence. Secondly the planet did not retain it's shape. It was expanding, the surface on the lower left which you claim was intact was already several hundred km away in a few frames.
Mr. Orgahn wrote:Please, we're not speaking about how things move, but how they cool down.

So point me to any region of the expanding fireball that looks whitish blue as the crescent does. Actually, explain why there's no visible white to blue transition on the edges of the fireball, contrary to the implied consequences of your claim.
Our sun, despite being basically yellow instead of blue, has such an intense luminosity that its light is largely white.
How things move will dictate how they will cool down. When they expand their surface area increases and volume decreases so they cool down faster. Secondly why should I point to other parts of planet which are blue? Explosions are chaotic events and will not be perfectly even.
Mr. Orgagahn wrote:Yes, there's something to accept: the fact that you could read my words a thousand times more, and still never understand them. That's unfortunate. I'd have hoped that for now several pages of the same ping-pong meaningless exchange you're responsible of, you'd have finally understood that I never planned to explain the physics beyond the superlaser, that it was never the purpose of it.
So after being challenged repeatedly to justify your theory and you repeatedly failed to do so you will now make some vague assertions about me not understanding your words?
Mr. Orgahn wrote:Oh, with the only difference that this is everything safe an opinion, mister distorsion.
It's a fact. A fact that no mention is made about what would be the most noticeable effect on the surface of the planet. In an ocean of details, all is cited safe what would be the most obvious.
It doesn't require a genius to understand that this is not cited because it was not there.

Remember that we're talking about the first Despayre shots here, not the Alderaanian one that kicks a whole part of the crust into space upon contact.

The descriptions include pretty everything worth of a mention from the moment it reaches a high enough magnitude, but completely misses the mention of the supercrater.

Now, of course, considering the addition made by the other cited EU source, it might actually explain how so much energy is deposited throughout the planet, and not mainly and purely into the crust.
But we can see that if anything, without that refinement from the EU, you'd be left with no good point at all.
I'm not saying that crater not being mentioned is your opinion I'm saying that you claiming that not mentioning the crater specifically proves that it wasn't there is your opinion. And true enough: you repeat your claim with your opinion as evidence.
Mr. Orgahn wrote:Do I look like I care if it's a term often applied to Trek? It's an useful one.
What you care about is no concern of mine. That you make stuff up is. And introducing NDF is making stuff up since Star Trek is not a part of Star Wars canon.
Mr. Orgahn wrote:1/3 on your scale if far more than what's required to get down any starship of that time.
Hell, even with 4%, they completely flash vapourized a 3km long carrier and the 500 fighters, already out of the bays, occupying that region of space.

For the record, when they fired at the rebel carrier, they had the "hypermatter reactor [at] level one twenty-fifth of maximum," and "capacitors, four percent available."

1/25 is nothing more than 0.04, or 4% - but this is not 4% of the capacitors, it's 4% of what the reactor can output, which is very different. Still, running the reactor at that level didn't pump up more energy.
As we know, it takes lots of time to recharge the capacitors, and the destructive power of the superlaser, at that time, was solely attributed to the discharge from the capacitors ("They had vaporized a carrier three kilometers across-with four percent power on the beam. Just like that."), implying that the reactor's output didn't make a difference in regard of what the capacitors had in stock.


Besides, there are percentages. Are you going to attempt shoehorning your nonsensical and overcomplicated log scale into this as well?
Actually the shields of the Corse ship itself are rated at 6*10^23W so 10^25J is probably enough to make sure. Again I never claimed my exact scale is what they used, either way 1/25 is enough to blow up a rebel transport under my scale. 4% capacitors are available not necessarily filled up.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:E25 J? To vapourize a large lake?
Could you please verify this.
Baikal lake has a water volume of 23,600km3 which is 2.36*10^16kg. To vaporize 1kg of water from 300K initial temperature you need 2.57MJ. Thus to vaporize the entire lake you'd need 6*10^22J. Not quite 10^25J but this is assumes all the energy will be uniformly transferred to the water in the lake rather than being wasted on boiling the impact point beyond 100 degrees, heating the surrounding area, the atmosphere etc.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:It settles it in your favour, only if you ignore the fact that reactors don't open windows into hyperspace, that their reactions occur in real space, that hypermatter is stored inside fuel silos as far as you accept the ICS, said silos which themselves exist in real space, and that hyperspace is never mentionnned.
When you look at the size of the whole structure tied to the DS' hypermatter reactor, has it ever occured to you that all this hardware, that literally dwarves the reactor itself, would likely contain the hypermatter the reactor uses?
You are outright making things up. Where is it stated reactions inside reactors occur in real space? It stated that hypermatter only exists in hyperspace as tachyonic matter and then WHEN it is constrained to real space it produces vast quantities of energy. Thus the reactors constrain the tachyons thus producing energy. No one said anything about a "window" to hyperspace your strawmaning notwithstanding.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:Excuse me, but where?
Using quantified hyperjump for an ISD.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:
Kane Starkiller wrote:Not to mention that prison planet was blown up without any hyperspace boost...

Hence my claim.
What claim?
Mr. Oragahn wrote:I only use anything written or influenced by Saxton to show how such material doesn't fit with the rest of the EU. As far as I'm concerned, I purely ignore whatever he says cause it's bull.
I am not interested in you conspiracy theories or what you consider to be "bull".
Mr. Oragahn wrote:Give me the quote. You claimed it exist, so give it.
I'll tell you the difference once I see that genuine quote you referenced. Until then, your interpretation remains most humourous, but above all particularily wrong.
What are you talking about? Hyperspace jump and jump to hyperspace are synonyms.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:What evidence? You're just saying that Han is full of it when he makes claims about anything related to the size of Empire's dick (read: firepower, fleet and ship size/importance).
Thus far, it's simply and purely unsubstanciated.
So again, provide proof he lies or is wrong, notably on Star Destroyers abilities.
Do you even read my posts? I already stated he was off by a factor of million when saying the Empire can't blow up a planet even though it did by one million overkill and that Empire can't construct something the size of Death Star even though they did.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:Could that be the first step to enlightment?
You are not making any sense I'm afraid.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:Exotic big badaboom. Haha, really, that's pretty much all you're going to get.

You're simply ignoring the mere fact that the third shot had almost the exact same recharge time than the second shot, plus a difference of 4 to 6 minutes, and that at this time, the weapon system was NOT fully functional.

Yet it doesn't prevent you from claiming that the energy levels jump from crust cracking to violent planetary mass scattering (e33 J at least).
If the capacitors can be charged with so much energy, why wasn't the second shot as powerful as the third?

They could only get 1/3 shots ("Engineering hasn't goten itself together, from what they tell me. They say thirty-three percent power is all they can currently store in the capacitors for discharge."), and the first one would be ready for a fire test within two hours.
Even during the conference room talk, the battle station was again identified as not fully operational.
If "exotic big badaboom haha" is your best your best won't do. Lower recharge rates could've been testing the system. By the way where are you coming up with these new quotes? Could I see the page number? Anyway how can you "store" power? You can store energy which you'll then release at a certain rate which is power.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:This is no strawman. The plate is an analogy for the claim of dense layer of cooler matter lifted up above the fireball. It's most impressive that while anyone would have a basic clue about the effect and development of fireballs within an atmosphere and at the surface of a world, and know that all you'd see is a huge fireball, you come here and claim that this is not going to be the case, just... because.
And you're the one insisting on realistic physics?
Just because? Are you even listening to me? The matter will be superheated, expand and then due to increased surface area and decreased volume cool off more rapidly than portions still in atmosphere which will appear darker.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:The reactions of the characters and how the whole scene, from their perspective, occurs within a short timeframe. Unless you believe one of the two persons replied to the comment made by the first more than an hour later? (time before the second shot, which happens after that chapter)
The chapter leaves no doubt that it happened within small minutes.
"They-they're firing at the planet. With the superlaser" came after the book described what happened on the surface.

Not only the energy at that time didn't remove the atmosphere, but the black spot came in so fast, replacing the orange spot on the holo, that they spoke at the present tense.
Then they kept looking at the holo, with orange and black waves expanding irregularily.
In other words you have no evidence for elapsed time just like I said. Secondly when did I say that first shot removed the atmosphere? Blowing a portion of dust into the orbit is not the same as blowing off the atmosphere.

Mr. Orgahn wrote:I'd particularily like to know how a ring of fire can expand while anywhere where that ring of fire passed is now identified as black by the holo.
This loks much more like ID4 effect than the expansion of a fireball.
Or like what happens at 5:42 here.


And excuse me, but it's not a mere dark spot, like in "a darker hue". It's a black spot, which is enough to dispute the idea that some dust in higher orbit would conveniently mask the fireball with intermediate opacity.
The holo, for the record, was capable of displaying green and blue as well, which was how Despayre looked like from away.
Not that it matters much, since the holo shows the black stuff expanding as much as the orange one, even beyond the point of impact, and that extremely fast, which simply throws out the fancyful idea of cooler matter kicked above fireballs.
As if introducing Star Trek wasn't bad enough now you link me to some idiotic anime show? Secondly they say it's a black spot. It could easily look black to them due to contrast even if the "black" spot is itself superheated. Like sun spots. By the way holo shows NOTHING since it's a book. We only have a word black.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:OK, so I'm about done with this argument.

You have not been convinced by the fact that you would fail (terribly) any algebra or science unit relating to logarithms, by using your "technique."

You have not addressed, or understood, the unit type problem, or the unit size problem.

You have not acknowledged the problem of consistency, namely, that we have three shots, each of identical or near-identical power, in the Death Star novel.

