The meaning of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ISOTON

[Mr. Oragahn]

Antimatter is not run through the nacelles at all. It is stored in at least the secondary hull in containment pods, and the antimatter is then piped into the warp core where it can interact with matter and produce the energy needed (in the form of plasma) which is then routed through power conduits all over the ship, most in particular coils in the warp nacelles.

Ok. That is way better! :)

Having each torpedo sitting around loaded with antimatter now represents hundreds of potental failure points. But keeping the torpedo warheads unloaded and the antimatter stored in the (presumably) more robust pods, which reduces the statistical chance of a catastrophic failure. When you arm the torpedoes, you are now filling the torpedoes with reactants, and setting them to dedonate on a specific target.

But that's the way it's done.
In Enterprise, they had those photonic torps, they were just stored on racks, with warheads inside, and the launching mechanism never made a mention of a system that charges the warhead before firing.
Actually, looking at the models used for the photon torpedoes, I see no "fuel" port within the region of the warheads, on the hull of the torps.

However, this charging procedure would explain how they can dial the power of a torp up or down. But then, let's be clear.
If the Enterprise actually had a way to charge a photonic torp before firing it, then they would have no problem to create even archaic photonic torpedoes, since they'd precisely know how to drive antimatter and contain it, until they'd dump it into the warhead located inside a torp.

And what is a gravimetric warhead anyway? How does it work? You are presuming that it is something like your assumed version of how the antimatter works so that you can maintain a particular yeild, and are not basing it on anything other than you think there is a reactant in there all ready and armed to go, which we can surmise reasonably that there is not since phasers (or phase cannons) and torpedoes alike must actually be armed as we have seen in all the series.

So this 3 kg gravimetric warhead would have a real destructive force of 42.96 megatons, at best.

And you know how a gravimetric warhead works.... how?

It's not a problem of how it works. It's a problem of what it uses to generate the yield. Since I haven't been given any evidence that they use something better than antimatter, we pretty much know how destructive they could be.
That is, if:

- the reaction is always near perfect, which I always assume. This is not a given.
- the warhead doesn't sacrifice room to achieve that gravimetric function, in comparison to a standard AM warhead which goal is just to make all the antideuterium react with the matter, and go boom as violently as possible.
- a gravimetric warhead actually mostly uses antimatter. If not, they yield would be stringly lower, but it would be way too low to make it fit with the rest, so that's why I go with AM.

In Omega Directive, IIRC, the two side hatches were open. I think the warheads of a standard torp were removed.
Instead, they placed a single gravimetric warhead.
They said that this was equal to 54 IT, as they set it to be.

The two hatches are open:

http://voy.trekcore.com/gallery/display ... 171&pos=92

Yes, I knew.
Either they removed one standard warhead, and were making adjustments on the one left, to work with the gravi, or they removed both, left a slot empty and put one single gravi warhead.

They only talked about a gravimetric warhead:

But as we've seen in ST6, a torpedo has more than just warheads behind those hatches. Or at least the ones of that particular era did.

Any cap?
How is it relevant?

The fact that Janeway asked Tuvok and Kim to get 80 IT out of the same warhead means that 54 IT is not the maximum yield of that warhead, and thus pointing out that a gravimetric warhead can be dialed up/down, maybe only manually.

Actually here's the as-filmed dialog from the episode:

TUVOK: Calibration complete. Phase modulator. Detonator circuits?
KIM: On standby.
TUVOK: We're ready to load the gravimetric charge.
KIM: This looks like enough for a fifty isoton explosion.
TUVOK: Fifty four, to be exact.
KIM: What are we planning to do, blow up a small planet?
TUVOK: I don't know.
KIM: This warhead isn't standard issue. Who designed it, the Captain?
JANEWAY: Mister Kim, you ask too many questions. Change of plans, Gentlemen. Increase the charge to eighty isotons.

We don't know if they actually are altering that particular warhead, or are removing it and putting a different one in it's place.

And so the part where Janeway comes back and ask for the yield to be pushed up to 80 isotons has been cut?

We'll consider that 80 IT is the maximum yield obtainable with the gravimetric warhead.

That we know of. There is no actual stated upper limit given in the episode.

In your case, you wouldn't want to have any greater yield with the same warhead. It would only make one isoton ever weaker.

Besides, it would be a bit odd to make changes to the gravimetric warhead and ask for it to be pumped up to 80 IT, if the charging would actually occur when the warhead is armed.
It's pointless to make manual changes to the warhead if, per your idea, a yield (the quantity of AM that can be dumped into a warhead) is achieved just before the warhead is armed.

Only making the gravimetric warhead being like 5-6 kg heavy starts to solve problems reasonnably, but the way the warhead is handled, it's stretching credibility.

Assuming it's loaded, of course, which we have no way to know if it is. And there is an additional possibility: Uber antimatter:

www.ditl.org/hedarticle.php?9

In TOS' "Obsession", less than one ounce (28 grams) of antimatter is sufficent to blow off half an Earth-like planet's atmosphere...

Wonderful science! :)
Do you expect me to take that seriously? -_-

... while in "The Immunity Syndrome", a probe-carried antimatter charge was sufficent to destroy the planet-sized amoeba.

A single bullet can kill a human. A virus can kill a human. A biomechanical disorder in a key organ can kill a human.
Damage the nuclei of the amoeba, and voilà.

Is that the semi bright "flash" that last less than one second?
If so, calling it a multimegaton would be wrong, and would be considered another VFX mistake. And therefore, you couldn't get a yield from that.

Is it really a second long "flash"? Is there a clip of this event available somewhere?

