Estimating the Size of The Bre'el Moon

[Who is like God arbour]

[...]

In all, I think you are mistaken about what I'm saying - I'm not saying I know exactly how a photon torpedo works. Nor is that at all relevant. What I'm saying is that we know what a photon torpedo is.

I'm not claiming anything else. I'm not claiming upper or lower yield limits. I'm not claiming the type of propellant or even how it achieves motion. I'm not claiming what the guidance system is. I'm not claiming what it's made of.

I'm merely claiming they are both matter/antimatter weapons and missiles (i.e. guided projectiles) at that. That is all. No more, no less.

1. Let us look at what you have said in the first place:

   • • Well, you could always try arguing for moderate range weapon yeilds. ;-)
       
       But seriously, if youu confusion as to which way to argue shows us anything about this episode, is that it is too contradictory with other episdoes and the previously and later shown performance of Trek weapons in general to be taken at face value. At least as far as Data's statement is concerned.
       -Mike

       I think thats a good conclusion.
       
       Anyway, the point is that in my view a 64 MT weapon stuck in a 2x1x1m tube is well, fantastically powerful for it's size. The best of the best modern day nukes would be many times bigger for the same yield. And thats not talking about the rather impressive ranges for such a small device (even if it would 'only' make 300.000 KM effectively -which I'm not sure is an upper limit- it's way ahead of anything we could build for propulsion).
       
       Now, if ST fielded much larger torpedoes -or had less inconsistent yield figures- I guess my problems with very high yields (and yes, 150MT+ is a very high yield. Think for a second what that means for the E-D's total photon torpedo yields if they have 150MT explosives for all 250 of them) would be smaller.
       
       The truth is that even the 'lowly' photon torpedo (compared to some known Sci-Fi yields ST photon torpedoes are not exactly at the top tier, that's for sure) are already out of the realm of science and straight into the realm of pure fantasy (that is, considering what is said on-screen about what a photon torpedo actually is).
       
       People arguing for hundreds of gigatons or even teraton level yields (in tiny packages) in Sci-Fi universes are obviously not aware of what the Sci part in Sci-Fi stands for.

   To me it seems, as you are claiming to know enough of the assembling and the functional principle of photon torpedos to be able to judge, that certain yields are out of the realm of science.
   
   I have objected this because you know next to nothing about photon torpedos to make such a claim.
2. We know only, that the photonic torpedos from Enterprise have had anti-matter warheads and that the Photon torpedos from The Next Generation had anti-matter. Not more.
   
   We don't know, if the photon torpedos of The Next Generation have still anti-matter warheads. The different name implies a different functional principle. If it would be only a larger warhead, there would be no need to change the name. It would still be a photonic torpedo, but mark I or II or III - as we know, that there are different marks for photon torpedos too.
   
   It could be, that the matter-anti-matter explosion is not the significant part of the destructiveness of a photon torpedo. It could be possible, that the matter-anti-matter explosion is merely necessary to initiate another destructive phenomenon, for example something like a small singularity that creates a very strong gravitation for a short time and limited space and turns all soaked matter to energy.
   
   From Yesterday's Enterprise we know for example, that the explosion of a volley of torpedos can be a catalyst for the formation of a temporal rift.
   
   An explosion, that is not greater than what happenes in each star, should not be able to do such a thing. Or is there a good explanation, why for example a 1'500 megatons explosion (10 torpedos a 150 megatons or 30 torpedos a 50 megatons ), created merely by the annihilation of matter and anti-matter, could create a temporal rift? If not, we have to assume, that there is not only a matter - anti-matter explosion but something else.

[Roondar]

To me it seems, as you are claiming to know enough of the assembling and the functional principle of photon torpedos to be able to judge, that certain yields are out of the realm of science.

I have objected this because you know next to nothing about photon torpedos to make such a claim.

No I didn't.

