Praeothmin wrote:Picard, how do Photorps work, exactly?
If they only release M/AM which in turn only releases waves, then where do the explosions come from in space?
PT combine matter and antimatter which reacts, releasing radiation. About 40% of that radiation is capable of interacting with matter, heating it to point of melting / vaporization. And since there is no atmosphere, there are no shockwaves.
As for explosions in space, it is simply bad VFX and case of "did not do the research" on the side of special effects team. Actual "explosion" of photon torpedo in space would look like very bright, very small and very short flash of light, barely larger than casing itself, regardless of actual yield (there would be differences, true, but nothing which would allow us to immediately say "this is 1 gigaton explosion and this is 5 gigaton one).
wouldn't the very fact of heating something to such a degree as your implying cause the afflicted material to warp and buckle?
Possible. That would still depend on material, and way it reacts to heating, thought. And heating itself would be relatively evenly distributed (that agains depends on way reaction goes on within torpedo itself, but ideally, that would be the case), so fragmentation will occur only if fragments of material with higher melting point are divided by zones of material with lower melting point, or by material which expands radically when heated. I might be wrong about it, thought.