SDN TL firepower claims revisited

[PunkMaister]

In SDN one big pont they make in defense of the ICS is this observation of TL firepower by Wong and I quote

Michael Wong has presented possible power levels for fighter weapons. He states that in A New Hope, when Luke fired on the Death Star's surface, and superheated matter engulfed his ship, we gained a means to establish a possible lower limit on the firepower of those weapons. Since armor is not flammable and Luke's X-wing was nearly "cooked" by the heat, he states that the weapons must have been vaporising sections of the Death Star hull, causing the flash of expanding gases.

He states that, to cause flashes that large, the weapons must have vaporised at least one cubic meter of armor. If so, and we assume that the Death Star is made of iron; the four X-Wing cannons output approximately 60 GJ of energy. The Death Star is surely made from more heat-resistant materials than iron, so the calculations are conservative.

If we assume that the bolt strikes a target for 1/10 second, each cannon directs 600 GW to a target. Since this estimate is conservative, an X-Wing's blaster cannons easily release more energy in 10 seconds than the entire United States produces in electrical power. This is especially impressive when one considers the number of nuclear power plants in operation in the United States.

Link here

So seriously speaking just how accurate is that statement and calcs? Does anyone have revised calcs to counter this argument?

[l33telboi]

He states that, to cause flashes that large, the weapons must have vaporised at least one cubic meter of armor.

There's the error. It's a completely baseless assumption and in reality we could be talking about a cubic millimeter being vaporized.

Of course, that's assuming we're actually talking about vaporized parts of the Death Star, which is no guarantee in itself. We could be talking about the X-wing hitting something volatile, like ammo (I recall it being mentioned that the Death Star fired physical projectiles at some point), or fuel cells or whatever. This becomes even more prominent a possibility when we realize that this actually happened at one point in the battle:

Biggs leveled them off, then let go with full weaponry. No one ever decided exactly what it was he hit, but the small tower that blew up under his energy bolts was obviously more important than it looked.

A series of sequential explosions hopscotched across a large section of the battle station’s surface, leaping from one terminal to the next. Biggs had already shot past the area of disturbance, but his companion, following slightly behind, received a full dose of whatever energy was running wild down there.

Whatever the case, one should realize something might be a bit off when we've seen fighters fire their weapons inside the atmosphere before. If an X-wing could nearly kill itself just by the proximity to whatever it shoots at, then why don't we see such large area effects in the atmosphere? A hit on the ground should for instance burn off the grass and trees in large swathes around the impact site. But all we see are regular Hollywood-esque explosions.

[Jedi Master Spock]

In SDN one big pont they make in defense of the ICS is this observation of TL firepower by Wong and I quote

Michael Wong has presented possible power levels for fighter weapons. He states that in A New Hope, when Luke fired on the Death Star's surface, and superheated matter engulfed his ship, we gained a means to establish a possible lower limit on the firepower of those weapons. Since armor is not flammable and Luke's X-wing was nearly "cooked" by the heat, he states that the weapons must have been vaporising sections of the Death Star hull, causing the flash of expanding gases.

He states that, to cause flashes that large, the weapons must have vaporised at least one cubic meter of armor. If so, and we assume that the Death Star is made of iron; the four X-Wing cannons output approximately 60 GJ of energy. The Death Star is surely made from more heat-resistant materials than iron, so the calculations are conservative.

If we assume that the bolt strikes a target for 1/10 second, each cannon directs 600 GW to a target. Since this estimate is conservative, an X-Wing's blaster cannons easily release more energy in 10 seconds than the entire United States produces in electrical power. This is especially impressive when one considers the number of nuclear power plants in operation in the United States.

Link here

So seriously speaking just how accurate is that statement and calcs? Does anyone have revised calcs to counter this argument?

Dated and bogus.

One, the estimate is not "conservative." Not really. It's not the maximal possible estimate, but it's a long way from the minimal estimate.

Two, the comparison is completely bogus.

Production for large individual plants passes a gigawatt. He's taking the power estimated for the X-wing cannon, multiplying it by time to give an energy figure, and then comparing that to the power figure for the US. So that's just bad physics right there. If you want to talk about energy consumption of the US over the timescales we like to talk about energy consumption in (months, years), you want to talk in exajoules.

