I just had to share this silly Death Star argument

[Darth Wong]

Besides, what retard is going to try and re-float the moronic idea of initiating fission or fusion conditions in a planetary mass?

[Vympel]

They think they're being very clever by just saying "it somehow ... releases ... the energy .... by a chain reaction that's ... EXOTIC! It explains the rings because ... just because!" They run to fission and fusion as "support" for some ultra-futuristic, CoE violating MUECR ... (Mysterious Unknown Exotic Chain Reaction).

I have beat them over the head with this countless times, it just doesn't sink in. It's classic creationist undefined theory bullshit.

How's this: when I pointed out how utterly fucked up GStone had gotten the concepts of force, energy, power, and gravitational force/ energy, he quoted the damn DICTIONARY at me! (except in the last case, he had no precious Merriam Webster for that, obviously, so he just gave a generalized snort about how ridiculous my arguments were) ...

[Vympel]

More fun!

The complications of having 10^44 J on hand are hardly baseless. No matter what form, 10^44 J has momentum and interacts gravitationally as per Jupiter when you have it on hand, due to conservation of mass/energy and momentum. We should see some very dramatic tidal effects; at six times the planetary diameter of Earth away compressed into a point mass, a 10^44 J Death Star would have a larger gravitational effect on objects on the surface of the Earth than Earth did. Again... the Death Star would not be orbiting Earthlike planets. They would orbit it.

The OT:ITW ascribes some havoc wreaked on Endor by the DS2, but not on this scale. The main page also makes reference to this "problem".

and

The precise value does not matter. What matters for releasing energy is the change in value. I could claim a positive value associated with the binding energy - perhaps we should label it "freedom energy" in this case - of nucleons theoretically, and it would be equivalent mathematically provided I maintained the shape of the curve. We prefer, however, to label the free state of nucleons as the base [zero] value, and speak of binding energy as negative, because it's much more convenient for us. (And, for that matter, rather habitual on our part.)

and

Fe-56 has one of the most negative values of binding energy; in general, when you move towards it, you begin with a higher binding energy, and end with a lower binding energy. Thus, the binding energy is released in the energetic nuclear reactions.

I don't get this at all- is he proposing iron undergoing "energetic nuclear reactions"? That's what it reads like.

and

Conversely from the above, the negative value of the binding energy must be released to the external enviroment in assembly of the atom - i.e., in fusing the atom from scratch. This is why fusing is - up to iron - a net energy release.

And very simply, it's positive energy being released in the matter, and is nuclear binding energy. You can't get the negative value associated with the atom itself without releasing the positive equivalent into the enviroment, typically in the form of very high energy photons and KE of associated particle radiation.

Pretty much as you said, Mike- he simplifies moving to lower energy states as "releasing binding energy".

[Darth Wong]

More fun!

The complications of having 10^44 J on hand are hardly baseless. No matter what form, 10^44 J has momentum and interacts gravitationally as per Jupiter when you have it on hand, due to conservation of mass/energy and momentum. We should see some very dramatic tidal effects; at six times the planetary diameter of Earth away compressed into a point mass, a 10^44 J Death Star would have a larger gravitational effect on objects on the surface of the Earth than Earth did. Again... the Death Star would not be orbiting Earthlike planets. They would orbit it.

The OT:ITW ascribes some havoc wreaked on Endor by the DS2, but not on this scale. The main page also makes reference to this "problem".

Where the fuck did he get 1E44 J? Is he saying that the Death Star can fire off 1 million shots like the 1E38 J Alderaan blast without having to refuel?

The precise value does not matter. What matters for releasing energy is the change in value. I could claim a positive value associated with the binding energy - perhaps we should label it "freedom energy" in this case - of nucleons theoretically, and it would be equivalent mathematically provided I maintained the shape of the curve. We prefer, however, to label the free state of nucleons as the base [zero] value, and speak of binding energy as negative, because it's much more convenient for us. (And, for that matter, rather habitual on our part.)

Wrong, the assignment of negative values to binding energy is not due to mere convenience; that is the quantity of energy that has already been converted to some other form by sinking into the debt system that is a potential energy well, such as gravity as magnetics or any other analogous system. This is like saying that it's purely arbitrary to state that a bank balance of zero is set at zero rather than making "zero" the point where you owe the bank fifty thousand dollars. It's not about convenience; it's about a fundamental principle; potential energy wells are about "borrowing" energy.