Mike Wong (...) laughed at the claim, considering that it lasted a fraction of a second.
I don't know, but from what I've read on internet about it, here and there, it would show that there is, once again, a discrepancy. The flash duration would argue for a kiloton level explosion. The flash/explosion whatever would argue for something bigger. But if the fireball is just somekind of stock explosion FX pasted on... duh.

Anyway, until further notice, and until there's a decent way to look at it, we won't know.
Maybe I'll grab the episode, but I won't be able to cut the segment and upload it.

[Mike DiCenso]

Mike DiCenso wrote:
Having each torpedo sitting around loaded with antimatter now represents hundreds of potental failure points. But keeping the torpedo warheads unloaded and the antimatter stored in the (presumably) more robust pods, which reduces the statistical chance of a catastrophic failure. When you arm the torpedoes, you are now filling the torpedoes with reactants, and setting them to dedonate on a specific target

Mr. Oragahn wrote:
But that's the way it's done.
In Enterprise, they had those photonic torps, they were just stored on racks, with warheads inside, and the launching mechanism never made a mention of a system that charges the warhead before firing.
Actually, looking at the models used for the photon torpedoes, I see no "fuel" port within the region of the warheads, on the hull of the torps.

Unlike with the spatial torpedoes, we have never seen the full launch prep operations for a photonic torpedoes. What we have seen of the later photon torpedoes, we have never seen much once the torpedoes have been loaded into the launch tubes, or even if reactants have a loading mechanism built into the storage racks themselves. As long as there are reactant hookups somewhere on the torpedoes, it's quite possible.

Or in other words, it can go either way quite easily.

However, this charging procedure would explain how they can dial the power of a torp up or down. But then, let's be clear.
If the Enterprise actually had a way to charge a photonic torp before firing it, then they would have no problem to create even archaic photonic torpedoes, since they'd precisely know how to drive antimatter and contain it, until they'd dump it into the warhead located inside a torp.

Loading reactants into the torp as part of the arming procedure does indeed explain a lot of what we see. In ST5, for instance, or even in "Redemption, Part II", the torps' yeilds are changed so quickly at the push of a few buttons that having people running around pulling out and installing different sized warhead containers, or making adjustments to the existing one manually makes little sense.

And what is a gravimetric warhead anyway? How does it work? You are presuming that it is something like your assumed version of how the antimatter works so that you can maintain a particular yeild, and are not basing it on anything other than you think there is a reactant in there all ready and armed to go, which we can surmise reasonably that there is not since phasers (or phase cannons) and torpedoes alike must actually be armed as we have seen in all the series.

It's not a problem of how it works. It's a problem of what it uses to generate the yield. Since I haven't been given any evidence that they use something better than antimatter, we pretty much know how destructive they could be.
That is, if:

- the reaction is always near perfect, which I always assume. This is not a given.
- the warhead doesn't sacrifice room to achieve that gravimetric function, in comparison to a standard AM warhead which goal is just to make all the antideuterium react with the matter, and go boom as violently as possible.
- a gravimetric warhead actually mostly uses antimatter. If not, they yield would be stringly lower, but it would be way too low to make it fit with the rest, so that's why I go with AM.

Again, that's a presumption on your part about how a gravimetric warhead works. You are assuming that the Trek universe is somehow limited in a hard-science fiction sort of a way, when all the canon evidence points out otherwise. In other words, antimatter is pretty good for most applications in Federation power and weapons technology, but they also have access to more powerful weapons when needed. In this case, Janeway specifically wanted to use a gravimetric charge warhead over any antimatter one for whatever the reason. Either the greater yeild, or a technobabble gravity-based effect, or both makes them more ideal to use in the destruction of Omega molecules over regular matter-antimatter warheads.

Yes, I knew.
Either they removed one standard warhead, and were making adjustments on the one left, to work with the gravi, or they removed both, left a slot empty and put one single gravi warhead.

They only talked about a gravimetric warhead:

Right, and later she orders a more powerful charge installed. Whether this means tinkering with the existing gravimetric warhead or putting in something physically larger, I don't know. We don't get to see that work being done, unfortunately. But clearly the 50-something isoton yeild one would not cut it.

But as we've seen in ST6, a torpedo has more than just warheads behind those hatches. Or at least the ones of that particular era did.

Any cap?

Not that I can find. Trekcore hasn't completed screencaps for all of the movies, and ST6 is among those not done.

How is it relevant?

Because it illustrates that there is hardware inside the torpedoes at that junction that has nothing to do with the warheads themselves. In the ST6 case, Spock and McCoy were installing sensing equipment that would allow the torpedo to track General Chang's cloaked BoP's exaust plasma.

The only cavet I would keep in mind is that this torpedo, while nearly identical on the outside to TNG-era torps, has a notably different interior layout.

The fact that Janeway asked Tuvok and Kim to get 80 IT out of the same warhead means that 54 IT is not the maximum yield of that warhead, and thus pointing out that a gravimetric warhead can be dialed up/down, maybe only manually.

Actually here's the as-filmed dialog from the episode:

TUVOK: Calibration complete. Phase modulator. Detonator circuits?
KIM: On standby.
TUVOK: We're ready to load the gravimetric charge.
KIM: This looks like enough for a fifty isoton explosion.
TUVOK: Fifty four, to be exact.
KIM: What are we planning to do, blow up a small planet?
TUVOK: I don't know.
KIM: This warhead isn't standard issue. Who designed it, the Captain?
JANEWAY: Mister Kim, you ask too many questions. Change of plans, Gentlemen. Increase the charge to eighty isotons.

We don't know if they actually are altering that particular warhead, or are removing it and putting a different one in it's place.

And so the part where Janeway comes back and ask for the yield to be pushed up to 80 isotons has been cut?

It's there. It's the very last line of dialog.

We'll consider that 80 IT is the maximum yield obtainable with the gravimetric warhead.