You not only redefine, but deny that you are redefining both "one third" and "power."
I have passed Linear Algebra, Mathematical analysis 1,2,3 and Discreet Mathematic just fine thank you. You still didn't show anything is mathematically wrong with presenting power in a logarithmic scale. Your "unit type problem" and "unit size problem" are invention of yours since I have compared logarithmic values of quantity. You continue to pretend that third shot is known to be at 1/3 power where nothing of the sort is mentioned. Finally you completely ignored my point that values used for enumerator and denominator have no bearing on the definition of a fraction only to repeat your earlier accusation.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:That notion is completely ridiculous. We're talking about e30 N forces here.
Seeing as how we already discuss about ships which can withstand kilotons of energy being compressed into a beam 1m wide it's a little late to start calling large numbers ridiculous.
SpanishInquisitor wrote:Neutrinos and matter penetration. This is clearly a reference to the RL matter penetrating properties of neutrino particles. Because of this, a neutrino beam would be a *very* inefficient way to do a DET weapon. So neutrinos here must serve another purpose, and it seems that it is enhancing somehow the penetration effects of the superlaser.
Yes they would be inefficient and that sourcebook quote itself is suspect since neutrinos wouldn't collide with each other when superlaser is being focused in front of Death Star as we've seen. What purpose do you think neutrinos can serve? They can penetrate matter other particles cannot.
SpanishInquisitor wrote:Of course, there are cataclysmic DET side effects involved due to the superlaser *penetration* of the planet's crust and mantle.

To this point, even with neutrinos, DET alone could have been said to be enough to explain all the *terminal* effects on Alderaan. The EU publications like the Death Star Technical Companion, the EGVV, Darksaber, ICS, ITW etc seems to assume this, all them talking about the great energies involved etc. But they don't explain anything more than that about the way the superlaser works, so there are room for a more detailed explanation. And when the ring effect was added in 1997 to the explosion in the SE of the movies, something that cannot be accounted by a pure DET effect was added.
So what if not every aspect can be explained? Secondly this "DET effect" is not some actual mechanism in real physics. Various energy transfers will make matter behave differently. There is a difference whether you are hit with a laser beam a buller or a missile.

SpanishInquisitor wrote:http://www.holonetnews.com/50/business/1344_2.html. A hint of the things to come. This article, published around AOTC, both in RL an in-universe talks about other uses of hypermatter *reactions* different of power generation. Sienar built the hypermatter reactor of the DS. Translational, translation, means movement. Keep in mind this.
What is this webpage? Is it official?
SpanishInquisitor wrote:Explicit mention of a "chain reaction" related to the superlaser effects. *Maybe* it could be taken as a reference to collateral damage outside of the DET point of impact, but the next quote...
It is a reference to collateral damage.
SpanishInquisitor wrote:There you have it, ultimately a great part of the mass of Alderaan was shifted (moved) into hyperspace. This links with the holonews quote above, and it is a pretty explicit description of specifically non-DET chain reaction damage to the planet. Note that whatever were the energies used to create the beam, the energy *requirements* to make Alderaan to lose gravitational integrity become significantly lower with much of the mass of it gone!.
And this "shift" was energy free or something? I already posted required energy simply to make ISD jump to hyperspace.

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Mr. Oragahn
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Post by Mr. Oragahn » Sun Apr 13, 2008 11:25 pm

Kane Starkiller wrote:
Praehmon wrote:I do not insist that we need to find your logarithmic scale anywhere in actual books, I do however insist that you stop redefining the scientific usage of the english language to suit your conclusions.
The book said "1/3 power level", not "1/3 logarithmic values quantifying the power level"...
And also not "1/3 linear value of power level" did it? You assume it implicitly means linear.
Oh, perhaps because by default, it is linear, so there's no point mentionning it.
My god the shock.
Mr. Orgahan wrote:In a way that is not fitting with simple DET systems, and incorporates exotic effects which you seem hellbent to ignore...
You keep repeating these "DET systems". What exactly do you mean by it?
Anything that acts by DET rules. What don't you get? It's terribly simple.
Why exactly does boosting planetary matter above lightspeed somehow mean that energy came from planet?
I never claimed such a thing, and I think it's not the first time in this thread you made that strawman. Once, an error. Twice, you should start reconsidering your position with more honesty.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:Unless the DVD version has been tweaked on that point - thus far I've heard that only the colours have been slightly altered - you are dead wrong on that.
I invite to watch the video of the SE, for example, or look at these pictures.
You'll notice that while there's definitely stuff thrown into space from the region facing the Death Star, the crescent part remains relatively unharmed in comparison, besides the immediate additional whitish haze.
Until you can show me how the DVD version differs, evidence is on my side.
You keep claiming that the "whitish haze" on the left is somehow different from the planetary surface as opposed to itself being the surface which is expanding. Justify your claim.
I already did.
I'm sorry you can't comprehend the most basic picture.
You still fail to show where the planetary mass expansion happens on that side of the planet.
You claimed it happens all along. I proved you wrong very easily on that one, considering that the crescent doesn't change at all beyond the first frame when the haze suddenly becomes a bit more opaque and extends a bit further from the original altitude. Beyond that, nothing happens.
It's even more easy to see how you're wrong as we have a perfect example of mass expansion to compare with, occuring at the same time.
So just prove that the semi opaque haze is more than atmosphere heating up and expanding a tad.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:Which is bull because I very much doubt you can pass from intense white, to blue sort of luminosity, then to darker yellow within one or two frames. There's a lot of energy here you know, and that's going to take a hell of a time to radiate.

Not to say that I'd like you to prove that the planet can be heated up to that level to warrant a blue luminosity, and still retain its shape that much.
It's contradictory.
It is "bull" because you "very much doubt"?
It's bull because it's contradicted by the very movie and you have not provided any solid basis beyond your quickly made claim presented as fact.
Do you even understand what evidence means? And of course there is the ultra precise "hell of a time". I honestly don't understand why you think your gut feelings somehow constitute evidence.
Possibly because any kind of energy needed to turn matter into super heated blue giant style plasma isn't going to cool down within one or two frames.
Secondly the planet did not retain it's shape. It was expanding, the surface on the lower left which you claim was intact was already several hundred km away in a few frames.
No, the haze just inflated a tad and then didn't move after that. Man, you can't even understand pictures. What should I do with you?
Get power DVD or virtualdub (this one is free if I'm correct). Go frame by frame, and just get it through your skull once and for all.

So again, instead of avoiding the question, once you'll have observed the lack of expansion of the lower left crescent, please answer to this:

I'd like you to prove that the planet can be heated up to that level to warrant a blue luminosity, and still retain its shape that much.

Mr. Orgahn wrote:Please, we're not speaking about how things move, but how they cool down.

So point me to any region of the expanding fireball that looks whitish blue as the crescent does. Actually, explain why there's no visible white to blue transition on the edges of the fireball, contrary to the implied consequences of your claim.
Our sun, despite being basically yellow instead of blue, has such an intense luminosity that its light is largely white.
How things move will dictate how they will cool down. When they expand their surface area increases and volume decreases so they cool down faster. Secondly why should I point to other parts of planet which are blue? Explosions are chaotic events and will not be perfectly even.
Ok, so no evidence, mere dodging, as I thought.
You have probably noticed that even at the point of impact, it goes from white to yellow/orange within one frame. Drop that BS about cooling that can occur so fast that you can miss between two frames.
Mr. Orgagahn wrote:Yes, there's something to accept: the fact that you could read my words a thousand times more, and still never understand them. That's unfortunate. I'd have hoped that for now several pages of the same ping-pong meaningless exchange you're responsible of, you'd have finally understood that I never planned to explain the physics beyond the superlaser, that it was never the purpose of it.
So after being challenged repeatedly to justify your theory and you repeatedly failed to do so you will now make some vague assertions about me not understanding your words?
You don't get them, it's not really my problem. Anyone else would have understood that eons ago. Somehow, your brain is stuck in a neural loop. Go figure.
Mr. Orgahn wrote:Oh, with the only difference that this is everything safe an opinion, mister distorsion.
It's a fact. A fact that no mention is made about what would be the most noticeable effect on the surface of the planet. In an ocean of details, all is cited safe what would be the most obvious.
It doesn't require a genius to understand that this is not cited because it was not there.

Remember that we're talking about the first Despayre shots here, not the Alderaanian one that kicks a whole part of the crust into space upon contact.

The descriptions include pretty everything worth of a mention from the moment it reaches a high enough magnitude, but completely misses the mention of the supercrater.

Now, of course, considering the addition made by the other cited EU source, it might actually explain how so much energy is deposited throughout the planet, and not mainly and purely into the crust.
But we can see that if anything, without that refinement from the EU, you'd be left with no good point at all.
I'm not saying that crater not being mentioned is your opinion I'm saying that you claiming that not mentioning the crater specifically proves that it wasn't there is your opinion. And true enough: you repeat your claim with your opinion as evidence.
Conspicuous lack of evidence is enough to know it's not there, especially when the author takes a great deal mentionning all the other details and yet misses the biggest one, the one that would be the easiest to notice.
Mr. Orgahn wrote:Do I look like I care if it's a term often applied to Trek? It's an useful one.
What you care about is no concern of mine. That you make stuff up is. And introducing NDF is making stuff up since Star Trek is not a part of Star Wars canon.
NDF is not referenced in official Trek canon either as far as I know, and even if it was, I couldn't care less.
It's merely an easy way to describe some phenomenon, as understood by most debaters.
Mr. Orgahn wrote:1/3 on your scale if far more than what's required to get down any starship of that time.
Hell, even with 4%, they completely flash vapourized a 3km long carrier and the 500 fighters, already out of the bays, occupying that region of space.

For the record, when they fired at the rebel carrier, they had the "hypermatter reactor [at] level one twenty-fifth of maximum," and "capacitors, four percent available."

1/25 is nothing more than 0.04, or 4% - but this is not 4% of the capacitors, it's 4% of what the reactor can output, which is very different. Still, running the reactor at that level didn't pump up more energy.
As we know, it takes lots of time to recharge the capacitors, and the destructive power of the superlaser, at that time, was solely attributed to the discharge from the capacitors ("They had vaporized a carrier three kilometers across-with four percent power on the beam. Just like that."), implying that the reactor's output didn't make a difference in regard of what the capacitors had in stock.


Besides, there are percentages. Are you going to attempt shoehorning your nonsensical and overcomplicated log scale into this as well?
Actually the shields of the Corse ship itself are rated at 6*10^23W so 10^25J is probably enough to make sure. Again I never claimed my exact scale is what they used, either way 1/25 is enough to blow up a rebel transport under my scale. 4% capacitors are available not necessarily filled up.
Rated by the same book where stupid claims are made about shields and weapons, accelerations and what have you.

Also remember that e25 J was what you claimed for 1/3 on your scale, to fit with the initial Despayre shots.

