Attn: Kane Starkiller (on SDN)

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Jedi Master Spock
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Attn: Kane Starkiller (on SDN)

Post by Jedi Master Spock » Fri Oct 26, 2007 10:57 pm

Ordinarily, I do not bother to reply to posts on other forums, but since this actually touches on a particular issue under much discussion of late, I believe the record should be set straight as to my positions on the issue.
Kane Starkiller wrote:JMSpock wouldn't know consistency and honesty if it bit him on the ass.

JMSpock, on TNG Weaponry page wrote:
In "Masks," a comet we may estimate as several kilometers across is flashboiled away by phasers at 10% of maximum power. The comet's material is evaporated and heated to an incandescent yellow-orange (i.e., 4000-5000 kelvins). If the comet contained roughly 100-500 kg/m3 of ice and 5 kilometers across, with the remainder being negligible substances, we could estimate the energy in vaporizing the ice of the comet as being roughly 16-84 gigatons, applied in a very short order. A short maximum power burst is therefore likely to exceed a gigaton.

JMSpock, on starfleetjedi forum wrote:
I would posit that, in any universe with shared physics, the principles that cause phasers and disruptors to make objects outright vanish are the same that cause portions of Alderaan and the Liberty to phase out of existence. We may examine the visual effects in painstaking detail, or we may rely upon the novelization:

JMSpock, on ANH power tech page wrote:
This reactor core was capable of providing enough power for all the systems onboard the battlestation, and most notably the main weapon, a device of unknown but complex operation capable of blowing up a planet. This suggests a high if difficult to quantify level of power consumption and generation.


Let us disregard the factual inaccuracy of individual quotes and merely note the self-contradictory statements. He claims that we can calculate firepower for phasers based on conventional calculations, he claims that superlaser effect is similar to phasers and yet he states that the firepower for superlaser cannot be calculated EVEN THOUGH HE DID JUST THAT FOR PHASERS.
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I believe now is time for me to point out that, when I was speculating on the similarities of superlasers and phasers, this problem was pointed out to me after I ran an independent analysis of the Death Star's explosion.

I replied then to Kane that it was an intriguing problem and that he was correct to claim inconsistency between the suggestion that phasers and superlasers are similar, calculating phasers to require a similar order of magnitude to simply destroy the target, and calculating the Death Star reactor to contain roughly 4 orders of magnitude too little (1e28J).

As evidenced in my more recent posts on the topic, in which I have accepted the e32 joule power range as potentially plausible, I am quite comfortable with the Death Star requiring a similar output of reactor power for effect as phasers.

However, in my website, I allow for the myriad possibilities of possible Death Star mechanisms, as we do not have a similar range of supporting evidence as we do for phasers. A wide variety of evidence points to phasers requiring similar raw power as the chemical dissociation of their targets for "disappearance" effects; my speculation that superlasers operate the same way is simply speculation, and not well grounded enough for me to comfortably produce an estimate.

Recent EU materials, of course, now suggest a very different mechanism for the superlaser than for phasers.

For the record, I will quote my last exchange with Kane on the issue, some three months ago:
I, on July 27th, 2007, almost a year after first proposing that the superlaser and phaser were similar, wrote:
By the way I absolutely love it how you claim that drilling through the surface MUST mean hundreds of petawatts of power even though there are no manifestation of that power and it works through material disappearance but when it comes to Death Star then every pixel of every frame is examined and if one shows that there might be something fishy with the explosion then, oh no, we can't possibly determine the firepower of Death Star even though there are no thermodynamic indications for that conclusion.
Furthermore you YOURSELF claimed that phasers effects are similar to those of superlaser in this thread. So how come drilling a narrow hole is hundred petawatts but blowing up an entire planet is not 10^38J?
Can you say consistency?
"Consistency" would be talking about saying the Death Star put out around 10^32 joules, actually, equivalent to the annihilation of somewhere on the order of 10^12 metric tons of matter, but touche. Other than slipping six orders of magnitude, you have a good point there, especially when you consider that I have publicly estimated the Death Star's energy on hand to be on the order of no more than 10^28 joules realistically.

I'll think about it. Thank you for pointing that out.
As I suggested in this post, I have been considering this issue. As also pointed out in this post, claims of 1e38-39 joules would be highly inconsistent with the theory of superlaser as phaser, which place its power demands as being on the order of magnitude of chemical dissociation of matter in order to make it disappear.

All told, I do not consider the superlaser/phaser analogy to be as strong as when I wrote the original thread proposing the similarity - there is still the ring problem, which the latest EU explanation does address.

If Kane or anyone else would like to discuss this matter further, I would welcome constructive debate.

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