Three, it shows a very poor grasp of the difference between bursts of power and sustained power. The choice of comparison is bad in the first place; X-Wings fire intermittant rare shots, rather than continuous beams lasting years.

For reference, the famous "Tsar Bomba" had a power output in the yottawatt range (e24). There are conventional bombs that in their explosions wind up somewhere around the 600 GW mark - since the explosions are generally happening on the order of a hundredth of a second or less.

Now, don't get me wrong, 60 GJ weapons on something the size of an X-Wing is impressive, but it's not quite as impressive as he's making it out to be. It's also (incidentally) completely incompatible with the ICS scale.

[PunkMaister]

There's the error. It's a completely baseless assumption and in reality we could be talking about a cubic millimeter being vaporized.

OK then can you or anyone show can a millimeter of vaporized metal alloys could produce such an explosion?

Of course, that's assuming we're actually talking about vaporized parts of the Death Star, which is no guarantee in itself. We could be talking about the X-wing hitting something volatile, like ammo (I recall it being mentioned that the Death Star fired physical projectiles at some point), or fuel cells or whatever. This becomes even more prominent a possibility when we realize that this actually happened at one point in the battle:

Biggs leveled them off, then let go with full weaponry. No one ever decided exactly what it was he hit, but the small tower that blew up under his energy bolts was obviously more important than it looked.

A series of sequential explosions hopscotched across a large section of the battle station’s surface, leaping from one terminal to the next. Biggs had already shot past the area of disturbance, but his companion, following slightly behind, received a full dose of whatever energy was running wild down there.

Whatever the case, one should realize something might be a bit off when we've seen fighters fire their weapons inside the atmosphere before. If an X-wing could nearly kill itself just by the proximity to whatever it shoots at, then why don't we see such large area effects in the atmosphere? A hit on the ground should for instance burn off the grass and trees in large swathes around the impact site. But all we see are regular Hollywood-esque explosions.

All that aside again can you or anyone explain the question I posed before about how can a millimeter of vaporized metal alloys produce an explosion big enough to nearly cook Luke and his fighter?

You see to defeat this argument we need to nip all counter arguments the rabid wanking SW side may have so we do need something a bit better than

and in reality we could be talking about a cubic millimeter being vaporized.

Dated and bogus.

One, the estimate is not "conservative." Not really. It's not the maximal possible estimate, but it's a long way from the minimal estimate.

Two, the comparison is completely bogus.

Production for large individual plants passes a gigawatt. He's taking the power estimated for the X-wing cannon, multiplying it by time to give an energy figure, and then comparing that to the power figure for the US. So that's just bad physics right there. If you want to talk about energy consumption of the US over the timescales we like to talk about energy consumption in (months, years), you want to talk in exajoules.

Three, it shows a very poor grasp of the difference between bursts of power and sustained power. The choice of comparison is bad in the first place; X-Wings fire intermittant rare shots, rather than continuous beams lasting years.

For reference, the famous "Tsar Bomba" had a power output in the yottawatt range (e24). There are conventional bombs that in their explosions wind up somewhere around the 600 GW mark - since the explosions are generally happening on the order of a hundredth of a second or less.

Now, don't get me wrong, 60 GJ weapons on something the size of an X-Wing is impressive, but it's not quite as impressive as he's making it out to be. It's also (incidentally) completely incompatible with the ICS scale.

Try to say that at SDN! :D

[l33telboi]

All that aside again can you or anyone explain the question I posed before about how can a millimeter of vaporized metal alloys produce an explosion big enough to nearly cook Luke and his fighter?

In space any explosion is basically going to be infinite in size, once the vaporized matter starts moving it's not going to stop until it hits something. So judging by that alone, the amount of matter involved could be pretty much anything. Ergo it would fall upon the guy using hard figures to back them up with something.

The whole 'cooked' thing though, I'm not sure what to make of it. Clearly he wasn't cooked, and neither was the fighter, but they did think he was in danger. *Shruggs* It’s a case where you really can’t get any figures without knowing more then we do.

Personally I find the whole thing really weird. How is a proximity detonation supposed to be able to nearly cook a fighter if even direct hits sometimes aren't capable of doing anything.

[Mr. Oragahn]

Meh, I thought you had found something new. Not the ol' TL commentaries.