1/25 from the reactor didn't make a big difference in the final output, since Tenn still talked about the precharged 4% doing the job, nothing else, regardless of the reactor's immediate output, showing that at 4%, the increase of energy was minimal in regards of what they already had. Therefore, as we're speaking of percentages, 100% wouldn't be particularily higher.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:E25 J? To vapourize a large lake?
Could you please verify this.
Baikal lake has a water volume of 23,600km3 which is 2.36*10^16kg. To vaporize 1kg of water from 300K initial temperature you need 2.57MJ. Thus to vaporize the entire lake you'd need 6*10^22J. Not quite 10^25J but this is assumes all the energy will be uniformly transferred to the water in the lake rather than being wasted on boiling the impact point beyond 100 degrees, heating the surrounding area, the atmosphere etc.
Precisely what I thought. You grossly exagerated the necessary output. Even if you had to output more energy in order to vaporize a third more of water in order to get enough extra energy to vape the amount you mention, you're alredy 3 orders of magnitude above what's necessary.

My point stands that you're going to have a hard time finding a scale making sense, and fitting with all elements.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:It settles it in your favour, only if you ignore the fact that reactors don't open windows into hyperspace, that their reactions occur in real space, that hypermatter is stored inside fuel silos as far as you accept the ICS, said silos which themselves exist in real space, and that hyperspace is never mentionnned.
When you look at the size of the whole structure tied to the DS' hypermatter reactor, has it ever occured to you that all this hardware, that literally dwarves the reactor itself, would likely contain the hypermatter the reactor uses?
You are outright making things up. Where is it stated reactions inside reactors occur in real space? It stated that hypermatter only exists in hyperspace as tachyonic matter and then WHEN it is constrained to real space it produces vast quantities of energy. Thus the reactors constrain the tachyons thus producing energy. No one said anything about a "window" to hyperspace your strawmaning notwithstanding.
If there's no window to hyperspace or anything related to hyperspace, all reactions occur within purely realspace related parameters.
Hell, hypermatter is supposedly stored.
So what? They store hyperspace now, and it costs them nothing doing that?

Notice, besides, that when can also refer to the context, and not necessarily imply cause and consequence, meaning that only when the hypermatter is constrained to realspace, reactors can work on it to obtain great outputs.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:Excuse me, but where?
Using quantified hyperjump for an ISD.
Excuse me, but where?
Oh wait, nothing in sight.
Concession accepted then.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:I only use anything written or influenced by Saxton to show how such material doesn't fit with the rest of the EU. As far as I'm concerned, I purely ignore whatever he says cause it's bull.
I am not interested in you conspiracy theories or what you consider to be "bull"
When an author claims high ROF at kiloton level for a ship which bares the highest ROF ever seen from a ship in SW, and yet only reaches at best low gigajoules (way too generous), and much more likely megajoule ranges, yes, it's bull.
And when the same author claims that shielded fighters could withstand kilotons of energy and yet get downed by megajoules, again, yes, I say bull.
Or about claims of warship "neutronium" hulls completely obliterated by shots which are definitely sub kiloton (ROTS, you know, the film... hello?), again, that's mere bull.
Or claims 900 km wide battlestations when purely and simply contradicted by countless sources, or claims thousands of gees for ships based on the demonstrated extremely faulty observation of one single sequence in the films, again, it's BS.
When you know that one high figure is so because it has to fit with the rest of the high figures, and when you see that the truth point to much lower figures, you know that this inter-supporting network of high figures he's pulled out of his asshole crumbles like hot turd once you start to pick some off.
Matches castle.
That is not even opinion, we have enough of said evidence here, on this forum.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:Give me the quote. You claimed it exist, so give it.
I'll tell you the difference once I see that genuine quote you referenced. Until then, your interpretation remains most humourous, but above all particularily wrong.
What are you talking about? Hyperspace jump and jump to hyperspace are synonyms.
Ha Ha Ha.
No.
So provide the quote or shut up, as simple as that.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:What evidence? You're just saying that Han is full of it when he makes claims about anything related to the size of Empire's dick (read: firepower, fleet and ship size/importance).
Thus far, it's simply and purely unsubstanciated.
So again, provide proof he lies or is wrong, notably on Star Destroyers abilities.
Do you even read my posts? I already stated he was off by a factor of million when saying the Empire can't blow up a planet even though it did by one million overkill and that Empire can't construct something the size of Death Star even though they did.
The Death Star was a secret project. Star Destroyers are not. *sigh*

And his estimation wasn't off. Star Destroyers can't destroy planets. Hell, one would have issues completely blasting a 20 km wide moon within hours.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:Exotic big badaboom. Haha, really, that's pretty much all you're going to get.

You're simply ignoring the mere fact that the third shot had almost the exact same recharge time than the second shot, plus a difference of 4 to 6 minutes, and that at this time, the weapon system was NOT fully functional.

Yet it doesn't prevent you from claiming that the energy levels jump from crust cracking to violent planetary mass scattering (e33 J at least).
If the capacitors can be charged with so much energy, why wasn't the second shot as powerful as the third?

They could only get 1/3 shots ("Engineering hasn't goten itself together, from what they tell me. They say thirty-three percent power is all they can currently store in the capacitors for discharge."), and the first one would be ready for a fire test within two hours.
Even during the conference room talk, the battle station was again identified as not fully operational.
If "exotic big badaboom haha" is your best your best won't do. Lower recharge rates could've been testing the system. By the way where are you coming up with these new quotes? Could I see the page number? Anyway how can you "store" power? You can store energy which you'll then release at a certain rate which is power.
That's the way they speak, they've stored it, that's it.

'Sides, excuse me, but you're also claiming that between shots 2 and 3, they managed to go from e25 J (more or less) in slightly more than one hour, to e33 J within the very similar charge duration, by modifying the same experimental capacitors they were actually charging?
That's what? a mere increase of 8 orders of magnitude. Pah, peanuts!

These thirds, besides, were rapid recharge rates. It's said in the book that they can cook up those thirds with a fast recharge. However, it's also said in the book that charging it full would take the best of a day, surely because there has to be a peak recharge capacity which can last only for that much time (a bit more than one hour), but when they need a full charge, it takes more than 12 hours, because there are obvious limits to how much the reactor can output on longer runs.

You realize that when you're doing a bit of tweaking on anything that is live, you have to unplug the stuff first... just in case... you might put your hand inside a conduit which has planet destroying levels of energy flowing through it, right?

You understand that it makes no sense, especially considering the minutia they went through during the whole development of the superweapon, the testing phases and all that stuff?

You comprehend that modifications to very sensible systems (from the book, not me) dealing with planet destroying energies, would be applied when, at least, the system was off, at least secure, right?
Mr. Oragahn wrote:This is no strawman. The plate is an analogy for the claim of dense layer of cooler matter lifted up above the fireball. It's most impressive that while anyone would have a basic clue about the effect and development of fireballs within an atmosphere and at the surface of a world, and know that all you'd see is a huge fireball, you come here and claim that this is not going to be the case, just... because.
And you're the one insisting on realistic physics?
Just because? Are you even listening to me? The matter will be superheated, expand and then due to increased surface area and decreased volume cool off more rapidly than portions still in atmosphere which will appear darker.
And praytell, how long do you think it will take for the top of the fireball to cool down to more opaque levels, when you're dealing with, at the very least, many petatons of energy if not quite more?
Within one hour, nothing of that stuff would have time to cool down to those levels.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:The reactions of the characters and how the whole scene, from their perspective, occurs within a short timeframe. Unless you believe one of the two persons replied to the comment made by the first more than an hour later? (time before the second shot, which happens after that chapter)
The chapter leaves no doubt that it happened within small minutes.
"They-they're firing at the planet. With the superlaser" came after the book described what happened on the surface.

Not only the energy at that time didn't remove the atmosphere, but the black spot came in so fast, replacing the orange spot on the holo, that they spoke at the present tense.
Then they kept looking at the holo, with orange and black waves expanding irregularily.
In other words you have no evidence for elapsed time just like I said.
Excuse me, but I'm not responsible of your lazyness. The excerpt in question has been posted three or four times in this thread now.
I demonstrated, rather easily, that a character uses that sort of continuous present tense to say that "they" are firing fired at the planet, AFTER the planet has been hit and the effects described.
What don't you get? It's rather clear that this happens very, very fast.
Secondly when did I say that first shot removed the atmosphere? Blowing a portion of dust into the orbit is not the same as blowing off the atmosphere.
I was capping the event, not claiming you said so.
Mr. Orgahn wrote:I'd particularily like to know how a ring of fire can expand while anywhere where that ring of fire passed is now identified as black by the holo.
This loks much more like ID4 effect than the expansion of a fireball.
Or like what happens at 5:42 here.


And excuse me, but it's not a mere dark spot, like in "a darker hue". It's a black spot, which is enough to dispute the idea that some dust in higher orbit would conveniently mask the fireball with intermediate opacity.
The holo, for the record, was capable of displaying green and blue as well, which was how Despayre looked like from away.
Not that it matters much, since the holo shows the black stuff expanding as much as the orange one, even beyond the point of impact, and that extremely fast, which simply throws out the fancyful idea of cooler matter kicked above fireballs.
As if introducing Star Trek wasn't bad enough now you link me to some idiotic anime show? Secondly they say it's a black spot. It could easily look black to them due to contrast even if the "black" spot is itself superheated. Like sun spots. By the way holo shows NOTHING since it's a book. We only have a word black.
Sun spots?
Excuse me, but are you claiming that the low end destruction of Despayre was governed by the rules applying to high energy fusion reactions and complex convections due to random magnetic fields of stars?
Assume your analogy please, and make the link between the two.
Last edited by Mr. Oragahn on Mon Apr 14, 2008 3:11 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Post by Jedi Master Spock » Mon Apr 14, 2008 12:43 am

Kane Starkiller wrote:
Roondar wrote:I've asked a mathematician I know (with a bachelors title in math) what he thought about the 1/3 stuff.

His answer: if it is not explicitly specified as being meant differently, 1/3 is not based on logarithms but just 1/3 of the original. It is factually incorrect to say "1/3" and mean something else without clarifying it.

This also goes for figures derived from logarithmic scales such as decibels, if you have a sound at 63 dB, the sound would be 60 dB when played at half strength, not 31,5 dB.