I claimed putting a 64-150MT+, 300.000KM+ range explosive into a package of 2x1x1 is fantasy because it's not possible to do that in real life. I didn't claim anything about the exact mechanisms of a photon torpedo.

I merely compared a photon torpedo to what modern science says is theoretically possible and concluded that the weapon as we see it cannot possibly be build in real life - even theoretically. I'll be the first to admit that this is mostly because modern science does not actually allow for anti-matter to be stored in such small packages (if at all for any great length of time) and because a propelled missile that size would never be able to reach the speeds and ranges we see for Photon Torpedo's.


It seems to me you misread me then, I didn't mean to say what you thought I said.

[*]We know only, that the photonic torpedos from Enterprise have had anti-matter warheads and that the Photon torpedos from The Next Generation had anti-matter. Not more.

We don't know, if the photon torpedos of The Next Generation have still anti-matter warheads. The different name implies a different functional principle. If it would be only a larger warhead, there would be no need to change the name. It would still be a photonic torpedo, but mark I or II or III - as we know, that there are different marks for photon torpedos too.

It could be, that the matter-anti-matter explosion is not the significant part of the destructiveness of a photon torpedo. It could be possible, that the matter-anti-matter explosion is merely necessary to initiate another destructive phenomenon, for example something like a small singularity that creates a very strong gravitation for a short time and limited space and turns all soaked matter to energy.

From Yesterday's Enterprise we know for example, that the explosion of a volley of torpedos can be a catalyst for the formation of a temporal rift.

An explosion, that is not greater than what happenes in each star, should not be able to do such a thing. Or is there a good explanation, why for example a 1'500 megatons explosion (10 torpedos a 150 megatons or 30 torpedos a 50 megatons ), created merely by the annihilation of matter and anti-matter, could create a temporal rift? If not, we have to assume, that there is not only a matter - anti-matter explosion but something else.[/list]

The different name eh?

Photonic. Photon. Sounds more like a simplification of an existing name than a real new name to me. Just like how the matter/antimatter assembly is called a warp core instead.

Anyway, the reverse of your claim is equally true - there is no need (seeing the yields involved) for the Federation to have stopped using antimatter warheads - even a 1GT+ explosive would still fit just fine and dandy in the formfactor of a photon torpedo antimatter warhead.

We know the Federation uses antimatter. We know photonic torpedoes have an antimatter warhead. We know the Federation considers an antimatter explosion to be the most powerful thing they can create* at least as of the 23rd century. We know photon torpedoes (which where already in use in the 23rd century) contain antimatter. We know that the doomsday weapon designed by the Cardassians, who also use photon torpedoes, was basically just a really big antimatter missile. We know that photonic torpedoes and photon torpedoes have pretty much the same effects on their targets (albeit with different yields). We also know that photonic torpedoes and photon torpedoes look much alike in storage and look 100% the same in flight. We also know, per the existance of quantum torpedoes, that Starfleet does in fact name significantly different technologies with significantly different names. Which makes perfect sense**

*) As stated by Scotty.
**) These are weapon systems. In combat, with all the chaos that brings, you want the difference to be as clear as possible - hence short, but easy to identify names are what you want. This ties in with the name change: photonic is one syllable longer than photon, the shorter name takes less time to pronounce or read - which can mean the difference between life and death in starship combat.

These things lead to a logical conclusion: photon torpedoes are a name alteration (a shorter, easier form) of the original photonic torpedo and are, despite being much more advanced, the same things - antimatter warheads with a guidance and propellant system.

As to the 'odd' things photon torpedoes do (such as creating temporal rifts), this is science fiction we're talking about - there are no such things as temporal rifts in reality so we can't actually say if antimatter/matter reactions would be unable to form them. That is merely an assumption on your part.

[Mr. Oragahn]

It's not like Trek's galaxy is devoid of weird stuff.
Considering the number of anomalies in their version of the Milky Way, it seems that way before Earth were to launch something into space, some people already had fun with weapons or whatever magiparticles, resulting into oddities and mutant entities with supernatural powers across the galaxy.