That we know of. There is no actual stated upper limit given in the episode.

In your case, you wouldn't want to have any greater yield with the same warhead. It would only make one isoton ever weaker.

Besides, it would be a bit odd to make changes to the gravimetric warhead and ask for it to be pumped up to 80 IT, if the charging would actually occur when the warhead is armed

.
It's pointless to make manual changes to the warhead if, per your idea, a yield (the quantity of AM that can be dumped into a warhead) is achieved just before the warhead is armed.[/quote]

Huh? That makes little sense. If I asked you to increase the yeild of a nuclear weapon from 50 megatons to 80 megatons, it does not make the individual unit of a megaton weaker in doing so, even though you can potentially fit more plutonium, tritium and or deuterum into the same size overall warhead casing.

Again, you are also making this assumption that the gravimetric warhead uses antimatter, or that the whole process is not, in fact, more akin to our current-day thermonuclear weapons which achive fusion via the initial dedonation of a fission nuke to bring the light nuclei isotopes to sufficent pressure for a fusion reaction to occur.

Only making the gravimetric warhead being like 5-6 kg heavy starts to solve problems reasonnably, but the way the warhead is handled, it's stretching credibility.

Assuming it's loaded, of course, which we have no way to know if it is. And there is an additional possibility: Uber antimatter:

www.ditl.org/hedarticle.php?9

In TOS' "Obsession", less than one ounce (28 grams) of antimatter is sufficent to blow off half an Earth-like planet's atmosphere...

Wonderful science! :)
Do you expect me to take that seriously? -_-

Absolutely. As the DITL article notes, this is not the only instance in Trek where antimatter does not act as per real-world science.

... while in "The Immunity Syndrome", a probe-carried antimatter charge was sufficent to destroy the planet-sized amoeba.

A single bullet can kill a human. A virus can kill a human. A biomechanical disorder in a key organ can kill a human.
Damage the nuclei of the amoeba, and voilà.

Do note the scaling of said nuclei to the rest of the amoeba, which would at the very least place it around the size of a large Kuiper belt object and more likely around the same size as our own Moon. That's still vastly greater energy release than we would expect from an antimatter charge that can be carried in a relatively tiny probe launched by the ~300 meter E-1701.

In any advent, what happened in the episodes happened, and we have to deal with it. If you don't want to except uber-antimatter, then we go right back to dealing with the antimatter storage issue, which means that the size of the container does not necessarily limit the size of the charge since they can compress an ungodly amount of antimatter and matter into a very small volume.

Is that the semi bright "flash" that last less than one second?
If so, calling it a multimegaton would be wrong, and would be considered another VFX mistake. And therefore, you couldn't get a yield from that.

Is it really a second long "flash"? Is there a clip of this event available somewhere?

Mike Wong (...) laughed at the claim, considering that it lasted a fraction of a second.
I don't know, but from what I've read on internet about it, here and there, it would show that there is, once again, a discrepancy. The flash duration would argue for a kiloton level explosion. The flash/explosion whatever would argue for something bigger. But if the fireball is just somekind of stock explosion FX pasted on... duh.

Given the numerous "mistakes" Wong and company have made in the past concerning ST technology and the episodes themselves, I would really rather see that for myself.

Anyway, until further notice, and until there's a decent way to look at it, we won't know.
Maybe I'll grab the episode, but I won't be able to cut the segment and upload it.

Okay. I was hoping to find a copy of it somewhere, but that works just as well.
-Mike

[Mr. Oragahn]

Unlike with the spatial torpedoes, we have never seen the full launch prep operations for a photonic torpedoes. What we have seen of the later photon torpedoes, we have never seen much once the torpedoes have been loaded into the launch tubes, or even if reactants have a loading mechanism built into the storage racks themselves. As long as there are reactant hookups somewhere on the torpedoes, it's quite possible.

Or in other words, it can go either way quite easily.

The pre-launch warhead fueling theory is a good one. However, it absolutely requires the proof that the NX-01's tubes are able to control and deposit very specific quantities of antimatter before firing their torpedos.

What does the Enterprise uses as main power source? Is it fusion. Cochrane used a remaining fusion missile for his ship, and it achieved low warp nonetheless.

Loading reactants into the torp as part of the arming procedure does indeed explain a lot of what we see. In ST5, for instance, or even in "Redemption, Part II", the torps' yeilds are changed so quickly at the push of a few buttons that having people running around pulling out and installing different sized warhead containers, or making adjustments to the existing one manually makes little sense.

It is, above all, the only sound and solid explanation as to how a warhead can do what Tucker described, that is, range from knocking off an sensor array, or leaving a 3 km wide crater in an asteroid.
Regarding the NX-01 above, it would mean that the weapon systems have been modified to be able to charge those prototype photonic warheads.
If there is proof that the NX-01 runs on ol' fusion, then we could posit that the NX-01 has systems which can load antimatter (which is contained somewhere in tanks), but is unable to run a controlled anihilation reaction to power its systems.

What I mean is that it would be easier to make things go boom, than to handle them to provide steady and minute amounts of energy, at controlable intensities.

Again, that's a presumption on your part about how a gravimetric warhead works. You are assuming that the Trek universe is somehow limited in a hard-science fiction sort of a way, when all the canon evidence points out otherwise. In other words, antimatter is pretty good for most applications in Federation power and weapons technology, but they also have access to more powerful weapons when needed. In this case, Janeway specifically wanted to use a gravimetric charge warhead over any antimatter one for whatever the reason. Either the greater yeild, or a technobabble gravity-based effect, or both makes them more ideal to use in the destruction of Omega molecules over regular matter-antimatter warheads.