The rule is: if you're not using the standard definition, you specify so.
I agree with this general "rule" which is actually more of a guidance than some kind of law. However the point is that 1/3 in this case is demonstratabely not 3 times smaller than full power thus an explanation is required. Logarithmic scale explains it regardless of whether we would normally use it.
You know full well that you're completely off-base. Especially when we have three shots of 1/3 power producing a net effect far more than 3 times the original power.

There's a perfectly simple explanation sitting in front of you - the effect is not linear with respect to power. It fits with everything elegantly and does not require convoluted re-interpretation of very simple lines.
I have passed Linear Algebra, Mathematical analysis 1,2,3 and Discreet Mathematic just fine thank you. You still didn't show anything is mathematically wrong with presenting power in a logarithmic scale.
If you passed them, you did not do so by presenting "creative" solutions like the above. Ask any of your former teachers, if you like. They will agree that it's inappropriate to call 1e-26 fraction thereof "one third." Please do ask them, in fact.

There is nothing wrong with presenting things in a logarithmic scale. There is, however, a problem defining "one third" as meaning not one third of the quantity under discussion, but one third of the logarithmic scaling.
Your "unit type problem" and "unit size problem" are invention of yours since I have compared logarithmic values of quantity.
They are not. The unit size problem is why we never are concerned with dividing logarithms in dealing with decibels or richter magnitudes - because the same numbers, measured in different sized units, produces a different fraction.

The unit type problem is the classic error-check of any physics solution - including units throughout your problem, does your final solution have the appropriate units?

The answer here is "no." We're looking for something that will give us answers in units of power - mass-distance per time unit squared - and your method does not have a final answer that is in terms of those units.
You continue to pretend that third shot is known to be at 1/3 power where nothing of the sort is mentioned. Finally you completely ignored my point that values used for enumerator and denominator have no bearing on the definition of a fraction only to repeat your earlier accusation.
Actually, this is known. The recharge time limitations are well explored in the book.

Further, if a full power shot takes most of a day to recharge, then a shot requiring over an hour to charge will not be 1e-26 times as potent. Capacitors tail off on charge rates as they fill to capacity, not as you start to charge them.
Seeing as how we already discuss about ships which can withstand kilotons of energy being compressed into a beam 1m wide it's a little late to start calling large numbers ridiculous.
A kiloton per second in a near-lightspeed beam is on the order of e4 N and kPa pressures. This is not a structural problem. Steel can handle gigapascal shears and stresses reasonably well.

Let's assume that the e30 N are evenly distributed across a 160 km diameter. That's ~ e10m^2 area.

Let's also say that the Death Star compresses by 1% in between the superlaser and its recoil compensators. Then we can compute Young's Modulus as on the order of e22 - in other words, billions of times the compressive strength of carbon nanotubes, using ridiculously generous assumptions. More realistically, we're talking trillions without leaving the low end of matters.

Materials in that range of strength are simply not seen in Star Wars. For that matter, even Star Trek materials don't seem to be more than a couple orders of magnitude away from real materials.

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Post by SailorSaturn13 » Mon Apr 14, 2008 2:27 am

Kane Starkiller wrote: You again presume to have the right to determine what is and is not normal or absurd. You don't.
I don't. JMS does. JMS how about you define some things as "absurd" and make a rule not to claim such things?

I, for my part, KNOW how it is done - and how it isn't. Therefore I can tell how "one third" is used.


I don't need to prove a negative. Familiarize yourself with burden of proof.
YOU conceded a proof.
YOU conceded that the default meaning of "one third" is linear. Now to be able to move away from the default meaning YOU need to prove that the default meaning contradicts higher canon, and no assumptions, no changes in physics (remember - canon ueber alles, physical laws are below any canon layer) can resolve the contradiction. Oops - they can...
I agree with this general "rule" which is actually more of a guidance than some kind of law.
Wrong. It IS a strict law. Many books explicitly state your usage as a grave error. You say this at physics exam, you fail.
However the point is that 1/3 in this case is demonstratabely not 3 times smaller than full power thus an explanation is required.
Then demonstrate it, but without any assumptions on physics like "reaction is proportional to shot power", And if you cannot , than the default meaning of "one third" must be used.

Which doesn't change the fact you can compare logarithmic values.
Why do you keep repeating things I already agree with and which change nothing? The point is you can show logarithmic values of power and then compare those logarithmic values.
Values are distinct from quantities.
If the value brought in relation with quantity A is 1/3 of a value brought in relation with quantity B, then A has "a third of value" of B. If the value is a value on some scale, then A has "a third of scale value" of B. But in both case you cannot say (based on before) that "quantity A is a third of quantity B" - that's a completely different thing!
The ratio of two physical quantities is defined in a way that DOESN'T have any numbers or values involved, and in fact has to be defined BEFORE we can relate any numbers to quantities. Because we need FIRST to define an etalon quantity (which we CALL "Joule") and then, when we say, for example "power A if 15 Joules", then we essentially say "power A is 15 times the etalon quantity". Or when we, for example say "power A if 15 Decibel", then we say "the decimal logarithm of the ratio between power A and etalon power, multiplied by 10, is 15".
By the way, if you need to express quantities in numbers, any quantity can be set as etalon. For example "Death Star Full Power" is a possible etalon.
Why? I just made up one example myself didn't I?
Because unlike you, the person on board the DS1 knows precisely what happens if his usage of a new, unfamiliar scale causes a problem.

Generally, Kane, you know very little about rigorous physics, mathematics, or astronomy. I'd like to ask you to abstain from any claims in those domains.
Last edited by SailorSaturn13 on Mon Apr 14, 2008 3:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by The Elder Dwoof » Mon Apr 14, 2008 3:55 am

SailorSaturn13 wrote:
Kane Starkiller wrote: You again presume to have the right to determine what is and is not normal or absurd. You don't.
I don't. JMS does. JMS how about you define some things as "absurd" and make a rule not to claim such things?

I, for my part, KNOW how it is done - and how it isn't. Therefore I can tell how "one third is used".


I don't need to prove a negative. Familiarize yourself with burden of proof.
YOU conceded a proof.
YOU conceded that the default meaning of "one third" is linear. Now to be able to move away from the default meaning YOU need to prove that the default meaning contradicts higher canon, and no assumptions, no changes in physics (remember - canon ueber alles, physical laws are below any canon layer) can resolve the contradiction. Oops - they can...
Looks to ME like he's trying to invoke Court Law in place of Physical Law and Rules of Evidence.

While it is impossible to prove a negative (For example, Kane can't prove that he's NOT a Klingon lawywer in disguise), CLEARLY, Science fiction Canon can violate natural law, since Science fiction regularly bends/breaks the laws of physics.

For example: The Heisenberg uncertainty principle says you can't know both a particle's location AND speed at the same time, yet to reassemble someone properly, the Transporter MUST be able to do this. Thus, a piece of Technology is whipped up called a "Heisenberg Compensator"...how does it work? Haven't a clue. But it allows the Transporter to accomplish something we're pretty sure is impossible in the "real world."

However, any tech manual information, even on the Wars side, IS subject to a "Reality Check" if the numbers given violate the higher canon of the movies.

Thus, if you hear Han Solo say "The entire fleet couldn't destroy the whole planet, it would take a thousand ships with more firepower than I've ever heard of." then regardless of any quantification of the "small guns" on a Star Wars ship having the firepower of 13,000,000 atomic bombs PER SHOT, multiplied by, say, 500 ships (half of Han's estimate), each with 100 such guns, firing them once every 5 seconds or so, Han's statement takes precedence over the lower canon of "Incredible Cross Sections" and the other tech manuals.

Hey, JMS...how long would it take, given 130 BILLION atomic bombs' worth of explosions PER SECOND, concentrated in more or less the same spot, to pulverise Earth down to floating rocks, taking into account the progressive loss of mass as chunks of the planet are blasted off and into space?

I'm guessing: Not long.

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Post by Roondar » Mon Apr 14, 2008 10:43 am

Kane Starkiller wrote:
Roondar wrote:I've asked a mathematician I know (with a bachelors title in math) what he thought about the 1/3 stuff.

His answer: if it is not explicitly specified as being meant differently, 1/3 is not based on logarithms but just 1/3 of the original. It is factually incorrect to say "1/3" and mean something else without clarifying it.

This also goes for figures derived from logarithmic scales such as decibels, if you have a sound at 63 dB, the sound would be 60 dB when played at half strength, not 31,5 dB.

The rule is: if you're not using the standard definition, you specify so.
I agree with this general "rule" which is actually more of a guidance than some kind of law. However the point is that 1/3 in this case is demonstratabely not 3 times smaller than full power thus an explanation is required. Logarithmic scale explains it regardless of whether we would normally use it.
So does "DS not using DET do destroy planets" or "DS mechanism to destroy planets is exotic in nature".

Incidently, those also explains all the other weird stuff going on when the DS does it's thing, which your logarithmic scale does not.

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Post by Kane Starkiller » Mon Apr 14, 2008 3:28 pm

Mr. Oragahn wrote:Oh, perhaps because by default, it is linear, so there's no point mentionning it.
My god the shock.
Except of course not in this case since last shot wasn't 3 times more powerful. Your explanation doesn't exist I used a logarithmic scale.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:Anything that acts by DET rules. What don't you get? It's terribly simple.
Explain those "DET rules" if they are so simple then. Why exactly do rings disprove "DET" and point to a chain reaction?
Mr. Oragahn wrote:I never claimed such a thing, and I think it's not the first time in this thread you made that strawman. Once, an error. Twice, you should start reconsidering your position with more honesty.
If it didn't came from the planet than it had to come from the Death Star. What are you arguing exactly?
Mr. Oragahn wrote:I already did.
I'm sorry you can't comprehend the most basic picture.
You still fail to show where the planetary mass expansion happens on that side of the planet.
You claimed it happens all along. I proved you wrong very easily on that one, considering that the crescent doesn't change at all beyond the first frame whyen the haze suddenly becomes a bit more opaque and extends a bit further from the original altitude. Beyond that, nothing happens.
It's even more easy to see how you're wrong as we have a perfect example of mass expansion to compare with, occuring at the same time.
So just prove that the semi opaque haze is more than atmosphere heating up and expanding a tad.
No you didn't. Again you keep claiming that "haze" is not in fact surface expanding. Prove it.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:It's bull because it's contradicted by the very movie and you have not provided any solid basis beyond your quickly made claim presented as fact.
You are evading. You said that planetary matter turning from blue to white is "bull" because you "very much doubt" it can cool off that quickly. Prove it can't cool off that quickly. Your vague appeals to "move contradicting it" don't cut it.
Mr. Orgahan wrote:Possibly because any kind of energy needed to turn matter into super heated blue giant style plasma isn't going to cool down within one or two frames.
Get it? Or you need a drawing?
Not a drawing but a phyisical model complete with calculations. Prove that it can't cool off that quickly. Hint: it involves calculations.
M. Oragahn wrote:No, the haze just inflated a tad and then didn't move after that. Man, you can't even understand pictures. What should I do with you?
Get power DVD or virtualdub (this one is free if I'm correct). Go frame by frame, and just get it through your skull once and for all.