It seems that the fabric of space in Trek has suffered a lot. No kidding, with the Omega stuff, wrap drives used willy nilly, and other pieces of technobabble chewed out day after day, I wouldn't be surprised if even a rabit fart would result into a microsplit asymptotic variation of the induced baryonic coalesced flux of interpolastatic phases.

[2046]

No kidding, with the Omega stuff, wrap drives used willy nilly, and other pieces of technobabble chewed out day after day, I wouldn't be surprised if even a rabit fart would result into a microsplit asymptotic variation of the induced baryonic coalesced flux of interpolastatic phases.

I love it when you talk dirty.

As for torpedo yields and odd effects, my first thought would be to point to the dilithium matrix concept often bandied about in regards to the warp core output. While not original, it has the benefit of keeping all the weird stuff in one neat mental container.

[Jedi Master Spock]

Personally, I feel pretty sure that photorps are primarily matter/antimatter weapons, and have top yields in the 100-1000 MT range (depending on mission), and are, by volume, almost entirely modular, with different standard mission configurations that can be set pretty much on the fly.

If you're looking at the dilithium matrix... trilithium is more dangerous than antimatter. Always has been, for whatever strange reason - but I think that has to do with interaction with surrounding matter, rather than something intrinsically bound to the trilithium.

I'm well aware that you can use various means to estimate photon torpedo yields in excess of the e18 J range, but I feel that Roondar is correct, in that we basically do know what photorps are.

I disagree with the conclusion that photorps involve greater energy release than phasers, or have a greater total destructive effect.

They do release their energy over a much shorter period of time, and release it in a different form. Also, beam weapons - no matter how close to light speed - have great difficulties at longer ranges that guided missiles do not. These two items explain why a ship that can put out hundreds of exawatts through its reactor bothers slinging antimatter missiles that, with typical anti-ship loadouts, are unlikely to exceed a single exajoule apiece.

[Roondar]

Personally, I feel pretty sure that photorps are primarily matter/antimatter weapons, and have top yields in the 100-1000 MT range (depending on mission), and are, by volume, almost entirely modular, with different standard mission configurations that can be set pretty much on the fly.

If you're looking at the dilithium matrix... trilithium is more dangerous than antimatter. Always has been, for whatever strange reason - but I think that has to do with interaction with surrounding matter, rather than something intrinsically bound to the trilithium.

I'm well aware that you can use various means to estimate photon torpedo yields in excess of the e18 J range, but I feel that Roondar is correct, in that we basically do know what photorps are.

I disagree with the conclusion that photorps involve greater energy release than phasers, or have a greater total destructive effect.

They do release their energy over a much shorter period of time, and release it in a different form. Also, beam weapons - no matter how close to light speed - have great difficulties at longer ranges that guided missiles do not. These two items explain why a ship that can put out hundreds of exawatts through its reactor bothers slinging antimatter missiles that, with typical anti-ship loadouts, are unlikely to exceed a single exajoule apiece.

I think the main advantages of photon torpedoes over phasers are as follows:

• Longer effective range
• Yield not affected by defenses
  AFAIK there are no photon torpedo resistant materials, but there are phaser resistant materials.
• Energy is stored ahead of time
  That is to say, launching a photon torpedo likely takes far less energy than a phaserbeam
• Explosion gives of energy nearly instantly compared to phasers
  Matter/Antimatter explosions are nearly instant - just like nukes they'll only take on the order of a (few) billionth of a second to deliver their energy, rather than taking on the order of one-two seconds.
• Can hit targets outside of phaser coverage
  Not always relevant (depends on the ship), but photon torpedoes can alter course which makes it possible to hit targets outside of phaser coverage.
• Can be used while at warp
  Phasers in the 24th century Federation seem to be limited to sublight velocities. Torpedoes are definitely not limited to that.