Fe-56 has one of the most negative values of binding energy; in general, when you move towards it, you begin with a higher binding energy, and end with a lower binding energy. Thus, the binding energy is released in the energetic nuclear reactions.

Yet again, this is like saying that when you borrow even more money from the bank, you actually found a way to spend your existing debt.

[Ted C]

Where the fuck did he get 1E44 J? Is he saying that the Death Star can fire off 1 million shots like the 1E38 J Alderaan blast without having to refuel?

No, it's just part of his "chain reaction" mantra. He figures that the mass of Alderaan, if converted to energy, would yield 1E44 J, so Alderaan can easily supply enough energy to destroy Alderaan. He's oblivious to the corresponding implications for Imperial power generation technology, since he assumes that the Death Star is fusion-powered based on a mindless interpretation of the novelization.

[Meest]

Vympel: According to the measure of explicative power, "God did it" would be the best scientific theory in the world, when detailed enough. "God did it" has the strength to explain any phenomenon. It's also not testable.

Isn't that basically admitting he's unfit to even debate a subject if he believes that. I really want to know if they believe their own crap, or if their private messages too each other actually admit they are just trying to pull anything out of their ass to make Trek look better. Glad I'm just an observer now, it's been weeks of the same crap just them rewording it to prolong the agony.

Don't know how you can deal with Trek side saying, "As long as I come up unsubstantiated theories all other theories are moot until you can disprove my theories that don't prove anything." Hope you keep pounding them until submission, they have so much bullshit invested already it will be a sweet victory to watch.

[Vympel]

Don't know how you can deal with Trek side saying, "As long as I come up unsubstantiated theories all other theories are moot until you can disprove my theories that don't prove anything." Hope you keep pounding them until submission, they have so much bullshit invested already it will be a sweet victory to watch.

There's really no victory against such a bullshit claim. I'm just tired of it. I made the idiot explicitly admit his theory was undefined and thus worthless, and that's good enough I think.

tjhairball continues with his insistence:

Actually, it is pure convenience and convention. I could measure Fe-56 as having a 0 binding energy per nucleon and work up from there - it would work, in all respects, exactly the same.

Financial analogy response

Actually, that analogy fails to describe the matter... and you again fail to grasp the math.

I can make zero the point where I owe the bank $50,000 in physics, because in physics, there is no interest and the bank will let me withdraw the $50,000 whether my account started at $50,000 and the floor is 0, or I started at 0 and the floor is -$50,000. There's no interest, and I can pull out $50,000 and blow it all at Vegas. For a proton or neutron, this "floor" in ordinary nuclear dynamics is a gang of 55 other fellows, 26 of whom carry net charge.

He can just magically pull out $50,000.00 when he has no money. Isn't that interesting.

and

Listen to yourself... your rhetoric is even getting inconsistent. That which "has been spent" has to have been spent at a particular point in time.

One wonders how this is "inconsistent" with what I've prevously said.

When this spending of nuclear binding energy happens is whenever you split or fuse atoms towards Fe-56. You spend the energy within the atom, and it leaves the atom and does its little part towards making a mushroom cloud, or boiling steam, or what-have-you.

Similarly, I can "spend" gravitational potential energy when I roll a rock down a hill. I get energy out, the potential energy falls - into negatives if necessary, depending on my reference frame. When I let an electron zip to a positive ion - that, too, releases energy. Referring to the energy release of fission and fusion as the release of nuclear binding energy is semantically appropriate, mathematically correct, and physically apt, which is why fission is very commonly described as "releasing nuclear binding energy."

Again with the focus on it's "semantically" correct and "commonly described".

[Stark]

Vympel, can't you just destroy his credibility by exposing his lack of knowledge and forget about it? You'll never beat his 'arguments', since they're not really coherent arguments. Just kill his cheer squad and count it as a win.

[Vympel]

Vympel, can't you just destroy his credibility by exposing his lack of knowledge and forget about it? You'll never beat his 'arguments', since they're not really coherent arguments. Just kill his cheer squad and count it as a win.

In order to expose one's lack of knowledge the audience must be able to recognize it. This is a very small forum with like four pro-Trek debaters and one or two pro-Wars. That's it.

I mean, seriously, we've got this guy there who doesn't think the Death Star had to withstand the effects of Alderaan's destruction from 6 planetary diameters away. He thinks it just would've stopped short.