So again, instead of avoiding the question, once you'll have observed the lack of expansion of the lower left crescent, please answer to this:

I'd like you to prove that the planet can be heated up to that level to warrant a blue luminosity, and still retain its shape that much.
I did. At no point does the explosion stop.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:Ok, so no evidence, mere dodging, as I thought.
You have probably noticed that even at the point of impact, it goes from white to yellow/orange within one frame. Drop that BS about cooling that can occur so fast that you can miss between two frames. That's BS.
You still have it backwards. You are the one who claims that it cannot go from blue to yellow/orange in one frame. Go ahead and prove it.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:You don't get them, it's not really my problem. Anyone else would have understood that eons ago. Somehow, your brain is stuck in a neural loop. Go figure.
Your constant vague references to the supposed explanations you gave but I just can't understand are irrelevant. You provided no explanation whatsoever other than repeatedly stating the word "exotic" and even stated outright that you don't need to explain anything.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:Conspicuous lack of evidence is enough to know it's not there, especially when the author takes a great deal mentionning all the other details and yet misses the biggest one, the one that would be the easiest to notice.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. I suggest you remember that.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:NDF is not referenced in official Trek canon either as far as I know, and even if it was, I couldn't care less.
It's merely an easy way to describe some phenomenon, as understood by most debaters.
I am not interested what fan inventions are familiar among what debaters. Describe your "NDF" theory and show where is it mentioned in Star Wars canon or stop making things up.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:Rated by the same book where stupid claims are made about shields and weapons, accelerations and what have you.

Also remember that e25 J was what you claimed for 1/3 on your scale, to fit with the initial Despayre shots.

1/25 from the reactor didn't make a big difference in the final output, since Tenn still talked about the precharged 4% doing the job, nothing else, regardless of the reactor's immediate output, showing that at 4%, the increase of energy was minimal in regards of what they already had. Therefore, as we're speaking of percentages, 100% wouldn't be particularily higher.
That they are stupid is your opinion in which I'm not interested. It's official. And they vaporized a carrier. Again this only allows us to calculate the lower limit. How much of an overkill the beam was is unknown.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:Precisely what I thought. You grossly exagerated the necessary output. Even if you had to output more energy in order to vaporize a third more of water in order to get enough extra energy to vape the amount you mention, you're alredy 3 orders of magnitude above what's necessary.

My point stands that you're going to have a hard time finding a scale making sense, and fitting with all elements.
I would suggest you think things through before responding. Baikal lake is 600km long,about 70km wide and 758m deep on average. So what percentage of energy will the lake receive? Let us calculate the percentage of energy lake will receive on the middle point between impact and the edge of the lake. That is the distance of 150km. At that point the surface of the hemisphere over which radiation expands will be 141,371km2. Crossectional area of the lake will be 70km width times 0.758km depth which is 53.06km2 or 106.12km2 total since shockwave will hit both sides of the lake. Thus the percentage of energy that will be received by that lake is 0.075%. Which means that in order to vaporize the lake the beam actually needs to be 8*10^25J. And that still doesn't account for the fact that even the energy that actually hits the water will not heat it up uniformly but be wasted on heating up the nearest patch of water beyond vaporization which will further increase the energy requirement.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:If there's no window to hyperspace or anything related to hyperspace, all reactions occur within purely realspace related parameters.
Hell, hypermatter is supposedly stored.
So what? They store hyperspace now, and it costs them nothing doing that?

Notice, besides, that when can also refer to the context, and not necessarily imply cause and consequence, meaning that only when the hypermatter is constrained to realspace, reactors can work on it to obtain great outputs.
Yes when the matter is constrained to realspace the energy is obtained. That is what reactors do. Hypermatter which exists in hyperspace is constrained to realspace inside a hyperreactor releasing energy in the process. Hence they release more energy than what can be obtained by realspace reactions.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:Excuse me, but where?
Oh wait, nothing in sight.
Concession accepted then.
You can play games all you wish. Hyperjump is quantified quite nicely even if you pretend it isn't there.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:When an author claims high ROF at kiloton level for a ship which bares the highest ROF ever seen from a ship in SW and yet only reaches at best low gigajoules, and much more likely megajoule ranges, yes, it's bull.
And when the same author claims that shielded fighters could withstand kilotons of energy and yet get downed by megajoules, again, yes, I say bull.
Or about claims of warship "neutronium" hulls completely obliterated by shots which are definitely sub kiloton (ROTS, you know, the film... hello?), again, that's mere bull.
Or claims 900 km wide battlestations when purely and simply contradicted by countless sources, or claims thousands of gees for ships based on the demonstrated extremely faulty observation of one single sequence in the films, again, it's BS.
When you know that one high figure is so because it has to fit with the rest of the high figure, and when you see that the truth point to much lower figures, you know that this self supporting network of figures he's pulled out of his decidedly impolite person(s) crumbles like hot turd.
That is not even opinion, we have enough of said evidence here, on this forum.
How do you know it reaches low gigajoules? How do you know shots in ROTS are sub kiloton? 900km Death Star is supported by certain shots in the ROTJ. Death Star accelerated at 262g when it orbited Yavin as I have shown in the "Construction of ships" threat. There is nothing surprising about smaller ships have thousands of g accelerations. Finally I'm not interested in psychological analysis of Dr. Saxton and his contacts. If you are incapable of discussing his work without dragging him personally that only speaks about how weak your case is.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:Ha Ha Ha.
No.
So provide the quote or shut up, as simple as that.
Hyperspace jump is jump to hyperspace. If you wish to deny reality I can't help you.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:The Death Star was a secret project. Star Destroyers are not. *sigh*

And his estimation wasn't off. Star Destroyers can't destroy planets. Hell, one would have issues completely blasting a 20 km wide moon within hours.
So what if it was a secret project? It still casts his judgement of Imperial capabilites in doubt. Secondly could you provide the exact quote about the 20km moon. What exactly were they trying to do?
Mr. Oragahn wrote:That's the way they speak, they've stored it, that's it.

'Sides, excuse me, but you're also claiming that between shots 2 and 3, they managed to go from e25 J (more or less) in slightly more than one hour, to e33 J within the very similar charge duration, by modifying the same experimental capacitors they were actually charging?
That's what? a mere increase of 8 orders of magnitude. Pah, peanuts!

These thirds, besides, were rapid recharge rates. It's said in the book that they can cook up those thirds with a fast recharge. However, it's also said in the book that charging it full would take the best of a day, surely because there has to be a peak recharge capacity which can last only for that much time (a bit more than one hour), but when they need a full charge, it takes more than 12 hours, because there are obvious limits to how much the reactor can output on longer runs.

You realize that when you're doing a bit of tweaking on anything that is live, you have to unplug the stuff first... just in case... you might put your hand inside a conduit which has planet destroying levels of energy flowing through it, right?

You understand that it makes no sense, especially considering the minutia they went through during the whole development of the superweapon, the testing phases and all that stuff?

You comprehend that modifications to very sensible systems (from the book, not me) dealing with planet destroying energies, would be applied when, at least, the system was off, at least secure, right?
It doesn't matter how they speak. You can't store power. 33% power is avaliable but how much energy? It's not the same thing. 10^25J of energy released at a rate of 10^37W is still 10^25J.
Secondly your own incredulity that they could've increased the recharge rate by 8 orders of magnitude after initial testes is irrelevant. You need evidence not your incredulity.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:And praytell, how long do you think it will take for the top of the fireball to cool down to more opaque levels, when you're dealing with, at the very least, many petatons of energy if not quite more?
Within one hour, nothing of that stuff would have time to cool down to those levels.
That is your job. Since you are claiming it can't cool down fast enough provide calculations then.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:Excuse me, but I'm not responsible of your lazyness. The excerpt in question has been posted three or four times in this thread now.
I demonstrated, rather easily, that a character uses that sort of continuous present tense to say that "they" are firing fired at the planet, AFTER the planet has been hit and the effects described.
What don't you get? It's rather clear that this happens very, very fast.
Yes "very very fast". I'm still not hearing a number. Nor any calculations that show why expanding dust couldn't cool off enough to appear black due to contrast.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:Sun spots?
Excuse me, but are you claiming that the low end destruction of Despayre was governed by the rules applying to high energy fusion reactions and complex convections due to random magnetic fields of stars?
Assume your analogy please, and make the link between the two.
The nature of sun spots and origin of solar power are completely irrelevant and have nothing to do with why sun spots appear black. They appear black because they are several thousand degrees colder than the surrounding area. They are still white hot but due to contrast they appear black. Which is exactly what I'm saying could've happened in the novel.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:You know full well that you're completely off-base. Especially when we have three shots of 1/3 power producing a net effect far more than 3 times the original power.

There's a perfectly simple explanation sitting in front of you - the effect is not linear with respect to power. It fits with everything elegantly and does not require convoluted re-interpretation of very simple lines.
You continue to pretend third shot was quantified which it wasn't.
Not to mention your amusing claim that your completely undefined "non linear effect" somehow "elegantly" explains what we've seen.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:If you passed them, you did not do so by presenting "creative" solutions like the above. Ask any of your former teachers, if you like. They will agree that it's inappropriate to call 1e-26 fraction thereof "one third." Please do ask them, in fact.