As to the yields involved, while I do not have direct evidence, I always got the impression from watching Startrek that torpedoes are in fact the 'high yield' option. This due to the way characters talk about them and the effects they seem to have on shieldsystems, etc.

One reason for this could be that the shield and deflector subsystems aboard starships take up much more energy than the weapons do. (Which ties in neatly with Geordi stating the deflector dish is the most powerful subsystem on the Enterprise-D)

Considering the size of the shield compared to a phaserbeam this is not so illogical - you can't predict where you'll be hit exactly so your shield must be capable of blocking hits all over the place. The logical consequency of this is that every area covered by the shield will have to be able to block at least the equivalent of the beam yield or you'll have failures.

Which could lead to shield systems that would have to be several orders of magnitude more powerful than the weapons used against them to be capable of actually blocking the weapons used.

(Naturally this is merely speculation and assumes that Startrek shields are not magically capable of fielding the enery required to any single point in an instant. Then again, even if they have that capability, we've seen starships being hit by multiple beams at the same time and not instantly losing their shields, which at least supports the idea that shields are, overall, more powerful than the weapons used)

---

To go completely off-topic for a while: I've always suspected that some materials used in Startrek (Such as Trilithium) might actually be partly subspace based, meaning they are not native to the universe but created by, taken from or are part of subspace. This idea has the advantage some completely impossible things -in the real world, and as far as we can tell- (outer hulls that don't melt at 12000+ K, 3-4 meter tall missiles blowing up stars or, alternatively, starting up stars which are dead, weapons firing particles that 'vaporize' beings without the thermal effects, etc, etc) stop being nonsense. They'd just achieve said impossibilities outside of the reference frame of the universe as we can tell it exists.

[Cocytus]

Just a point of correction, we have actually seen phasers used at warp. The stolen USS Prometheus was attacked by, and later attacked, a Nebula class starship with phasers while at warp in "Message in a Bottle."

[Roondar]

Just a point of correction, we have actually seen phasers used at warp. The stolen USS Prometheus was attacked by, and later attacked, a Nebula class starship with phasers while at warp in "Message in a Bottle."

Figures.. You miss about ten episodes ever in ST and that's one you missed. Oh well, back to the DVD's ;)

[Mike DiCenso]

It's not just that one particular episode, either. A number of DS9 episodes, like "Treachery, Faith and the Great River" where a runabout engages a Jem'Hadar attack ship at warp, and uses it's phasers to destroy it.
-Mike

[Who is like God arbour]

As to the 'odd' things photon torpedoes do (such as creating temporal rifts), this is science fiction we're talking about - there are no such things as temporal rifts in reality so we can't actually say if antimatter/matter reactions would be unable to form them. That is merely an assumption on your part.

It's not like Trek's galaxy is devoid of weird stuff.
Considering the number of anomalies in their version of the Milky Way, it seems that way before Earth were to launch something into space, some people already had fun with weapons or whatever magiparticles, resulting into oddities and mutant entities with supernatural powers across the galaxy.

It seems that the fabric of space in Trek has suffered a lot. No kidding, with the Omega stuff, wrap drives used willy nilly, and other pieces of technobabble chewed out day after day, I wouldn't be surprised if even a rabit fart would result into a microsplit asymptotic variation of the induced baryonic coalesced flux of interpolastatic phases.

I love it when you talk dirty.

As for torpedo yields and odd effects, my first thought would be to point to the dilithium matrix concept often bandied about in regards to the warp core output. While not original, it has the benefit of keeping all the weird stuff in one neat mental container.

Personally, I feel pretty sure that photorps are primarily matter/antimatter weapons, and have top yields in the 100-1000 MT range (depending on mission), and are, by volume, almost entirely modular, with different standard mission configurations that can be set pretty much on the fly.

[...]

I'm not convinced. To me, that is not plausible. We know, what happens in a matter/anti-matter annihilation.

