Tin Foil
This video is, for the most part, an attempt to counter my pointing out the flaw in his isotons argument. Brian starts off by saying how one can not compare against the hull as it is an unknown quantity, but this is exactly what his argument entails. It uses a reference intensity at a distance assuming that would be a threat to the ship, and then extrapolates back to the total energy needed to create that intensity at the 800 km radius. I did the exact same thing, just by picking a different low-ball reference point which would be undeniably weaker than the hull (i.e. 1 cm of iron). I calculated the intensity at 800 km needed to vaporize the iron, and then calculated the total energy release needed to generate that intensity at the stated distance. Which is the same idea that Brain used, I just went with a a more clear basis rather than the one assumed in the nuclear effects calculator (3rd degree burns)
Brian then claims that my calculation is invalid as we do not know the thermal strength of the hull. This is true but it's fairly clear that the hull is strong when compared to iron across many episodes, and much thicker than 1 cm. Brian calculated an intensity from his calculations of 47 MJ/m^2, oddly enough I got 15.6 MJ/m^3 from a 30 Gt blast at 800 km, but that isn't too important. He states that this is close to the radiant intensity at the surface of the sun, and because ships can not survive in the corona, they should not be expected to survive this level of intensity. However he again fails to take into account the far greater temperatures in the corona, averaging 1,000,000 K (or °C, it's big enough that the 273.15 doesn't really matter) to 2,000,000 K and reaching 20,000,000 K in the hotter zones.
Also he does mention DS9: "Shadows and Symbols" where a Bird of Prey is cruising around a star, but dismisses it as being inconsistent with TNG: "Dissent" and TNG: "Suspicions". Also he states that the BOP was having trouble and never got too close to the star, so it didn't matter anyway. Perhaps he forgot
this bit of the episode. Or
here which nicely shows just how far in the corona (and from the photosphere) the BOP is, while under attack. And the attack is the major problem for the ship, not the corona. Or there is TNG: "Relics"
1,
2, or TNG: "Redemption Pt II"
1,
2. And not to mention VOY: "Scientific Method"
1 in which
Voyager flys directly between
two pulsars which are generally far more intense than our sun, and after the shields fail the hull only begins to glow, no melty bits.
So agains his two example of a star's corona being an immediate no-go-zone I have four examples of starships continuing to function in them, without significant and immediate thermal threat to the hull. In VOY: "Scientific Method" there was a combination of thermal and mechanical stress and the intensity of the event was much greater than that of any others. Additionally I could heap on several examples in which probes and photon torpedoes have entered stars, but it isn't really necessary to make this point.
In short starship hulls (and not to mention shields) should easily handle an intensity of 15.6 MJ/m^2 or 47 MJ/m^2.
Brian points out that this (47 MJ/m^2) is equivalent to five phase pistols hitting a square meter of the hull at 10 MW for a second. He seems to intend to imply that because of this comparison the hull should buckle under that energy. However, at least to me, that isn't supposed to be a threat. No one is ever concerned that some guy is going to blast through the hull with a phaser rifle, (at which point the intensity would actually be much higher due to the smaller area of impact form a phaser beam) so how is this a good way of judging how strong a hull is? He berates my method for comparing iron to the unknown hull, and then he himself (doing the same thing earlier with the nuclear calculations) goes on to compare the unknown hull to the slightly-more-known phase pistols and then assume this would penetrate the hull in order to prove that level of energy would penetrate the hull.
Next Brian attempts to claim the the Jem'Hadar fighter was damaged, and wouldn't be in good enough shape to take what we would expect it to. First they weren't about to fly apart, so they weren't that bad off. And second we can contrast the damage they took for not clearing the blast zone of 800 km as seen
here. There is a clear and visible change in the ship from not visibly damaged to heavily and visibly damaged. And they had gotten quite a distance away before the blast hit them. (Realistically the blast should have hit them instantly, but this is a TV show and a fictitious one at that.)
Another claim made is that they shouldn't know the resiliency of the ship. But they had it in space dock for a year and had been studying it, so there is no valid way to say they don't know enough to make a good guess. Even so, it is not going to be orders of magnitude weaker or stronger than a federation ship, so the statement of the danger zone is accurate even if not down to the meter.
Another claim made in the video is that only what O'Brian says is relevant.
Sisko: "Everything ready, Chief?"
O'Brien: "I've got eighty three empty canisters standing by, and one not so empty."
O'Brien: "Ninety isotons of enriched ultritium should take out the entire storage facility and everything else within eight hundred kilometers."
Sisko: "Which means we have to be nine hundred kilometres away before the bomb goes off."
Garak: "The other ship is leaving orbit."
So somehow Sisko stating the need to be more than 800 km distant is not relivant? It is pointing out the fact that even at 800 km the bomb is a threat, so they need to be further away to avoid taking damage.
Brian points to a claim I made on ASVS, about which he is correct. I, on an off hand guess, made a comparison of the energy needed to cause 3rd degree burns to that necessary to harm structural materials. I stated that at 30 Gt and 800 km distant a sheet of aluminum foil would survive, however that was incorrect.
Lastly Brian brings up my old argument with him over the grate in A New Hope. He states how I had claimed the energy he used in that scene was too high (I didn't. I claimed he ignored the lack of secondary effects, but didn't with phasers). And then goes to say how I am claiming this is too low. Clearly this is an attempt to discredit those (in this case me) who would try and counter his position by falsely describing them as dishonest for thinking a completely separate event is too high and that this, again completely separate, event is too low; as somehow this makes them dishonest. This is not an argument of fact, but an attack on a the person presenting a counter claim.
(Again, I never argued his grate energy was too high, only that he ignored where there should have been secondary effects but weren't, and then turned around to claim phasers were weak as they did not cause such secondary effects.)