Endor bunker: your idea about ISD acceleration

[Mr. Oragahn]

My point about the jamming is that one of them could likely argue that if the imperial took more time to decelerate, they should have been spotted earlier on.
That's why it's good to show that the jamming was already in place, and that secondly, the rebels noticed the imperial fleet all of the sudden anyway, so unless you pretend that the fleet decelerated within two or three seconds, it doesn't make much of a difference, and thus can't be used as an argument for a very fast deceleration.

Their evidence for thousands of G is very, very tenuous, and basically the small evidence they ever had is easily debunked.

[Mike DiCenso]

He may hold a degree in Astrophysics from the University of Sydney, but his observations of the Star Wars movies, his assumptions and his conclusions are often abysmal.

• • The beam that struck Alderaan took less than a second to progate from the dish to the target. The range was about 75000km, which is about a quarter of a light-second. Thus the beam's speed is equal or approiximately equal to the speed of light.

That is a good example for his faulty obyervations and conclusions.

• • Only if the beam would have needed about a quarter of a second to struck Alderaan, it's speed would be equal or approiximately equal to the speed of light.
    
    If the beam would have needed about an half of a second to struck Alderaan, it's speed would already be only equal or approiximately equal to the half of the speed of light and that is clearly not equal or approiximately equal to the speed of light.
    
    If the beam would have needed about a three quarter of a second to struck Alderaan, it's speed would already be only equal or approiximately equal to one third of the speed of light and that is even more clearly not equal or approiximately equal to the speed of light.
    
    If the beam would have needed only a little bit less than a second to struck Alderaan, it's speed would already be only equal or approiximately equal to one quarter of the speed of light and that is even more clearly not equal or approiximately equal to the speed of light.

Huh. I have no idea how he [Saxton] even thinks that the Death Star's superlaser beam took only 3/4 of a second to reach Alderaan, even if you eliminate the multiple beam composition time at the focal point above the dish. I get a frame count of at least 35 frames from the time the beam begins it's journey to first impact on the doomed planet's surface.

Given a 24 frame per second rate, it would be at least 1.6 seconds for the beam's transit time. A beam speed of 48,125 km a second is impressive, but substantially less than light speed.
-Mike

[Mr. Oragahn]

Huh. I have no idea how he [Saxton] even thinks that the Death Star's superlaser beam took only 3/4 of a second to reach Alderaan, even if you eliminate the multiple beam composition time at the focal point above the dish. I get a frame count of at least 35 frames from the time the beam begins it's journey to first impact on the doomed planet's surface.

Given a 24 frame per second rate, it would be at least 1.6 seconds for the beam's transit time. A beam speed of 48,125 km a second is impressive, but substantially less than light speed.
-Mike

To enforce, against mere evidence, the idea that the superlasers are lightspeed weapons.
And of course, using the scaled up turbolaser argument, they could probably claim the same for turbolasers.

I mean, when the claim is just a lie that flies in the face of an evidence that's been around for decades...

[Who is like God arbour]

If you read the side, to which I have linked already in the post above, you can see more such assumptions without any foundation.

• • The precise nature of the Death Star prime weapon is undetermined. It certainly generates a great amount of possibly-monochromatic light, but the "superlaser" beams literally aren't lasers or light in any ordinary sense. (It is undoubtedly a high-powered version of the technology used in blasters and "laser cannons", and they aren't true lasers either.) The visible light is merely a by-product of the actual lethal emission, whatever the underlying physics of that energy may be. The Death Star's main weapon has also been named a "planetary proton beam generator" [The Technical Book of Science FictionFilms]. It is just as difficult to regard the emission literally as a proton beam as it is to imagine it being a laser. Lasers and proton beams are very different physical phenomena in any case. The true nature of the "superlaser" remains an undescribed piece of superphysics, and only its incidental effects have so far been named.
    
    
    Careful observation of the firing process can yield indications about the underlying physical mechanism:
    
    When the eight tributary beams meet at the weapon's focal point they do not pass through each other as genuine light beams would. Instead they come to a halt and energy apparently builds at that point until a critical moment when the final outbound beam is spontaneously released. Whatever force is involved in the "superlaser", it cannot be mere electromagnetism because non-disruptive superposition of beams is ruled out by the focal point behavior.
    