Putting the charging question aside for a moment, I have a problem with the idea that the gravimetric warhead is more powerful than an antimatter warhead.
For all sorts of obvious reasons, they'd be favoured.
Even if they're only good against one type of target, be it ground or space based, the UFP wouldd find a rather regular use to them.

Now, you could always argue that they're "rare", since Omega related, and a secret weapon relative to the Omega Directive.

That said, I don't see how it would explain the superior yield. Because even if a gravimetric warhead is necessary to bust omega molecules, the reactants and technology used for such a warhead wouldn't be kept by the UFP to only be used within Omega Directives, when it would be extremely useful for the simple purpose of winning battles.

Besides, the simple fact that Kim, Tuvok and else weren't puzzled by the presence of such a warhead, way before even knowing what was going on, proves that gravimetric warheads are nothing secret at all.

So again, there'd be no reason to even think they're superior in firepower.

Right, and later she orders a more powerful charge installed. Whether this means tinkering with the existing gravimetric warhead or putting in something physically larger, I don't know. We don't get to see that work being done, unfortunately. But clearly the 50-something isoton yeild one would not cut it.

The script doesn't precisely say that they have to put a bigger warhead. Janeway simply orders the yield to be made bigger.

Not that I can find. Trekcore hasn't completed screencaps for all of the movies, and ST6 is among those not done.

Let's put in standby then. Maybe we should get a "torpedo's guts" thread running there as well?

Because it illustrates that there is hardware inside the torpedoes at that junction that has nothing to do with the warheads themselves. In the ST6 case, Spock and McCoy were installing sensing equipment that would allow the torpedo to track General Chang's cloaked BoP's exaust plasma.

The only cavet I would keep in mind is that this torpedo, while nearly identical on the outside to TNG-era torps, has a notably different interior layout.

I still fail to see how this is specifically useful here. At best, you're showing that from these traps, they can access all sorts of stuff, which is supported by this cap that I already posted.

It's there. It's the very last line of dialog.

Yes. I guess I have to say "oops".

We'll consider that 80 IT is the maximum yield obtainable with the gravimetric warhead.

That we know of. There is no actual stated upper limit given in the episode.

In your case, you wouldn't want to have any greater yield with the same warhead. It would only make one isoton ever weaker.

Besides, it would be a bit odd to make changes to the gravimetric warhead and ask for it to be pumped up to 80 IT, if the charging would actually occur when the warhead is armed

.
It's pointless to make manual changes to the warhead if, per your idea, a yield (the quantity of AM that can be dumped into a warhead) is achieved just before the warhead is armed.[/quote]

Huh? That makes little sense. If I asked you to increase the yeild of a nuclear weapon from 50 megatons to 80 megatons, it does not make the individual unit of a megaton weaker in doing so, even though you can potentially fit more plutonium, tritium and or deuterum into the same size overall warhead casing.

Huh... yes, you're right. If they can put more reactants in that warhead, there's no problem.

Again, you are also making this assumption that the gravimetric warhead uses antimatter, or that the whole process is not, in fact, more akin to our current-day thermonuclear weapons which achive fusion via the initial dedonation of a fission nuke to bring the light nuclei isotopes to sufficent pressure for a fusion reaction to occur.

Shouldn't be actually seeking low to moderate ended figures, not immediately jump to high ends?

Absolutely. As the DITL article notes, this is not the only instance in Trek where antimatter does not act as per real-world science.

Naked Time doesn't adress a yield problem. It adresses a problem of heat, which could be rationalized away as, for example, claiming that their systems need to be "hot" to be able to hangle the M/AM reaction, or the thing would go boom.

The Doomsday Machine is another issue altogether, and a recent thread at spacebattles offered a surprisingly decent rationalization, regarding the whole antimatter deactivation. It didn't explain how it worked, though, but gaped certain holes.

But again, nothing to do with yield.

Obsession is the big oddball. Antimatter is antimatter, and no matter how you look at it, a perfec reaction will only provide a finite and well known amount of energy.

The best explanation that one could find is that for some reason, the atmosphere itself is highly volatile. Like if the whole atmosphere was rigged with explosive gas, really, and able to sustain a powerful chain reaction.

Once again, in The Immunity Syndrome, we'll have to argue that this living thing had highly volatile cells, or something.

It's simple. Trek is full of exotic physic wreaking stuff.
At least, the goal is to keep the antimatter part correct.

It's also completely nonsensical. If they had access to such a powerful antimatter - which can't exist - the following spinoffs would have been dramatically different.

Do note the scaling of said nuclei to the rest of the amoeba, which would at the very least place it around the size of a large Kuiper belt object and more likely around the same size as our own Moon. That's still vastly greater energy release than we would expect from an antimatter charge that can be carried in a relatively tiny probe launched by the ~300 meter E-1701.

In any advent, what happened in the episodes happened, and we have to deal with it. If you don't want to except uber-antimatter, then we go right back to dealing with the antimatter storage issue, which means that the size of the container does not necessarily limit the size of the charge since they can compress an ungodly amount of antimatter and matter into a very small volume.

Even the charging theory couldn't explain the TOS weird yields wth scientific antimatter.

That's why you shouldn't expect me to accept anything related to those absolutely weird and exceptional events.

Given the numerous "mistakes" Wong and company have made in the past concerning ST technology and the episodes themselves, I would really rather see that for myself.

Yes, I know how "reliable" he can be at times, that's why I hesitated posting the reference. I mean, when you don't even acknowledge a planet's more massive secondary explosion and claim that the beam is just an advanced power laser of some sort... can of worms and all that.

Anyway, I have hope that he can, at least, have things right when it comes to something as simple as that!