There is nothing wrong with presenting things in a logarithmic scale. There is, however, a problem defining "one third" as meaning not one third of the quantity under discussion, but one third of the logarithmic scaling.
Why is that a problem? If you see a logarithmic graph and one column is two times longer than the other than the other is 1/2 of the first. That's it. Nothing is being redefined.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:They are not. The unit size problem is why we never are concerned with dividing logarithms in dealing with decibels or richter magnitudes - because the same numbers, measured in different sized units, produces a different fraction.

The unit type problem is the classic error-check of any physics solution - including units throughout your problem, does your final solution have the appropriate units?

The answer here is "no." We're looking for something that will give us answers in units of power - mass-distance per time unit squared - and your method does not have a final answer that is in terms of those units.
Why? The answer can also be fraction of total power. Which is shown at a logarithmic scale. Anyone who is interested can convert the scale back to linear power.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:Actually, this is known. The recharge time limitations are well explored in the book.

Further, if a full power shot takes most of a day to recharge, then a shot requiring over an hour to charge will not be 1e-26 times as potent. Capacitors tail off on charge rates as they fill to capacity, not as you start to charge them.
Again who says they have only one speed of recharge? 10^28J in a day is 10^33W. Thus they can easily fill up a planet destroying shot in a few minutes.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:A kiloton per second in a near-lightspeed beam is on the order of e4 N and kPa pressures. This is not a structural problem. Steel can handle gigapascal shears and stresses reasonably well.

Let's assume that the e30 N are evenly distributed across a 160 km diameter. That's ~ e10m^2 area.

Let's also say that the Death Star compresses by 1% in between the superlaser and its recoil compensators. Then we can compute Young's Modulus as on the order of e22 - in other words, billions of times the compressive strength of carbon nanotubes, using ridiculously generous assumptions. More realistically, we're talking trillions without leaving the low end of matters.

Materials in that range of strength are simply not seen in Star Wars. For that matter, even Star Trek materials don't seem to be more than a couple orders of magnitude away from real materials.
You say they are not seen even though it just is: namely that is Death Star's requirement. Secondly I'm not merely talking about stress. What kind of material can withstand kilotons of energy compressed into 1m2? You have no basis in calling something ridiculous when already accepting other equally ridiculous things.

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Post by SailorSaturn13 » Tue Apr 15, 2008 12:15 pm

Except of course not in this case since last shot wasn't 3 times more powerful. Your explanation doesn't exist I used a logarithmic scale.
FOR THE UMPTEENTH TIME: PROVE IT! And prove it using CANON ONLY. ANY proof utilizing default physical assumptions (like "reaction on planet is proportional to power of the shot") is not layered enough to topple the default meaning of a canon quote. Because abandoning default physical assumptions is always preferable to abandoning default meaning of a canon quote.
Last edited by SailorSaturn13 on Tue Apr 15, 2008 2:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by SailorSaturn13 » Tue Apr 15, 2008 12:19 pm

Why is that a problem? If you see a logarithmic graph and one column is two times longer than the other than the other is 1/2 of the first. That's it. Nothing is being redefined.
Another COLUMN, not the quantity. Everybody would say another column is 2 times bigger but nobody sane will say the QUANTITY is 2 times bigger.
And the ratio between physical quantities is defined in a scale-independent sense.

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Post by SailorSaturn13 » Tue Apr 15, 2008 2:36 pm

Addon: the third shot at Despaire surely WASN'T full-powered. The DS1 wasn't fully operational at begin of ANH, remember?

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Post by Jedi Master Spock » Tue Apr 15, 2008 3:07 pm

Kane Starkiller wrote:You continue to pretend third shot was quantified which it wasn't.
Same recharge time, same construction status.
Not to mention your amusing claim that your completely undefined "non linear effect" somehow "elegantly" explains what we've seen.
It does.
Why is that a problem? If you see a logarithmic graph and one column is two times longer than the other than the other is 1/2 of the first. That's it. Nothing is being redefined.
Actually, it isn't. The only thing that's 1/2 is the column height.
Why? The answer can also be fraction of total power.
Operations apply to units.
Which is shown at a logarithmic scale. Anyone who is interested can convert the scale back to linear power.
Shown where? Nobody mentions any logarithmic scaling.
Again who says they have only one speed of recharge? 10^28J in a day is 10^33W. Thus they can easily fill up a planet destroying shot in a few minutes.
Except the book contradicts that quite directly, too - that it would take the better part of a day to charge a planet destroying shot.
You say they are not seen even though it just is: namely that is Death Star's requirement.
Not in the least.
Secondly I'm not merely talking about stress. What kind of material can withstand kilotons of energy compressed into 1m2? You have no basis in calling something ridiculous when already accepting other equally ridiculous things.
Where do we see armor alone resist kiloton-range shots in Star Wars? Please.

Nor is it nearly as ridiculous. Perfectly normal materials may require up to the 0.1 kT/m^3 range to vaporize. We're only talking about a couple orders of magnitude, and something we have could easily have onscreen material to test (if not for the fact that armor rarely resists turbolasers particularly well.)

Yet super-strong materials, trillions of times stronger than any real life material, are something we conspicuously don't see. Things break very normally.

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Post by Mr. Oragahn » Tue Apr 15, 2008 4:34 pm

Kane Starkiller wrote:
Mr. Oragahn wrote:Anything that acts by DET rules. What don't you get? It's terribly simple.
Explain those "DET rules" if they are so simple then. Why exactly do rings disprove "DET" and point to a chain reaction?
These two questions are different.
First one doesn't require an explantion. Google around for direct energy transfer.
The second one is a consequence of an exotic effect occuring inside the target, hyperspace related.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:I never claimed such a thing, and I think it's not the first time in this thread you made that strawman. Once, an error. Twice, you should start reconsidering your position with more honesty.
If it didn't came from the planet than it had to come from the Death Star. What are you arguing exactly?
None. When a house is hit by a missile fired from a plane, the plane didn't provide the destructive power, nor the house. The destructive power comes from the missile, and the plane never had to generate the equivalent power of the chemical explosive to destroy that house.
The analogy is naturally limited by the fact that the Death Star can create its own "projectile", but it fits on the rest.
Yes, the superlaser is created by the DS, but nothing shows that the planet busting energy is delivered by the beam (via DET). What we globally all argue here, in opposition to you, is that the superlaser generated an effect which caused a much more violent explosion than what the reactor could have caused by firing a real laser, for example.
This is nothing new, of course, it has been said a thousand times already. Maybe you don't agree with it, but asking for repetition serves no purpose, so this ends here.


Mr. Oragahn wrote:It's bull because it's contradicted by the very movie and you have not provided any solid basis beyond your quickly made claim presented as fact.
You are evading. You said that planetary matter turning from blue to white is "bull" because you "very much doubt" it can cool off that quickly. Prove it can't cool off that quickly. Your vague appeals to "move contradicting it" don't cut it.
You are the one dodging the request of evidence. Let's say I'm not capable of doing that calc. What do you do? Claim victory? Are you capable of doing the calculation proving that the hot matter will cool down to blue?
Then do it. You made the remarkable claim that it could cool down that fast.
As a matter of fact, even the DVD version shows that the matter cooling down from super white state immediately reaches for orange or red hues. There's no blue to see there, and oh surprise, the only zone which shows some blueness is precisely the one which has been the less affected by the blast. All other regions which display mass ejection beyond a shadow of a doubt utterly lack the claimed blue luminosity.
So not only you are the one making the funny claims, but you've been ignoring not one but two facts straight from the movie, ergo no mass expansion on that crescent (hint: heavy stuff ejected from the core of the planet doesn't stop in space all of sudden) and total lack of blue luminosity at the point of impact or on the gradient edges of the fireballs.
M. Oragahn wrote:No, the haze just inflated a tad and then didn't move after that. Man, you can't even understand pictures. What should I do with you?
Get power DVD or virtualdub (this one is free if I'm correct). Go frame by frame, and just get it through your skull once and for all.

So again, instead of avoiding the question, once you'll have observed the lack of expansion of the lower left crescent, please answer to this:

I'd like you to prove that the planet can be heated up to that level to warrant a blue luminosity, and still retain its shape that much.
I did. At no point does the explosion stop.
What explosion? There's not even an explosion on that size, just a sudden whitening of the atmosphere.
So this is just another mistake on your part.
Try to avoid turning it into a lie while you still have time to retract.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:Ok, so no evidence, mere dodging, as I thought.
You have probably noticed that even at the point of impact, it goes from white to yellow/orange within one frame. Drop that BS about cooling that can occur so fast that you can miss between two frames. That's BS.
You still have it backwards. You are the one who claims that it cannot go from blue to yellow/orange in one frame. Go ahead and prove it.
You made the claim, I said no. You haven't even proved it in the first place, and worse, you haven't even managed to show any form of evidence from the film.
Everything is against you on this point.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:You don't get them, it's not really my problem. Anyone else would have understood that eons ago. Somehow, your brain is stuck in a neural loop. Go figure.
Your constant vague references to the supposed explanations you gave but I just can't understand are irrelevant. You provided no explanation whatsoever other than repeatedly stating the word "exotic" and even stated outright that you don't need to explain anything.
I don't have to explain how the superlaser works in detail. I just look at the recharge times, what the station was said to be capable of at that time, I use logic and don't consider it likely that modifications on the capacitors would have been brought at the same time they were charged with planet destroying energies, and more.
This is just looking at the facts and applying common sense.
This leads me to conclude that you can saturate a target with whatever mechanism the superlaser is about and, at some point, trigger exotic effects.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:Conspicuous lack of evidence is enough to know it's not there, especially when the author takes a great deal mentionning all the other details and yet misses the biggest one, the one that would be the easiest to notice.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. I suggest you remember that.
What don't you understand about conspicuous?

Could you tell me why would an observer, being able to watch the scene from a good distance with all sorts of scanners at hand, focus on the volcanos, tidal waves, earthquakes, but literally miss the most obvious super massive ejecta and crater?
Mr. Oragahn wrote:NDF is not referenced in official Trek canon either as far as I know, and even if it was, I couldn't care less.
It's merely an easy way to describe some phenomenon, as understood by most debaters.
I am not interested what fan inventions are familiar among what debaters. Describe your "NDF" theory and show where is it mentioned in Star Wars canon or stop making things up.
Almost nothing is mentionned about the superlaser, so there's enough room to make things up in that case, because it's not pejorative here. There's room for imagination, to bring an hypothesis after observation.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:Rated by the same book where stupid claims are made about shields and weapons, accelerations and what have you.