And there are theories about wormholes, which could allow time travel [1]. Insofar, temporal rifts (or wormhole or singularity or black hole or however else you want to name it) could be possible.

But we know, that a simple matter/anti-matter explosion does not create such a phenomenon - neither in real science nor in Star Trek science. Otherwise, every time a ship is destroyed and the warp core and the anti/matter container are leaking, such a phenomenon should happen with high probability. After all, the ships full reserve of anti-matter should be significant higher than the anti-matter in a volley of torpedos. And the reaction time of the in such an event leaked anti-matter with the ships matter is also nearly instantaneous.

On the other side, the volley of torpedos in »Yesterday's Enterprise« has created a temporal rift.

Ergo, the explosion of these torpedos was not a simple matter/anti-matter explosion.

Ergo, a torpedo does more than only creating such an explosion. It's not implausible, that it use the by the matter/anit-matter annihilation released energy as initiator for another highly destuctive phenomenon, for example a mini black hole. The cumulative effect of several, nearly simultaneous exploding torpedos in close range could enhance such a phenomen and space time could be ruptured more, so that a temporal rift is possible.

[Roondar]

As to the 'odd' things photon torpedoes do (such as creating temporal rifts), this is science fiction we're talking about - there are no such things as temporal rifts in reality so we can't actually say if antimatter/matter reactions would be unable to form them. That is merely an assumption on your part.

It's not like Trek's galaxy is devoid of weird stuff.
Considering the number of anomalies in their version of the Milky Way, it seems that way before Earth were to launch something into space, some people already had fun with weapons or whatever magiparticles, resulting into oddities and mutant entities with supernatural powers across the galaxy.

It seems that the fabric of space in Trek has suffered a lot. No kidding, with the Omega stuff, wrap drives used willy nilly, and other pieces of technobabble chewed out day after day, I wouldn't be surprised if even a rabit fart would result into a microsplit asymptotic variation of the induced baryonic coalesced flux of interpolastatic phases.

I love it when you talk dirty.

As for torpedo yields and odd effects, my first thought would be to point to the dilithium matrix concept often bandied about in regards to the warp core output. While not original, it has the benefit of keeping all the weird stuff in one neat mental container.

Personally, I feel pretty sure that photorps are primarily matter/antimatter weapons, and have top yields in the 100-1000 MT range (depending on mission), and are, by volume, almost entirely modular, with different standard mission configurations that can be set pretty much on the fly.

[...]

I'm not convinced. To me, that is not plausible. We know, what happens in a matter/anti-matter annihilation.

And there are theories about wormholes, which could allow time travel [1]. Insofar, temporal rifts (or wormhole or singularity or black hole or however else you want to name it) could be possible.

But we know, that a simple matter/anti-matter explosion does not create such a phenomenon - neither in real science nor in Star Trek science. Otherwise, every time a ship is destroyed and the warp core and the anti/matter container are leaking, such a phenomenon should happen with high probability. After all, the ships full reserve of anti-matter should be significant higher than the anti-matter in a volley of torpedos. And the reaction time of the in such an event leaked anti-matter with the ships matter is also nearly instantaneous.

On the other side, the volley of torpedos in »Yesterday's Enterprise« has created a temporal rift.

Ergo, the explosion of these torpedos was not a simple matter/anti-matter explosion.

Ergo, a torpedo does more than only creating such an explosion. It's not implausible, that it use the by the matter/anit-matter annihilation released energy as initiator for another highly destuctive phenomenon, for example a mini black hole. The cumulative effect of several, nearly simultaneous exploding torpedos in close range could enhance such a phenomen and space time could be ruptured more, so that a temporal rift is possible.

To conclude your logic:

Ergo, every time a torpedo is fired, there is a small probability of creating a temporal rift.
Ergo, every now and then a temporal rift would form after firing even one torpedo.
Ergo, every time a torpedo volleys is fired, there would be a good chance of getting a temporal rift.
Ergo, in the series we'd expect to see many of such temporal rifts in battle situations.