[Jedi Master Spock]

FYI, I've ballparked figures for "Rise" that go back to first principles, making the assumption that it's a plume of unheated or marginally heated dust rather than some variety of fireball (as DITL does). Frankly, running the figures as a fireball or fireball-like object is about as unenergetic as you're going to get when you factor in every detail required to produce the effect.

The elevation of any significant (non-transparent) quantity of dust to that apparent height (hemispherical bloom) is, in itself, on the order of 10^17 J. Having a similar quantity of dust accelerated to 187.5 km/s (the speed required for the bloom to appear from nothing in the frequently-cited single second) increases the energy requirements by one and a half orders of magnitude - i.e., well past the figures gotten from assuming it to be a fireball.

[Who is like God arbour]

Hello,

I have had a little getaway. But now I'm back. It's interessting and satisfying how much the debate has developed in this one week.

I have some questions for Mr. Oragahn.

That said, I don't see how it would explain the superior yield. Because even if a gravimetric warhead is necessary to bust omega molecules, the reactants and technology used for such a warhead wouldn't be kept by the UFP to only be used within Omega Directives, when it would be extremely useful for the simple purpose of winning battles.

Why do you expect, that they would use in each battle the most powerfull weapons they have?

• There are nukes since 1945 and - except for the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - they wasn't used although the states with nukes have had numerous wars and battles [1].
  
  Not every warships and not every plane of these states are equipped with nukes. Often they have "only" conventional weapons.
  
  
  
  We know for example from the Voyager episode The Voyager Conspiracy, that a Tricobalt device, a type of high yield explosive, isn't routinely carried by Federation vessels. It was exceptional that the Voyager has such devices on board to destroy the Caretaker's array.
  
  We know for example from Star Trek: Insurrection that the Khitomer Accords banned the use of subspace weapons and that all powers but the Son'a observe this accord.
  
  They voluntary do without weapons which are mightier than their "conventional" weapons - even in war.
  
  Apparently that doesn't mean that they have no mightier weapons as they use. Because than such accords would be unnecessary. They have weapons which are mightier than their "conventional" weapons. But their vessels aren't routinely equipped with these.

Could it be that the weapons, used in the battles you have in mind, aren't the mightiest weapons of Star Trek?

Antimatter is antimatter, and no matter how you look at it, a perfect reaction will only provide a finite and well known amount of energy.

But who says that antimatter has to consist of antihydrogen?

If antimatter is composed of antiparticles in the same way that normal matter is composed of particles, there could be antilead or even antineutronium.

• The Balloon-borne Experiment with Superconducting Spectrometer (BESS) is searching for larger antinuclei, in particular antihelium [2].

Sure, such matter could not occur naturally.
But I see no reason why it would be scientifical impossible to produce such antimatter.

And if a matter-antimatter-anihilation from Star Trek is releasing more energy than a hydrogen-antihydrogen-anihilation is supposed to do, the logical conclusion would be, that they use heavier matter and anti-matter (and only use traditional expressions when they speak of it).

• If the antimatter used by Starfleet consist of larger antinuclei, it could have states of aggregation similar to their normal counterparts. That could explain why it was necessary to heat up the antimatter and matter: It has to be molten before it could be piped in small amounts to the warp core. As long as both was solid, it only would have been possible to bring both blocks of matter and antimatter together what would create a real big explosion.
  A warp core, build to handle liquid matter and antimatter, can't be continuous filled with still solid matter. First, It could be difficult to cut a little piece of antimatter from a solid block of it - and, second, to throw it manually in the reaction chamber to a block of the same mass of the counterpart-matter - without causing an exlosion beforehand.

• • The following dialogue occurs when Kirk and his officers are discussing what to do :
    • • • Kirk:
        Antimatter seems our only possibility.
        
        • Spock:
        An ounce should be sufficient. We can drain it from the ships engines, transport it to the planet's surface in a magnetic vacuum field.
        
        • Kirk:
        Contact medical stores. I want as much haemoplasm as they can spare in the transporter room in fifteen minutes.
        
        • Garrovick:
        Yes sir.
        
        • McCoy:
        I presume you plan to use the haemoplasm to attract the creature?
        
        • Kirk:
        We must get it to the antimatter. It seems attracted to red blood cells, what better bait could we have?
        
        • Spock:
        There is still one problem, captain
        
        • Kirk:
        The blast, yes.
        
        • Spock:
        Exactly. A matter-antimatter blast will rip away half the planet's atmosphere. If our vessel is in orbit and encounters those shock waves...
        
        • Kirk:
        A chance we'll have to take, Mister Spock.
    One ounce is 28.349523125 grams. Presuming that this would react with an equal amount of matter, the total reaction mass would be just under 56.7 grams, or 0.0567 kilogrammes. The maximum possible theoretical energy release would be given by the famous equation E=mc2

  • • It isn't said, why it wasn't considered as possible that with >> ounce << not the ounce as a unit of mass but the fluid ounce as a unit of volume could have been meant. Especially if one speaks of liquid antimatter it seems to suggest itself that the latter could have been meant.
      
      That would make more sense if one tries to explain why an ounce of antimatter release more energy than an ounce of antihydrogen is supposed to do.
      
      If ounce is used as a unit of mass, it would be irrelevant what kind of antimatter they have used because the mass would be still the same and therefore the in anihilation released energy.
      
      But if ounce is used as a unit of volume for liquids, an ounce could have different mass, depending on the kind of antimatter used. An ounce of antilead would have more mass than an ounce of antihydrogen and releasing more energy in anihilation.
      
      • One, who is better in math than I am, could even calculate, how dense the antimatter have to be to release enough energy in an anihilation to rip away half a planet's atmosphere. According to The Daystrom Institute Technical Library, that would need about 73'725'000'000 Megatons.