[PunkMaister]

In space any explosion is basically going to be infinite in size, once the vaporized matter starts moving it's not going to stop until it hits something. So judging by that alone, the amount of matter involved could be pretty much anything. Ergo it would fall upon the guy using hard figures to back them up with something.

The whole 'cooked' thing though, I'm not sure what to make of it. Clearly he wasn't cooked, and neither was the fighter, but they did think he was in danger. *Shruggs* It’s a case where you really can’t get any figures without knowing more then we do.

Personally I find the whole thing really weird. How is a proximity detonation supposed to be able to nearly cook a fighter if even direct hits sometimes aren't capable of doing anything.

That is not quite true looking at actual real explosions in space such as the one from the Deep Impact space probe here!

More about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Impac ... e_mission)

Meh, I thought you had found something new. Not the ol' TL commentaries.

Mr. Oragahn" sincerely in all the years I have looked at SDN I have never seen anything new about it or their argumenst they simply rehash and defend the now age old arguments brought up by Saxton so long ago. If you do find something new from then by all means let us know I mean other than their bile and diatribe that is, that would be refreshing...

[Mr. Oragahn]

Mr. Oragahn" sincerely in all the years I have looked at SDN I have never seen anything new about it or their argumenst they simply rehash and defend the now age old arguments brought up by Saxton so long ago. If you do find something new from then by all means let us know I mean other than their bile and diatribe that is, that would be refreshing...

Oh I dont' expect them to show anything new now, precisely because their position hinged on cherry picking and certain odds. Ignorance of certain facts, if you want, which could pass for an untrained eye (like pretending these ships have thousand gees of acceleration just based on one extremely disputable event nullified by a mere observation of shadows).
It was fine and dandy a decade ago when the amount of material for the licence was minimal, but now, each new Clone Wars episode presents facts that completely steamrolls most of their beliefs (although they behave like it does not happens, which only reinforces the absolute dead end doomed cult image of their "think-tank").

That's why I was rather surprised they could find something new to defend their absurd TL figures.
Still, it seems they truly believe we're going to see something like a teraton shot coming from a Venator soon or later.

When you think that when it came to what could blast his own universe, G. Lucas thought of a 500 megatons nuke... :p

EDIT: Btw, here's a more epic video of Tempel1.
I don't know where you got the idea that the explosion would not expand infinitely dude. Do not mistake a fireball for what is actually nothing more than an intense source of light and matter, which loses concentration and luminosity over a certain distance, explaining why it becomes invisible and thus you get the impression of seeing a white ball.
It's nothing like the atmospheric "gasoline" explosions you see in SF.

[l33telboi]

That is not quite true looking at actual real explosions in space such as the one from the Deep Impact space probe here!

More about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Impac ... e_mission)

No, it's true alright, and basically one of those silly facts of life due to inertia. The explosion you have there in the video is no different, but if they would've kept the camera rolling, they would've noticed that the material from the explosion just keeps on expanding and expanding until finally you can't even see it anymore. I also suspect that the video was taken with a quite high frame-rate capable camera.

[Mike DiCenso]

OK then can you or anyone show can a millimeter of vaporized metal alloys could produce such an explosion?

That's the whole that is commonly missed and ignored by the fanatics. The vaporizations of a few millimeters worth of armor other other structure on the death star is not going to necessarily produce a large explosion. There are other reasons, like the impact of the X-wings' laser bolts having caused secondary explosions via the destruction of TL emplacements or other Death Star systems (fuel storage, power lines, power terminals, ect). The concept is supported in the novelization itself as noted in this excerpt:

ANH, Chapter 12:

Bolts flew from the tiny vessel's weapons. One started a huge fire on the dim surface below, which would burn until the crew of the station could shut off the flow of air to the damaged section.
Luke's glee turned to terror as he realized he couldn't swerve his craft in time to avoid passing through the fireball of unknown composition. "Pull out, Luke, pull out!" Biggs was screaming at him. But despite commands to shift course, the automatic pressors wouldn't allow the necessary centrifugal force. His fighter plunged into the expanding balls of superheated gases.
Then he was through and clear, on the other side. A rapid check of his controls enabled him to relax. Passage through the intense heat had not been insufficient to damage anything vital, though all four wings bore streaks of black, carbonized testimony to the nearness of his escape.
Hell-flowers bloomed outside his ship as he swung it up and around in a sharp curve. "You all right, Luke?" came Biggs's concerned query.
"I got a little toasted, but I'm okay."