    The direction of the composite beam is a simple vector sum of the directions of the eight tributaries. This suggests that no external force is in operation, and that the beam interactions conserve energy/momentum (neglecting wastage due to the lateral emission of green light). Thus the beams "feel" each other through an intrinsic interaction which is elastic.
    
    The beam that struck Alderaan took less than a second to progate from the dish to the target. The range was about 75000km, which is about a quarter of a light-second. Thus the beam's speed is equal or approiximately equal to the speed of light.
    
    During ignition the standing tributary beams exhibit bright pulsations which move at conspicuously subluminal speed. This does not contradict the fast propagation speed for the beam; the pulsations are slow-moving disturbances of the underlying beam. They are some kind of wave phenomenon, a collective behavior exhibited by whatever fundamental entities constitute the beam. The slow propagation of the pulses indicates involvement of something other than electromagnetic or gravitational waves, which travel at exactly lightspeed.
    
    The initiator beams seen briefly in power shafts deep in each space station show characteristics which are absent or unobvious in the external beams. The visible puslations are at a smaller spacing: dozens of metres rather than the dozens of kilometers between pulses in the eight final large-scale external sub-beams. Perhaps there is a spectrum of pulsations, with the big ones being less common and therefore more widely spaced? There may be a dispersion relation, with disturbances of different wavelengths having different speeds. The superlaser beams in the shafts appear to be surrounded by a cylindrical set of rings. The role of these rings is mysterious, but they emerge after the beam first appears and before the first pulsations. They may be related to the force-field separating the beam from the air surrounding the nearby crewmen. The apparent size of the brilliant pulsations never seems to exceed the span of the rings.
    
    The beams inside the shafts are less than a few metres thick, whereas the beams outside the station look as if they are at least a few hundred metres thick. The external beams could result from the union of clusters of many smaller beams which only exist in the Death Star's interior. Hundreds of metre-scale beams might give each beam of hundred-metre thickness. Alternatively, all of the superlaser beams might actually be microscopic, subatomic or even subnuclear in thickness. Variation in the apparent thickness would be due to differences of intensity and glare, and the behavior of the viewer's retina. A more powerful beam might be the same true thickness but dazzle the eye more effectively and thereby seem thicker.
    
    The most basic consideration pointing towards some kind of superphysics is the magnitude of the device's energy output. The minimum necessary magitude of the blast that shattered Alderaan (calculated below) is roughly ten thousand times what would be released if the entire mass of the battle station's machinery was annihilated with an equivalent amount of antimatter. Yet the first Death Star was capable of generating a planet-destroying blast once per day. The power source must be much denser than ordinary matter or antimatter; probably involving compact forms of matter and energy like miniature black holes or neutronium. It may involve superphysics of an even more exotic kind. The mass of the empty station must be substantially less than that of its compact energy sources. The Death Star's power systems and prime weapon clearly rely on superphysics and superengineering far beyond simple fission, fusion or matter-antimatter annihilation.
    
    In the Galactic Empire mundane technologies handle bizarre phenomena such as hyperspace, which are so far ourside present physical capabilities that we can only gauge their consequences and basic properties without hoping to guess the underlying details. The superlaser is an unusally large technological application. It therefore seems reasonable that Death Star design engineers understand energy fields and condensed forms of matter which are far beyond those which are encountered in the course of ordinary living. Questions of "how" the superlaser functions may be unanswerable, but we can determine useful limits on the capabilities of the technology.
    
    The above considerations and observations lead to the following conclusions. The superlaser has a power source that is denser than ordinary matter or antimatter, or else it has a physical basis or energy source which is beyond mass-annihilation energy. The visible light of the superlaser is probably only a minor byproduct, and isn't actually the fundamental constituent of the beam. Beams propagate in straight lines like coherent light, at least under some circumstances and on distance scales of metres up to tens of kilometres. It propagates at lightspeed, or nearly so. On the other hand the physical forces underlying the superlaser have some seriously non-linear aspects. It does not obey superposition rules and can become unstable to the emergence of subordinate wave phenomena. The beams can spontaneously confine or enhance each other depending on the energy density or some other parameters.

I wish, he would have made this careful observations of the firing process and he would admit, that his whole scientifical knowledge his useless to describe the Death Star prime weapon. What he describes is nothing more than pseudoscience or technobabble. As a scientifical analysis, that text is atrocious. If he would have written such a thing as a scientist, one should deprive him of his academic title because a less scientifical analysis is not possible.