[Mike DiCenso]

quot;]Unlike with the spatial torpedoes, we have never seen the full launch prep operations for a photonic torpedoes. What we have seen of the later photon torpedoes, we have never seen much once the torpedoes have been loaded into the launch tubes, or even if reactants have a loading mechanism built into the storage racks themselves. As long as there are reactant hookups somewhere on the torpedoes, it's quite possible.

Or in other words, it can go either way quite easily.

Mr. Oragahn wrote:
The pre-launch warhead fueling theory is a good one. However, it absolutely requires the proof that the NX-01's tubes are able to control and deposit very specific quantities of antimatter before firing their torpedos.

Yes, the warp reactor on the NX-01 uses matter-antimatter reactions. Here's Tucker's description of it from "Cold Front" [season 1]:

TUCKER: The gravimetric field displacement manifold, commonly known as the warp reactor. Just think of it as a great big engine but instead of using electricity or chemical fuel it runs on antimatter. See this swirling light? When matter and antimatter collide it creates a whole lot of energy. We channel that energy through those conduits over there. They lead to the two large glowing cylinders you may have seen on the outside of the ship.
SONSORRA: The nacelles.
TUCKER: That's right.

So yes, they have pretty good control of the matter-antimatter reaction power generation process by the time of of mid-22nd century. Fusion (Impulse) power is also available for other applications.
-Mike

[Mr. Oragahn]

Ok, so this will let me revise my estimations, and use another source, rather than a likely uncharged warhead.

[TheRedFear]

In Living Witness (VOY):

"One of the Voyager's torpedoes. Twenty five isoton yield. It could destroy an entire city within seconds."

One could simply note that it's not like he said it would STOP at destroying the city.

And for whatever it's worth(which, admittedly, aint much)in Omega Directive, Kim did say it would destroy a SMALL Planet. This was around the time that, oh say Pluto, was still considered a "Small Planet". There are moons out there(in science fiction anyway) that could be considered small planets, complete with their own eco systems and life forms and atmospheres.

[Mr. Oragahn]

Hello,

I have had a little getaway. But now I'm back. It's interessting and satisfying how much the debate has developed in this one week.

I have some questions for Mr. Oragahn.

That said, I don't see how it would explain the superior yield. Because even if a gravimetric warhead is necessary to bust omega molecules, the reactants and technology used for such a warhead wouldn't be kept by the UFP to only be used within Omega Directives, when it would be extremely useful for the simple purpose of winning battles.

Why do you expect, that they would use in each battle the most powerfull weapons they have?

• There are nukes since 1945 and - except for the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - they wasn't used although the states with nukes have had numerous wars and battles [1].
  
  Not every warships and not every plane of these states are equipped with nukes. Often they have "only" conventional weapons.

Because conventional weapons prove enough, and the nukes are simply completely overkill and cause too much destruction and mayhem.

However, these points don't stand anymore in an universe where weapons can be dialed up and down as much as warheads can be filled up with reactants, before the torps are fired.
Besides, it does make sense to fire such powerful weapons against enemies who have repeatedly curbstomped, or proved at least superior, to most UFP, Klingon and Vulcan forces.

Especially when we're talking about space battles, with no adverse effects on biospheres.
There is no reason to limit yourself.

And the sheer fact that the UFP moved to quantum torpedoes as much as possible proves it.

We know for example from the Voyager episode The Voyager Conspiracy, that a Tricobalt device, a type of high yield explosive, isn't routinely carried by Federation vessels. It was exceptional that the Voyager has such devices on board to destroy the Caretaker's array.

We know for example from Star Trek: Insurrection that the Khitomer Accords banned the use of subspace weapons and that all powers but the Son'a observe this accord.

They voluntary do without weapons which are mightier than their "conventional" weapons - even in war.
Apparently that doesn't mean that they have no mightier weapons as they use. Because than such accords would be unnecessary. They have weapons which are mightier than their "conventional" weapons. But their vessels aren't routinely equipped with these.[/list]Could it be that the weapons, used in the battles you have in mind, aren't the mightiest weapons of Star Trek?

For a notable reason: the tricobalt weapons have severe repercussions on subspace, which forbids warp travel, and would isolate entire forces.

Of course, why the enemies of the UFP didn't use such weapons is an overall plot convenience, cause what's better to cut the border by isolating your enemy. But that's for another topic.

The point is, there is not a shred of proof that a gravimetric warhead explosion as any consequence on subspace.

Antimatter is antimatter, and no matter how you look at it, a perfect reaction will only provide a finite and well known amount of energy.

But who says that antimatter has to consist of antihydrogen?

If antimatter is composed of antiparticles in the same way that normal matter is composed of particles, there could be antilead or even antineutronium.

• The Balloon-borne Experiment with Superconducting Spectrometer (BESS) is searching for larger antinuclei, in particular antihelium [2].

Sure, such matter could not occur naturally.
But I see no reason why it would be scientifical impossible to produce such antimatter.

And if a matter-antimatter-anihilation from Star Trek is releasing more energy than a hydrogen-antihydrogen-anihilation is supposed to do, the logical conclusion would be, that they use heavier matter and anti-matter (and only use traditional expressions when they speak of it).

• If the antimatter used by Starfleet consist of larger antinuclei, it could have states of aggregation similar to their normal counterparts. That could explain why it was necessary to heat up the antimatter and matter: It has to be molten before it could be piped in small amounts to the warp core. As long as both was solid, it only would have been possible to bring both blocks of matter and antimatter together what would create a real big explosion.
  A warp core, build to handle liquid matter and antimatter, can't be continuous filled with still solid matter. First, It could be difficult to cut a little piece of antimatter from a solid block of it - and, second, to throw it manually in the reaction chamber to a block of the same mass of the counterpart-matter - without causing an exlosion beforehand.