Also remember that e25 J was what you claimed for 1/3 on your scale, to fit with the initial Despayre shots.

1/25 from the reactor didn't make a big difference in the final output, since Tenn still talked about the precharged 4% doing the job, nothing else, regardless of the reactor's immediate output, showing that at 4%, the increase of energy was minimal in regards of what they already had. Therefore, as we're speaking of percentages, 100% wouldn't be particularily higher.
That they are stupid is your opinion in which I'm not interested. It's official. And they vaporized a carrier. Again this only allows us to calculate the lower limit. How much of an overkill the beam was is unknown.
It's official nonsense that's debunked. If you're naïve enough, if you lack objectivity, the ability to criticize certain sources, and if you blindly drink official stuff in a religious way, instead of looking at facts from the movies themselves with intelligence, so be it, but the debate will pretty much end there then, because I'm not interested in zealots.
I don't need someone preaching me with his bible.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:Precisely what I thought. You grossly exagerated the necessary output. Even if you had to output more energy in order to vaporize a third more of water in order to get enough extra energy to vape the amount you mention, you're alredy 3 orders of magnitude above what's necessary.

My point stands that you're going to have a hard time finding a scale making sense, and fitting with all elements.
I would suggest you think things through before responding. Baikal lake is 600km long,about 70km wide and 758m deep on average. So what percentage of energy will the lake receive? Let us calculate the percentage of energy lake will receive on the middle point between impact and the edge of the lake. That is the distance of 150km. At that point the surface of the hemisphere over which radiation expands will be 141,371km2. Crossectional area of the lake will be 70km width times 0.758km depth which is 53.06km2 or 106.12km2 total since shockwave will hit both sides of the lake. Thus the percentage of energy that will be received by that lake is 0.075%. Which means that in order to vaporize the lake the beam actually needs to be 8*10^25J. And that still doesn't account for the fact that even the energy that actually hits the water will not heat it up uniformly but be wasted on heating up the nearest patch of water beyond vaporization which will further increase the energy requirement.
I absolutely don't get the logic behind this area fiddling after the hemisphere bit and how you mix numbers.
Sure, you need more energy than with a properly throughout spread of the energy over the whole water volume, but did you consider the effect of the superlaser. It may not directly vape the whole water, but the amount of energy released there would surely put a blanker of superhot atmosphere over said lake, and vape it with time.
For example, I pick Wong's calculator, a nuclear explosion of ten teratons would generate a fireball with a radius of 333 km.
The ground contact fireball would have a radius of 440 km.
Even if there's going to be a lot of waste, the lake will be within the range of the energy liberated. If you send more hot matter into the air, it won't cool off before hours, and logically return to the surface sooner than that. Such matter would largely land back into the lake and over. The problem would be that the explosion would have kicked most of the ocean away.

Oh, besides, there's the weird idea that with such a shot, the technicians would be more concerned about the rather flat lake boiling off than the super crater formed in lieu of the impact point, leading, nearly worth a consequent mass extinction event, which is totally in opposition with what Tenn considered.

There's also the fact that to mitigate those numbers, Tenn talked about beams, which helps a great deal to spread the energy with much more parcimony:
Tenn wrote:True, you could still pump out some pretty nasty low-power beams --- and the definition of low here was still bigger than what a Star Destroyer could manage, even letting all the hardware spit at once -- but it would be a duster instead of a buster. You could scorch a city or two, boil away a large lake or perhaps even a small sea, but that was about it.
As far as we are concerned, it could be a series of low powered beams.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:If there's no window to hyperspace or anything related to hyperspace, all reactions occur within purely realspace related parameters.
Hell, hypermatter is supposedly stored.
So what? They store hyperspace now, and it costs them nothing doing that?

Notice, besides, that when can also refer to the context, and not necessarily imply cause and consequence, meaning that only when the hypermatter is constrained to realspace, reactors can work on it to obtain great outputs.
Yes when the matter is constrained to realspace the energy is obtained. That is what reactors do. Hypermatter which exists in hyperspace is constrained to realspace inside a hyperreactor releasing energy in the process. Hence they release more energy than what can be obtained by realspace reactions.
And yet, the reactions occur in real space, within reactors located in real space, and are said by the ICS to be all about annihilation.
The DS book says that matter-energy conversion (annihilation) couldn't provide the energy that destroyed Alderaan.

Not to say that you completely miss the fact that hypermatter is already constrained to real space inside the silos.
Any reaction that happens in realspace, no matter the reactants it involves, remains a realspace reaction. That's just going for the fact, the essence of the definition.

The only way to cheat this is to have a reaction, say matter annihilation, occuring outside of realspace. This is why I suggested the hyperspace related window created inside the reactor.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:Excuse me, but where?
Oh wait, nothing in sight.
Concession accepted then.
You can play games all you wish. Hyperjump is quantified quite nicely even if you pretend it isn't there.
You made a claim, you said you have calculations to support your claim "below", yet you didn't present them.
Since this is just too big for a lie, I assumed it was an error, but obviously you didn't even realize your mistake.
So one last time, present the calculations.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:When an author claims high ROF at kiloton level for a ship which bares the highest ROF ever seen from a ship in SW and yet only reaches at best low gigajoules, and much more likely megajoule ranges, yes, it's bull.
And when the same author claims that shielded fighters could withstand kilotons of energy and yet get downed by megajoules, again, yes, I say bull.
Or about claims of warship "neutronium" hulls completely obliterated by shots which are definitely sub kiloton (ROTS, you know, the film... hello?), again, that's mere bull.
Or claims 900 km wide battlestations when purely and simply contradicted by countless sources, or claims thousands of gees for ships based on the demonstrated extremely faulty observation of one single sequence in the films, again, it's BS.
When you know that one high figure is so because it has to fit with the rest of the high figure, and when you see that the truth point to much lower figures, you know that this self supporting network of figures he's pulled out of his decidedly impolite person(s) crumbles like hot turd.
That is not even opinion, we have enough of said evidence here, on this forum.
How do you know it reaches low gigajoules?
Check the forum, it's about AOTC and the Slave-I. It may be on page two. You can also consider that the bolts are not even capable of properly fragmenting 10 meters wide asteroids they hit.
Hence megajoules.
How do you know shots in ROTS are sub kiloton?
Because we have such a bolt (fired by what some sources described as mass drivers, which is not terribly convincing), it slams through a thin portion of the hull, into one of the rooms of the port guns, and does far far less than a kiloton explosion. It's basically behaving like a bunker buster.

Those same projectiles were punching huge holes in the thicker regions of the armoured hull, and kicking large chunks of said hull up.
900km Death Star is supported by certain shots in the ROTJ.
And contradicted by an equal, if not superior amount of shots, and contradicted by the DS book saying DSI is 160 km wide and the ROTJ novelization saying the DSII was less than twice as big as the first one.
Death Star accelerated at 262g when it orbited Yavin as I have shown in the "Construction of ships" threat.
Powever by whatever generator there, and that's still one OOM below the claims of Saxton.
There is nothing surprising about smaller ships have thousands of g accelerations.
Thousands of gs claimed for the vast bulk of warships in Wars, not starfighters.
Finally I'm not interested in psychological analysis of Dr. Saxton and his contacts.
If you are incapable of discussing his work without dragging him personally that only speaks about how weak your case is.
Yes, I'm weak, and he's a wanker. Happy?
Mr. Oragahn wrote:Ha Ha Ha.
No.
So provide the quote or shut up, as simple as that.
Hyperspace jump is jump to hyperspace. If you wish to deny reality I can't help you.
[/quote]

Hint:
- First one is in the form of an adjective, applied to a noun that is used to describe a whole trip from point A to point B.
- Second one refers to an action, relative to doing what's necessary to start that trip.

Now please provide the quote that precisely mentions "jump to hyperspace" and not "hyperspace jump".
Mr. Oragahn wrote:The Death Star was a secret project. Star Destroyers are not. *sigh*

And his estimation wasn't off. Star Destroyers can't destroy planets. Hell, one would have issues completely blasting a 20 km wide moon within hours.
So what if it was a secret project? It still casts his judgement of Imperial capabilites in doubt.
Hey, look, Solo didn't believe that the Empire could destroy a planet. Look, Solo is a cretin cause he didn't get his facts straight about a secret weapon he wasn't aware of.
What an unreliable man he is!
Secondly could you provide the exact quote about the 20km moon. What exactly were they trying to do?
Thinking about what would be able to blast it as fast as possible before it hit a planet, and it's in the NJO thread here, Vector Prime.
The moon is Dobido.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:That's the way they speak, they've stored it, that's it.

'Sides, excuse me, but you're also claiming that between shots 2 and 3, they managed to go from e25 J (more or less) in slightly more than one hour, to e33 J within the very similar charge duration, by modifying the same experimental capacitors they were actually charging?
That's what? a mere increase of 8 orders of magnitude. Pah, peanuts!

These thirds, besides, were rapid recharge rates. It's said in the book that they can cook up those thirds with a fast recharge. However, it's also said in the book that charging it full would take the best of a day, surely because there has to be a peak recharge capacity which can last only for that much time (a bit more than one hour), but when they need a full charge, it takes more than 12 hours, because there are obvious limits to how much the reactor can output on longer runs.

You realize that when you're doing a bit of tweaking on anything that is live, you have to unplug the stuff first... just in case... you might put your hand inside a conduit which has planet destroying levels of energy flowing through it, right?

You understand that it makes no sense, especially considering the minutia they went through during the whole development of the superweapon, the testing phases and all that stuff?

You comprehend that modifications to very sensible systems (from the book, not me) dealing with planet destroying energies, would be applied when, at least, the system was off, at least secure, right?
It doesn't matter how they speak. You can't store power. 33% power is avaliable but how much energy? It's not the same thing. 10^25J of energy released at a rate of 10^37W is still 10^25J.
By following SS13's nomenclature suggestion earlier on, that power is in reference to the abilities of the weapon, as strenght, not power as watts.