I for one would like to know, from where he takes the notion, that the Death Star prime weapon has to be a DET weapon, although he admit, that

• the precise nature of the Death Star prime weapon is undetermined.
• that whatever force is involved in the "superlaser", it cannot be mere electromagnetism, because non-disruptive superposition of beams is ruled out by the focal point behavior and
• that he doesn't know, whatever fundamental entities constitute the beam and
• that the slow propagation of the pulses indicates involvement of something other than electromagnetic or gravitational waves, which travel at exactly lightspeed

and that this assumption needs further assumptions from him in respect of the energy sources like

• involving compact forms of matter and energy like miniature black holes or neutronium and
• involve superphysics of an even more exotic kind
• power systems and prime weapon clearly rely on superphysics and superengineering far beyond simple fission, fusion or matter-antimatter annihilation

because, if it would be a DET weapon

• The minimum necessary magitude of the blast that shattered Alderaan (calculated below) is roughly ten thousand times what would be released if the entire mass of the battle station's machinery was annihilated with an equivalent amount of antimatter. and
• The power source must be much denser than ordinary matter or antimatter

Wouldn't it be more logical to assume a CR weapon, which reaction can't be explained than to postulate a DET weapon that needs technology that is also not explainable?

[Praeothmin]

Well, IMO, he already implies it could be CR when he states:

involve superphysics of an even more exotic kind

[Mr. Oragahn]

Well well well, that's kinda offtopic. ;)

[Who is like God arbour]

Well, IMO, he already implies it could be CR when he states:

involve superphysics of an even more exotic kind

That was said in regard to the power source, not in regard to the nature of the "super laser".

The fact, that he says, ...

... that the minimum necessary magitude of the blast that shattered Alderaan (calculated below) is roughly ten thousand times what would be released if the entire mass of the battle station's machinery was annihilated with an equivalent amount of antimatter ...

...and that therefore, ...

... because the first Death Star was capable of generating a planet-destroying blast once per day, ...

... the power source must be much denser than ordinary matter or antimatter; probably involving compact forms of matter and energy like miniature black holes or neutronium ot that it may involve superphysics of an even more exotic kind ...

... shows non-ambiguous, that he thinks, that the blast is a DET weapon. If the blast would induce a chain reaction, it wouldn't need to have so much energy.

Well well well, that's kinda offtopic. ;)

You are right.
Maybe the post could be splitted in a new thread called "Dr. Curtis John Saxton errors" or something like this.

[Mr. Oragahn]

Yes, it's clear that the exotic part refered to how the energy would be generated, not how would the planet be destroyed.
However, from the EU, we know that the exotism of the battle station extends beyond the mere reactor. I'm not even sure if the reactor itself needs to be so exotic, considering the description of destruction of normal shots, at 1/3 of the power.

Now, about splitting threads, I don't know here, it seems too focused on Saxton. His site, nevermind the recurring errors found here and there, still contains large amounts of data, and even if we don't agree with some of his claims, or the hypothetical reasons why he insisted on such glaringly erroneous claims, we still have to respect the amount of work he's put on his site.
Now, maaybe you'd like to start a "SWTC" thread in this "other websites" forum?

[Who is like God arbour]

[...] His site, nevermind the recurring errors found here and there, still contains large amounts of data, and even if we don't agree with some of his claims, or the hypothetical reasons why he insisted on such glaringly erroneous claims, we still have to respect the amount of work he's put on his site. [...]

Do you really respect the amount of work, someone is doing, regardless if it leads to a good result?

I have problems with respecting faulty work, regardless how much effort was put into it. Quite the contrary: someone, who puts much effort in something and ends with a bad result, is pitiable.

In Germany, there are certificates of employment, where an employer has to valuate an employee to the end of the employment. Sometimes, they write, that Mr. So-and-so has always made an effort of doing his work. They don't say, that his effort were to no avail - but everbody, who reads such valuation knows, what is meant.

Or imagine, someone has wrote his dissertation and has put really much work in it. But the professors, who are valuating it, are thinking, that it is bad. The observations are faulty, the assumption are baseless and the conclusion are irreproducible: they think, that the dissertation is undeserving to be called so and that this someone has not earned the right to get a doctor's degree. They won't change their mind, only because that someone has put much work in it.

[Mike DiCenso]

Maybe all this discussion about Saxton and the Death Star superlaser ought to moved out of this thread (which is about hyperspace speed), and into a seperate thread or threads.
-Mike