• • The following dialogue occurs when Kirk and his officers are discussing what to do :
    • • • Kirk:
        Antimatter seems our only possibility.
        
        • Spock:
        An ounce should be sufficient. We can drain it from the ships engines, transport it to the planet's surface in a magnetic vacuum field.
        
        • Kirk:
        Contact medical stores. I want as much haemoplasm as they can spare in the transporter room in fifteen minutes.
        
        • Garrovick:
        Yes sir.
        
        • McCoy:
        I presume you plan to use the haemoplasm to attract the creature?
        
        • Kirk:
        We must get it to the antimatter. It seems attracted to red blood cells, what better bait could we have?
        
        • Spock:
        There is still one problem, captain
        
        • Kirk:
        The blast, yes.
        
        • Spock:
        Exactly. A matter-antimatter blast will rip away half the planet's atmosphere. If our vessel is in orbit and encounters those shock waves...
        
        • Kirk:
        A chance we'll have to take, Mister Spock.
    One ounce is 28.349523125 grams. Presuming that this would react with an equal amount of matter, the total reaction mass would be just under 56.7 grams, or 0.0567 kilogrammes. The maximum possible theoretical energy release would be given by the famous equation E=mc2

  • • It isn't said, why it wasn't considered as possible that with >> ounce << not the ounce as a unit of mass but the fluid ounce as a unit of volume could have been meant. Especially if one speaks of liquid antimatter it seems to suggest itself that the latter could have been meant.
      
      That would make more sense if one tries to explain why an ounce of antimatter release more energy than an ounce of antihydrogen is supposed to do.
      
      If ounce is used as a unit of mass, it would be irrelevant what kind of antimatter they have used because the mass would be still the same and therefore the in anihilation released energy.
      
      But if ounce is used as a unit of volume for liquids, an ounce could have different mass, depending on the kind of antimatter used. An ounce of antilead would have more mass than an ounce of antihydrogen and releasing more energy in anihilation.
      
      • One, who is better in math than I am, could even calculate, how dense the antimatter have to be to release enough energy in an anihilation to rip away half a planet's atmosphere. According to The Daystrom Institute Technical Library, that would need about 73'725'000'000 Megatons.

An ounce is an ounce, and different from a fluid ounce. Kirk also considered that a pound of antimatter, which is clearly an unit of mass, in theory 19.5 megatons, could destroy a star system.
Besides, it simply does not fit with the rest of Trek.
No rationalization is possible.
As for the densities, they would be absurd as well.
To produce a blast of 42.96 Petatons, you'd need 1.71 e9 kg of antimatter, contained within 30 ml or a bit less (that fluid ounce).

No, their antimatter figures back then were awfully wrong, plain and simple.

[Mike DiCenso]

Unfortunately, there are multiple references throughtout Trek, even into the modern eras, of antimatter doing strange things. For example, besides the unsually high explosive yeilds from relatively small amounts of antimatter as seen in TOS' "Obsession" and "The Immunity Syndrome", we have the E-D sitting at idle around a planet in "True Q" generating some 12.75 billion gigawatts (12.75 million terawatts) with no concern for fuel consumption (at least 47 kilograms of antimatter a second with 100% efficeincy), which would soon become the case, if we went with anything like realistic energy release figures for antimatter-matter reactions and modestly efficent mounts of the reactants being able to come in contract with each other. Within a minute, even with 100% efficiency, 2.8 metric tons of antimatter are consumed. Within an hour, 170 metrics tons. In a day, 4,098 tons, and so on. If the E-D massed out at 6 million metric tons, and 90% of her mass was fuel and equally divided between the matter and antimatter; her antimatter would last about 2 years. Seems okay, right?

But we know that the ship is not like a modern rocket where half her gross weight is fuel reactants. So where does that leave us? We've seen the MSD displays and the locations of the antimatter pods in the ship's stardrive hull. They don't have a lot of room necessarily for millions of tonnes of antimatter, even if they are highly densified. If the ship instead carried 1 million tonnes of reactant mass, equally divided, of course; then it follows that 500,000 will allow for 123 days of fuel consumption, assuming 100% efficiency. The E-D or other Federation starships would have to be able to reach a starbase or have a tanker constantly standing by somewhere.

Get the picture? Hyperdense antimatter/matter fuel storage, or hyper-energetic antimatter-matter reactions.

There is also just the really peculiar traits seen with Trek antimatter. Graham Kennedy lists some of them in the article of his you cite above, such as the odd limitation of cold-starting antimatter and matter reactions. Realistically, it should not matter what the temperature is.

So, if you want to try and throw out what is going on here, then we have serious problems as much of what happens in a number of episodes (and their attendant plots) disappears.
-Mike

[Praeothmin]

Ok, so we know they use matter/antimatter annihilation to power their ships.

We know the mix goes into the Warp drive and that's where the power is created.
What do the Dilithium crystals do?
We know they are used in some fashion to control the reaction, but what if they also enhanced the energy ouptut of the matter/antimatter annihilation?
Even with only a tenfold increase, you decrease the necessary mass of reactants by 90%.

And if I remember correctly, Data necer finished his sentence.
He said the E-D "generated 12.75 billion gigawatts in..." and then was cut off.
Was he meaning seconds, minutes, hours?
We do not know.

And as for the mass and fuel mass consumption, this case would be similar to the ICS stating that an ISD consumes 40 000 tons of fuel per (what was it, seconds).
If an ISD has a mass 10 times that of a Galaxy-class (around 4.5 million metric tons), let's say 50 million metric tons, it would be able to operate very long at that rate of fuel consumption, now would it?

[Who is like God arbour]

Mr. Oragahn

• To be honest, I don't understand, what you are trying to say.
  
