What's quantum singularity? How's it used as a power source?

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2002-12-07 01:06am

What is it? How's it used?

And what do people mean when they talk about using black holes as power sources?

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2002-12-07 01:10am

A singularity is a point which has mass but no dimensions (no length, no height, no width). There is a singularity concealed inside every black hole.

As for power generation, there are a couple of ideas, but a singularity is not magic. It has a finite amount of mass, and it cannot produce energy any more efficiently than matter/antimatter annihilation can. The only distinction is that it doesn't take up as much space.

Exonerate · Post by **Exonerate** » 2002-12-07 01:13am

IIRC, it has something to do with the spin of the black hole... I forgot the details, sorry.

Crown · Post by **Crown** » 2002-12-07 01:26am

OMG you mean people actually thought of this? I was always under the impression that it was just a Sci-fi term. Man I need to catch up on some wider reading!

data_link · Post by **data_link** » 2002-12-07 01:27am

Darth Wong wrote:A singularity is a point which has mass but no dimensions (no length, no height, no width). There is a singularity concealed inside every black hole.

As for power generation, there are a couple of ideas, but a singularity is not magic. It has a finite amount of mass, and it cannot produce energy any more efficiently than matter/antimatter annihilation can. The only distinction is that it doesn't take up as much space.

You can of course, continually feed new mass into the singularity over time if you want to keep it going. And while it may not be magic in RL, with the power of treknobabble it is possible to harvest an infinite amount of energy from it.

data_link · Post by **data_link** » 2002-12-07 01:28am

Crown wrote:OMG you mean people actually thought of this? I was always under the impression that it was just a Sci-fi term. Man I need to catch up on some wider reading!

Nearly all sci-fi terms stem from real ideas in real science... after the idiots have fucked them up beyond all recognition.

Crown · Post by **Crown** » 2002-12-07 01:29am

data_link wrote:Nearly all sci-fi terms stem from real ideas in real science... after the idiots have fucked them up beyond all recognition.

Of course, that's just a sci-fi writer's modus operandi isn't it?

TheDarkOne · Post by **TheDarkOne** » 2002-12-07 08:23pm

"Of course, that's just a sci-fi writer's modus operandi isn't it?'

No, not really. There are some sci-fi stories with real science in them, I think this sub genre is refered to as "hard science ficiton".

data_link · Post by **data_link** » 2002-12-07 08:28pm

TheDarkOne wrote:"Of course, that's just a sci-fi writer's modus operandi isn't it?'

No, not really. There are some sci-fi stories with real science in them, I think this sub genre is refered to as "hard to read science ficiton".

That, I think, is more accurate.