Except we don't. Which goes against your theory. In fact, it only happened once. Just once.

And there is an alternative explanation:

Spacetime could be nearly ruptured due to other causes and only 'need' the effects of a strong EM field (which a torpedo volley would generate if they are matter/antimatter explosions) at that point to 'break'.

(This is but one alternative mind you, there could be hundreds of different reasons why the temporal rift formed due to that explosion. And there is really no compelling evidence that the explosion of the torpedoes as such was the reason it formed in the first place - it merely managed to induce the rift)

Besides, the main reason you name for a different reaction (or at least imply) is to get a better result, meaning either higher yields or at least higher yields per unit of reactant.

Neither are needed, a photon torpedo can house enough matter and antimatter for a multigigaton explosion (which is higher than what we've ever observed them do) and still have plenty of room for propulsion, shielding, etc. Easily.

Neither are effective either, a matter/antimatter explosion is the most efficient reaction (energy wise) we know of in science. Converting energy into a forming a minature black hole only in order to explode that would not improve yields over a pure matter/antimatter explosion, they would make the yields lower.

(And all this is without the stuff which is written on wikipedia. Which, incidently, states pretty clearly that the idea that wormholes can be used for timetravel is not by any means a certainty and depends a great deal on how quantum gravity works, which is not yet fully understood. It also states specific requirements (a wormhole for one, the mouth on one side needing to be moved at relativistic speeds to one location and then brought back later for a another) which are quite clearly not happening in said episode)

---

By the way, you are wrong about antimatter and time:

Starship explosions have been part of 'weird time stuff' before and have also been part of timeloops before.

As an example: There was that episode where the Enterprise-D kept getting blown up for some reason (I forgot the name), resulting in the crew (somehow) getting thrown back in time and living through the same events over and over again - until they managed to break the cycle by stopping the destruction from happening. This fixed the timeloop.

Since a starship explosion due to a warp core breach is in fact a matter/antimatter explosion I do think we've just found evidence that such explosions can in fact manage to affect spacetime in odd ways.

[Who is like God arbour]

To conclude your logic:

Ergo, every time a torpedo is fired, there is a small probability of creating a temporal rift.
Ergo, every now and then a temporal rift would form after firing even one torpedo.
Ergo, every time a torpedo volleys is fired, there would be a good chance of getting a temporal rift.
Ergo, in the series we'd expect to see many of such temporal rifts in battle situations.

Except we don't. Which goes against your theory. In fact, it only happened once. Just once.

Sarcasm won't help you. But carefully reading what I have written in the first place and the correct application of logic can.

I have written »The cumulative effect of several, nearly simultaneous exploding torpedos in close range could enhance such a phenomen and space time could be ruptured more, so that a temporal rift is possible.«

That does not mean, that every torpedo explosion creates a little temporal rift. Ever heard of something called threshold? There is no change until a certain limit is exceeded.

And please remember that you have, as you have written »[...] there are no such things as temporal rifts in reality so we can't actually say if antimatter/matter reactions would be unable to form them. [...]« implied, that it could be possible, that every matter/anti-matter reaction could be able to form a temporal rift. And my objection, as I have written »But we know, that a simple matter/anti-matter explosion does not create such a phenomenon - neither in real science nor in Star Trek science. Otherwise, every time a ship is destroyed and the warp core and the anti/matter container are leaking, such a phenomenon should happen with high probability. After all, the ships full reserve of anti-matter should be significant higher than the anti-matter in a volley of torpedos. And the reaction time of the in such an event leaked anti-matter with the ships matter is also nearly instantaneous.« to this was, that, if that would be the case, we would have to expect such a rift every time a ship explodes because there would be a much bigger reaction than the explosion created by a volley of torpedos. A simple explosion created by a matter/anti-matter annihilation does not create a temporal rift.