  I have shown that certain kinds of weapons are prohibited by interstellar treaties. Most of the powers are observing these treaties - even in war.
  
  The possible reason for that is very simple. Already Kant has said that "No State Shall, during War, Permit Such Acts of Hostility Which Would Make Mutual Confidence in the Subsequent Peace Impossible: Such Are the Employment of Assassins (percussores), Poisoners (venefici), Breach of Capitulation, and Incitement to Treason (perduellio) in the Opposing State" [Perpetual peace].
  
  For example, Germany has in the Second World War - although it has had enough chemical weapons and has known that it will lose the war - never used chemical weapons.
  
  Why is it so difficult to believe that the main powers of the alpha-quadrant are observing their treaties? Why is it so difficult to believe, that even the Dominion, which is bound to the treaties, the Cardassians have entered, are observing these? They all have known that it is possible that the other side could win the war.
  
  And if theses powers are able to build bigger weapons but don't build them because they wouldn't use them, observing their treaties, why should their ships be commonly equipped with them (devices and launchers)?
  
  If they are building new ships with the one and only purpose to use such weapons (because that would end the war with one strike), they would equip them with such launchers (and devices).
  
  That's why the fact that we don't see such weapons regularly, has no relevance. We also don't see the most and powerful weapons on the battle fields of today.
  
  
  
  And your objection to the possible use of the ounce is very weak.
  
  "An ounce is an ounce, and different from a fluid ounce." What is that for a stupid statement. Please show that no ones use the term ounce if he is meaning a fluid ounce. I don't know how it is in English. But I would be surprised if there isn't a deterioration in the language and not all what is said is terminologically exactly.
  
  Why would it not fit with the rest of Star Trek if Kirk would used the term ounce while meaning a fluid ounce?
  
  Why is no rationalization possible?
  
  The only valid argument, you have brought, is your density-argument. But that is refutable. The container, in which the anti-matter was transported, was relativ great for the small amount of anti-matter, it should contain - regardless if it would be an ounce of anti-hydrogen or an fluid ounce of another kind of anti-matter. The size could be necessary to include devices (force-field generators and their energy supply) to contain anti-matter that is pressed in the volume of an fluid ounce.
  
  
  
  Many are regarding TOS as highest canon, even higher than all other series and movies. You can't simply ignore that episode. Maybe they have had no clue about anti-matter. But that's irrelevant. It has happened. They have used an ounce of anti-matter to rip away half a planet's atmosphere.
  
  Their anti-matter is releasing more energy than anti-hydrogen is supposed to do. Ergo, it is either no anti-hydrogen or they are using the explosion of that anti-hydrogen only as a initial-explosion to create another explosion, maybe by creating some kind of singularity.
  
  But the fact remains that they are able to create a 73'725'000'000 megatons explosion with only an [fluid] ounce of anti-matter. We can try to find explanations for that or can conceede that we can't explain it. But the fact remains regardless of our succes to explain it.

Praeothmin

• As far as I know, it is impossible to enhance the energy ouptut of the matter/antimatter annihilation only by using a dilithium crystal. At a matter/antimatter annihilation both reactants are dissolved in energy. The released energy depends only on the mass of the dissolved matter. As long as the dilithium crystal is not able to increase the matter, the anhilation will not release more energy.
  
  And you are right, Data has not finished his sentence. But ask yourself what would he have most propably said, if he wasn't cut off. But that's not a debate I want to start now. I recommend the side Warp Core Power Generation.

[Praeothmin]

The released energy depends only on the mass of the dissolved matter. As long as the dilithium crystal is not able to increase the matter, the anhilation will not release more energy.

From our understanding of physics, yes, but for a Federation that has found a way to dematerialize people and reassemble them many thousands of kilometers away, completely unscathed, just as they were before, who really knows?

[Mike DiCenso]

Praeothmin wrote:

What do the Dilithium crystals do?
We know they are used in some fashion to control the reaction, but what if they also enhanced the energy ouptut of the matter/antimatter annihilation?

Dilithium's role has been inconsistant since TOS. In some episodes it seems as though the ship's only source of power was the crystals, rather than fusion or antimatter. In others, the dilithium's role is far less clear, only hints being tossed about that it is used to regulate the reaction of the matter and antimatter.

Even with only a tenfold increase, you decrease the necessary mass of reactants by 90%.

That would be nice, but there is little information to coroborate that idea.

And if I remember correctly, Data necer finished his sentence.
He said the E-D "generated 12.75 billion gigawatts in..." and then was cut off.
Was he meaning seconds, minutes, hours?
We do not know.

Except that it makes little sense with regards to what gigawatts is: gigajoules per second, not minutes, hours, nor days, ect.

Anyway, the actual quote is:

Amanda : 'It's hard to imagine how much energy is harnessed in there.'

Data : 'Imagination is not necessary; the scale is readily quantifiable. We are presently generating twelve point seven five billion gigawatts per-' [cut off by alarm].

Per what? There is nothing more, unless Data means per an amount of reactants. Since we know that the E-D engines are not 100% efficent, it cannot be the amounts shown in the base calculations I did. Thus the engine will lose reactants at a far faster rate. Realistically we would see the ship run out of reactants in 90-100 days or less.

And yet we do not see or hear of any concern over this. It is seldom heard of in Trek for a ship to be in danger of running out of fuel, even in ST:VOY.
-Mike

[Jedi Master Spock]

And yet we do not see or hear of any concern over this. It is seldom heard of in Trek for a ship to be in danger of running out of fuel, even in ST:VOY.
-Mike

Actually - see my recent updated Voyager warp page - there's a lot of talk about being short of fuel and running out of fuel in Voyager.

On the flip side, in TNG, there's some talk about Bussard ramscoops.