Why would the DS damage control crews need to shut off the air flow to that section of the station, if the X-wing had caused an explosion solely the result of the power of it's lasers and the vaporization of the structure?
-Mike

[PunkMaister]

OK then can you or anyone show can a millimeter of vaporized metal alloys could produce such an explosion?

That's the whole that is commonly missed and ignored by the fanatics. The vaporizations of a few millimeters worth of armor other other structure on the death star is not going to necessarily produce a large explosion. There are other reasons, like the impact of the X-wings' laser bolts having caused secondary explosions via the destruction of TL emplacements or other Death Star systems (fuel storage, power lines, power terminals, ect). The concept is supported in the novelization itself as noted in this excerpt:

ANH, Chapter 12:

Bolts flew from the tiny vessel's weapons. One started a huge fire on the dim surface below, which would burn until the crew of the station could shut off the flow of air to the damaged section.
Luke's glee turned to terror as he realized he couldn't swerve his craft in time to avoid passing through the fireball of unknown composition. "Pull out, Luke, pull out!" Biggs was screaming at him. But despite commands to shift course, the automatic pressors wouldn't allow the necessary centrifugal force. His fighter plunged into the expanding balls of superheated gases.
Then he was through and clear, on the other side. A rapid check of his controls enabled him to relax. Passage through the intense heat had not been insufficient to damage anything vital, though all four wings bore streaks of black, carbonized testimony to the nearness of his escape.
Hell-flowers bloomed outside his ship as he swung it up and around in a sharp curve. "You all right, Luke?" came Biggs's concerned query.
"I got a little toasted, but I'm okay."

Why would the DS damage control crews need to shut off the air flow to that section of the station, if the X-wing had caused an explosion solely the result of the power of it's lasers and the vaporization of the structure?
-Mike

Well that explains it then there was an explosive decompression on that section and it is what fueled the fireball Luke went thru not tons of vaporized metal as SDN and the cult of Wong claims! :D

[Mike DiCenso]

EDIT: Btw, here's a more epic video of Tempel1.
I don't know where you got the idea that the explosion would not expand infinitely dude. Do not mistake a fireball for what is actually nothing more than an intense source of light and matter, which loses concentration and luminosity over a certain distance, explaining why it becomes invisible and thus you get the impression of seeing a white ball.
It's nothing like the atmospheric "gasoline" explosions you see in SF.

That "video" is actually more a series of sequential snapshots and it ends too soon to show the continuing expansion of the impact (it's a kinetic impactor, not a nuke or other type of bomb). The final part of the YouTube video does show the plume expanding out several kilometers. For comparative purposes, the impact was rated at several gigajoules, which is about what we see with the Slave-I firepower in AoTC in the rings of Geonosis.

It's nothing like the atmospheric "gasoline" explosions you see in SF.

As for that sort of thing, we rare in SF TV series and movies see anything like what a real space-based explosion would like. A few examples of reasonably accurate explosions are found in TNG's "Contagion" with the detonation of the Yamato's stardrive with start in the first few tenths of a second as a bright white flash, which superheats the saucer section hull to white-hot, then rapidly within a few seconds cools down to red and then orange color glow.

In the nBSG mini-series, the Cylon raider's nuke hit on the Galactica's port flight pod is depicted as a bright white flash that expands indefinitely within a few tenths of a second and is gone in just a few seconds with nothing other than the hull armor of the battlestar to react to.
-Mike

[l33telboi]

In the nBSG mini-series, the Cylon raider's nuke hit on the Galactica's port flight pod is depicted as a bright white flash that expands indefinitely within a few tenths of a second and is gone in just a few seconds with nothing other than the hull armor of the battlestar to react to.

Nothing realistic about that one. All we should've seen was one frame that was white, if that'd been a real nuke.

[Mike DiCenso]

Not necessarily, as this video of U.S. nuke testing at 300 kilometers shows.
-Mike

[PunkMaister]

Not necessarily, as this video of U.S. nuke testing at 300 kilometers shows.
-Mike

Reality always turns out to be stranger than fiction when it comes to this things. I wonder what are the strange doodle like contrails one see after the blast!