You have not shown, where my explanation, that does not demand to be the one and only possible explanation, but one possible explanation among others, is not plausible with your wrong development of my thesis.

And there is an alternative explanation:

Spacetime could be nearly ruptured due to other causes and only 'need' the effects of a strong EM field (which a torpedo volley would generate if they are matter/antimatter explosions) at that point to 'break'.

(This is but one alternative mind you, there could be hundreds of different reasons why the temporal rift formed due to that explosion. And there is really no compelling evidence that the explosion of the torpedoes as such was the reason it formed in the first place - it merely managed to induce the rift)

Occams razor - we know that a volley of photon torpedos and a temporal rift have coincided. That allone was enough for Picard to assume, that that was cause for the temporal rift.
You are now entering a new unknown circumstance in the debate, which was not mentioned and from which is nothing known. It does not help to explain, how the temporal rift was created.

You are right: it's possible - but it is not the more supported and plausible explanation.

What are the chances that the explosion of a volley of photon torpedos coincide with a phenomenon that has weakened space time at exactly that location and that time in a unlimited universe?

And if there would be such a phenomenon, why wouldn't Picard say something like that such thing don't happen under normal circumstances and that there has to be some special circumstances? But there was nothing of thatmentioned in the whole epsiode and it was not called into question. It was accepted, that the explosion of the volley of photon torpedo have created that temporal rift as if that is a possibility which is known by every one.

Besides, the main reason you name for a different reaction (or at least imply) is to get a better result, meaning either higher yields or at least higher yields per unit of reactant.

Neither are needed, a photon torpedo can house enough matter and antimatter for a multigigaton explosion (which is higher than what we've ever observed them do) and still have plenty of room for propulsion, shielding, etc. Easily.

That is not the main reason. I try to bring different canon events in accordance. On the one side, there are few descriptions of photon torpedos. We don't know their assembling or their functional principle. One the other side, we have the episode TNG »Yesterdays Enterprise« in which the explosion of a volley of photon torpedos and a temporal rift have coincided.

And a matter/anti-matter warhead is an implausible explanation because, as you have said already, to enhance the yield, one has only to increase the amount of matter and anti-matter and that would end in torpedos which will get bigger and bigger. But as we have seen in Star Trek, thesize of the torpedos has not changed in over hundred years.

And it does not seems as if they could simply increase the amount of matter and anti-matter in their torpedos. If they would be able to do that, they would have done it every time, a torpedo was to weak for its purpose (for example: VOY episode »Dreadnought«).

Quite the contrary, every time they have needed a really big explosion, they have build a specialised war-head and haven't used a photon war head (for example: VOY epsiode »The Omega Directive«).

Neither are effective either, a matter/antimatter explosion is the most efficient reaction (energy wise) we know of in science. Converting energy into a forming a minature black hole only in order to explode that would not improve yields over a pure matter/antimatter explosion, they would make the yields lower.

It may be true that a matter/antimatter explosion is the most efficient reaction. But that does not mean, that it has the greatest destructive effect. And that allone is important for a weapon. A black hole could create gravitation that could break a ship appart or at least applies stress to its spaceframe. If matter of that ship is sucked into the black hole, it would be released as energy too. The potential destruction a black hole could create could surpass the destruction of the by a matter/anti-matter annihilation released energy by far.

(And all this is without the stuff which is written on wikipedia. Which, incidently, states pretty clearly that the idea that wormholes can be used for timetravel is not by any means a certainty and depends a great deal on how quantum gravity works, which is not yet fully understood. It also states specific requirements (a wormhole for one, the mouth on one side needing to be moved at relativistic speeds to one location and then brought back later for a another) which are quite clearly not happening in said episode)

We know, that a matter/anti-matter reaction does not create a temporal rift.
But while it is proven, that a matter/anti-matter reaction does not create a temporal rift, it is not proven, that a temporal rift does not exist or travel through it is impossible. Quite the contrary, it is considered as possible.