The Death Star has enough power to destroy a planet. I think it was clear that power was a synonym for strenght, capacity, faculty, or aptitude here, all fitting anyway.
Secondly your own incredulity that they could've increased the recharge rate by 8 orders of magnitude after initial testes is irrelevant. You need evidence not your incredulity.
It's particularily relevant since they said they obtained the 1/3s with fast recharges.
If these two first recharges were fast recharges, what do we call a recharge that is many OOMs faster, which can provide enough energy for planet busting, which was formerly claimed not possible yet with the capacitors' state, and which were said to require more than half a day to be charged for such a power of destruction?

A super super fast recharge, within an hour and a quarter? It doesn't fit.

And what about the fact that the reactor working at 4%, along the capacitors, didn't make much of a difference in the end, since the technician completely ignored the reactor's output and emphasized the capacitor's discharge?
Multiply this 25 times, and you're far from being able to attain the recharge needed for planetary mass scattering.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:And praytell, how long do you think it will take for the top of the fireball to cool down to more opaque levels, when you're dealing with, at the very least, many petatons of energy if not quite more?
Within one hour, nothing of that stuff would have time to cool down to those levels.
That is your job. Since you are claiming it can't cool down fast enough provide calculations then.
Again, I'm afraid you got your burden of proof wrong here. You made the claim, you defend it.
For example, the same amount of energy applied to a nuclear reaction will generate fireballs lasting for hours.
Though the distribution of energy is ought to be different with a particle beam which will largely and directly heat up the ground, it's still a good point of reference, maybe one or two OOMs up or down, but we're still far short of the alleged e25 J.
Without going into details, what's the basic evidence you have to claim that matter will cool within a few minutes, if not within less than a minute?
Mr. Oragahn wrote:Excuse me, but I'm not responsible of your lazyness. The excerpt in question has been posted three or four times in this thread now.
I demonstrated, rather easily, that a character uses that sort of continuous present tense to say that "they" are firing fired at the planet, AFTER the planet has been hit and the effects described.
What don't you get? It's rather clear that this happens very, very fast.
Yes "very very fast". I'm still not hearing a number.
You didn't notice the use of a present continuous tense to describe an immediate action (a superlaser hits fast, within fractions of a second) and effects which have already been observed by characters.
You can hardly make it more compact, y'know.

Are you going to argue on the word compact now, because you couldn't find any more pathetic excuse to deny a fact carved in stone by the use of one of the most basic tenses english has?
Nor any calculations that show why expanding dust couldn't cool off enough to appear black due to contrast.
Prove it. You say it can happen. I'm not going to do your job by proving a negative.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:Sun spots?
Excuse me, but are you claiming that the low end destruction of Despayre was governed by the rules applying to high energy fusion reactions and complex convections due to random magnetic fields of stars?
Assume your analogy please, and make the link between the two.
The nature of sun spots and origin of solar power are completely irrelevant and have nothing to do with why sun spots appear black. They appear black because they are several thousand degrees colder than the surrounding area. They are still white hot but due to contrast they appear black. Which is exactly what I'm saying could've happened in the novel.
So at one time, it's because it's matter cooling down, and at another time, it's because it's following the ring of fire.
The book does mention the black waves expanding as well across the planet.

You also have to tell me why the holo would display that cooler region of fire as black, while it also displayed the beam as green, and the planet as green and blue (and obviously still did has the waves of white and black spread further).
If the holo displays some black there, it's precisely because there's a very black spot which anyone could see for real, with mere eye globes.
Eventually, you can pretend that luminosity on the holo was downplayed, filtered out, but the colours thus far fit remarkably well.
Orange for fire. (Again, the much more violent destruction of Alderaan shows that the fireballs directly fade to red and orange.)
Green for jungle.
Emerald green for superlaser.
Blue for ocean.



Again who says they have only one speed of recharge? 10^28J in a day is 10^33W. Thus they can easily fill up a planet destroying shot in a few minutes.
What the hell? e28 J over a whole day means a power of 115.47 x e20 W.
Last edited by Mr. Oragahn on Wed Apr 16, 2008 1:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.

SpanishInquisitor
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Post by SpanishInquisitor » Tue Apr 15, 2008 11:08 pm

Kane Starkiller wrote:Yes they would be inefficient and that sourcebook quote itself is suspect since neutrinos wouldn't collide with each other when superlaser is being focused in front of Death Star as we've seen.
Well, even if it is technobabble, is still canon. Besides, as you said, not *everything* can be explained. The only sure thing going by that quote is that there are neutrinos in the superlaser beam. This should be taken as a premise for any valid (in consonance with canon) discussion.
Kane Starkiller wrote: What purpose do you think neutrinos can serve? They can penetrate matter other particles cannot.
In real life, matter penetration seems to be the most noteworthy characteristic of neutrinos, and there are RL research about neutrino-plasma interaction. So I think is reasonable to accept that quote as is. At this point we should engage SOD, and assume that the superlaser shield and matter penetration capabilites are greatly enhaced by being coupled with a "neutrino charge".
Kane Starkiller wrote:Secondly this "DET effect" is not some actual mechanism in real physics. Various energy transfers will make matter behave differently. There is a difference whether you are hit with a laser beam a buller or a missile.
I'm under the impression that "DET" (Direct Energy Transfer) is VS debates slang for any conventional damage mechanism opposite to more weird sci-fi effects. An ewok's spear or a blaster bolt would be DET, while non-DET effects would be like the Galaxy Gun's particle disintegrator warheads. For the purpose of the debates, the differences are in the possibilities of quantification and the required energy levels to perform the damage observed. Do you agree with this definition?
Kane Starkiller wrote:What is this webpage? Is it official?
Yeah, it is. Those are in-universe news sources that have been published since the late 90s in the SWAJs and still today in the Insider. That website was made around AOTC was released.
Kane Starkiller wrote:It is a reference to collateral damage.
Well, the way it is stated allows it to be also to be a reference to the way the mass-moved-into-hyperspace mechanism works. Both meanings can be valid.
Kane Starkiller wrote:And this "shift" was energy free or something? I already posted required energy simply to make ISD jump to hyperspace.
Of course not! You are totally right here.

I agree that the amount of energy necessary a starship needs to jump into hyperspace, and the one to move into hyperspace the mass of a planet (when hit by the superlaser) should be related in some way. Calcs made from available canon data of know ships can be a good starting point.

However, note that:
* In order to obtain what this amount of energy is, the mass involved and the realspace speed and distance traveled must be taken in consideration.
*This energy must be significantly lower that the raw one necessary to make explode the planet. Why? Because it doesn't make sense to build all this matter-moved-to-hyperspace weapon if you already have enough raw energy available to destroy a planet! Whatever was the stated output of the HM reactor, must have been limited by the tech of the wiring, the capacitors, and the superlaser cannon itseft.
Praehmon wrote:I do not insist that we need to find your logarithmic scale anywhere in actual books, I do however insist that you stop redefining the scientific usage of the english language to suit your conclusions. The book said "1/3 power level", not "1/3 logarithmic values quantifying the power level"...
Kane Starkiller wrote:And also not "1/3 linear value of power level" did it? You assume it implicitly means linear. Normally I would agree but in this case it obviously isn't the case since last shot was far more than simply 3 times more powerful.
Mr. Oragahn wrote: Oh, perhaps because by default, it is linear, so there's no point mentionning it.
My god the shock.
Kane Starkiller wrote:Except of course not in this case since last shot wasn't 3 times more powerful. Your explanation doesn't exist I used a logarithmic scale.
Kane, your argument about a logarithmic scale could be a smart retcon in the level of the one made in canon about Han's infamous "point five past lightspeed" quote. But you should admit this is neither the obvious author intention, nor the natural way to state these kind of numbers. However, there is *no need* to change the 1/3 and 33% quotes to make them non-linear. Remember that the planet is losing mass into hyperspace each time is shot! This means that the energy amount necessary is lowered too! They can be 3 shots each one at a third of the max power of the superlaser without any inconsistence.
Kane Starkiller wrote: Why exactly do rings disprove "DET" and point to a chain reaction?
Kane Starkiller wrote:If it didn't came from the planet than it had to come from the Death Star. What are you arguing exactly?
As the novel says, the rings are the realspace result of a hyperspace ripple caused by the superlaser. And there is a third source of energy involved inside the planet: hypermatter/hyperspace, maybe feed from the DS, maybe from hyperspace itself.

I think we can make several different possible damage mechanisms hypothesis. After *much* of the planet mass is moved into hyperspace, and (remember!) the energy amount needed to make it explode is lowered, then...

A) ...the superlaser needs less raw energy to make it explode. DET effect, but only after various "cheats".
B) ...planet mass "shifted" into hyperspace collides with the 'shadow' of the "remaining" mass still in realspace, liberating energy. Remember what is always said in canon sources about the catastrophic consequences about this type of occurrence. This can be called a "chain reaction" between the two masses. Non-DET effect.
C) ...the ripple liberates energy in some way. It may cause some kind of "seismic" damage to the gravity well. Maybe is Cronau radiation, but bigger. Non-DET effect.
D)...hypermatter suddenly unconstrained in realspace releases energy. Maybe it comes from the DS reactor core or hyperspace itseft, or both. The first could link to the DS reactor core explosion. Non-DET/DET effect.

It must be a combination of the above. Not easy calcs, I'm afraid.

A point of doubt to me, is that is not stated if the hyperspace ripple comes after or before the mass shifting or end explosion.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:NDF is not referenced in official Trek canon either as far as I know, and even if it was, I couldn't care less. It's merely an easy way to describe some phenomenon, as understood by most debaters.
Kane Starkiller wrote:I am not interested what fan inventions are familiar among what debaters. Describe your "NDF" theory and show where is it mentioned in Star Wars canon or stop making things up.
Remember the Galaxy Gun's particle disintegrator warheads?. The description of those from the NEGVV is like a SW version of NDF. Just like most of the other imperial superweapons, that used some type of non-DET effects to do damage.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:It's official nonsense that's debunked. If you're naïve enough, if you lack objectivity, the ability to criticize certain sources, and if you blindly drink official stuff in a religious way, instead of looking at facts from the movies themselves with intelligence, so be it, but the debate will pretty much end there then, because I'm not interested in zealots.
Since in this thread we are talking about the DS *novel*, I think is fair enough to say that in *this* debate, the standard of evidence must come from the official Movies+EU continuity canon.

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