What is further away from science?
The explanation that a matter/anti-matter reaction does create a temporal rift or that a photon torpedo could create spacetime distortions which could, if big enough, rupture spacetime? The first is impossible, the second is fiction which impossibility is not proven but even considered possible.

By the way, you are wrong about antimatter and time:

Starship explosions have been part of 'weird time stuff' before and have also been part of timeloops before.

As an example: There was that episode where the Enterprise-D kept getting blown up for some reason (I forgot the name), resulting in the crew (somehow) getting thrown back in time and living through the same events over and over again - until they managed to break the cycle by stopping the destruction from happening. This fixed the timeloop.

Since a starship explosion due to a warp core breach is in fact a matter/antimatter explosion I do think we've just found evidence that such explosions can in fact manage to affect spacetime in odd ways.

But there was already a space time contortion through which the Bozeman arrived and than collided with the Enterprise what has caused her warp core breach. If this space time contortion wouldn't have been there in the first place, the Bozeman wouldn't have arrived, wouldn't have colided with the Enterprise and the Enterprise wouldn't have exploded. Ergo: not the explosion of the Enterprise has caused the space time contortion through which the Bozeman has arrived.

I have never said, that a photon torpedo is the one and only way to create a temporal rift. But a matter/anti-matter reaction is no way to create one.

[Mike DiCenso]

Just a point here. Presumably WILGA is refering to the Romulan photon torpedoes mentioned as having created a temporal loop that allowed the Enterprise-C to travel through time. However, it was not some specifically weird property of the torpedoes which created the rift, it was the high energy reactions of the torpdoes' dedonations on super-string material:

DATA: It is a possibility, Captain. If that hypothesis is correct, the phenomenon we just encountered would be a temporal rift in space.
PICARD: A rift?
DATA Possibly the formation of a Kerr loop from superstring material. It would require high-energy interactions occurring in the vicinity for such a structure to be formed. The rift is certainly not stable, Captain. It could collapse at any time.

So what this shows is that photon torpedoes, especially a large volley of them do result in a very high-energy yeild. But the torpedo dedonations by themselves without the super-string material would not have opened a rift.
-Mike

[Mike DiCenso]

I disagree with the conclusion that photorps involve greater energy release than phasers, or have a greater total destructive effect.

This is not necessarily true, as we know from episodes like "Q Who?", and "The Nth Degree" that a full yeild, full spread of torpedoes is vastly more powerful than a single full-power phaser shot, and at close range can cripple the shielded starship that fired them, or outright destroy them, if unshielded.

Very impressive when you consider that about half of a torpedo's energy is lost due to the omini-directional nature of an explosion.
-Mike

[Roondar]

Just a point here. Presumably WILGA is refering to the Romulan photon torpedoes mentioned as having created a temporal loop that allowed the Enterprise-C to travel through time. However, it was not some specifically weird property of the torpedoes which created the rift, it was the high energy reactions of the torpdoes' dedonations on super-string material:

DATA: It is a possibility, Captain. If that hypothesis is correct, the phenomenon we just encountered would be a temporal rift in space.
PICARD: A rift?
DATA Possibly the formation of a Kerr loop from superstring material. It would require high-energy interactions occurring in the vicinity for such a structure to be formed. The rift is certainly not stable, Captain. It could collapse at any time.

So what this shows is that photon torpedoes, especially a large volley of them do result in a very high-energy yeild. But the torpedo dedonations by themselves without the super-string material would not have opened a rift.
-Mike

In other words, like I thought, the photon torpedo explosion by itself was not the reason the rift formed at all.

It just so happened that the explosion occured in a region where some fishy stuff was going on (the superstring material). It's also established that this temporal phenomenon could have occured with any significantly high energy interaction in that area - not just photon torpedoes.