[Stark]

In order to expose one's lack of knowledge the audience must be able to recognize it. This is a very small forum with like four pro-Trek debaters and one or two pro-Wars. That's it.

I mean, seriously, we've got this guy there who doesn't think the Death Star had to withstand the effects of Alderaan's destruction from 6 planetary diameters away. He thinks it just would've stopped short.

Oh.

Wow.

Maybe you should quit while you're ahead? Stress can be a killer

[Darth Servo]

I mean, seriously, we've got this guy there who doesn't think the Death Star had to withstand the effects of Alderaan's destruction from 6 planetary diameters away. He thinks it just would've stopped short.

Wow. They will literally make up ANYTHING to prop up their ridiculous ideas. I suppose he doesn't even bother trying to explain WHY the debris would stop in the vacuum of space, does he?

[Vympel]

I mean, seriously, we've got this guy there who doesn't think the Death Star had to withstand the effects of Alderaan's destruction from 6 planetary diameters away. He thinks it just would've stopped short.

Wow. They will literally make up ANYTHING to prop up their ridiculous ideas. I suppose he doesn't even bother trying to explain WHY the debris would stop in the vacuum of space, does he?

No. He just says I "have no evidence".

[Dark Hellion]

Of course never mind that a physics major which far greater knowledge of Quantum Mechanics, High Energy phenomena and other shit is telling them that they are wrong. No, I mean, attending the second best school for physics in my state doesn't make me an authority on physics, thus, it is an Appeal to Authority for me to state that their theories aren't scientifically sound. (I think the forum needs a bigger rolleyes emoticon, I just don't feel I can portray the sarcasm with this dinky little thing)

[Darth Servo]

I mean, seriously, we've got this guy there who doesn't think the Death Star had to withstand the effects of Alderaan's destruction from 6 planetary diameters away. He thinks it just would've stopped short.

Wow. They will literally make up ANYTHING to prop up their ridiculous ideas. I suppose he doesn't even bother trying to explain WHY the debris would stop in the vacuum of space, does he?

No. He just says I "have no evidence".

Just Newtons laws of motion. No; no evidence there.

[Darth Wong]

Don't know how you can deal with Trek side saying, "As long as I come up unsubstantiated theories all other theories are moot until you can disprove my theories that don't prove anything." Hope you keep pounding them until submission, they have so much bullshit invested already it will be a sweet victory to watch.

There's really no victory against such a bullshit claim. I'm just tired of it. I made the idiot explicitly admit his theory was undefined and thus worthless, and that's good enough I think.

tjhairball continues with his insistence:

Actually, it is pure convenience and convention. I could measure Fe-56 as having a 0 binding energy per nucleon and work up from there - it would work, in all respects, exactly the same.

Financial analogy response

Actually, that analogy fails to describe the matter... and you again fail to grasp the math.

I can make zero the point where I owe the bank $50,000 in physics, because in physics, there is no interest and the bank will let me withdraw the $50,000 whether my account started at $50,000 and the floor is 0, or I started at 0 and the floor is -$50,000. There's no interest, and I can pull out $50,000 and blow it all at Vegas. For a proton or neutron, this "floor" in ordinary nuclear dynamics is a gang of 55 other fellows, 26 of whom carry net charge.

What the fuck makes him think the analogy ever had anything to do with interest? The point of the analogy was to point out that a zero bank balance is not an arbitrary point in space, but has an actual meaning. Even a zero-interest debt is still a debt; what the fuck is he smoking?

He can just magically pull out $50,000.00 when he has no money. Isn't that interesting.

and

Listen to yourself... your rhetoric is even getting inconsistent. That which "has been spent" has to have been spent at a particular point in time.

One wonders how this is "inconsistent" with what I've prevously said.

When this spending of nuclear binding energy happens is whenever you split or fuse atoms towards Fe-56. You spend the energy within the atom, and it leaves the atom and does its little part towards making a mushroom cloud, or boiling steam, or what-have-you.

Similarly, I can "spend" gravitational potential energy when I roll a rock down a hill. I get energy out, the potential energy falls - into negatives if necessary, depending on my reference frame. When I let an electron zip to a positive ion - that, too, releases energy. Referring to the energy release of fission and fusion as the release of nuclear binding energy is semantically appropriate, mathematically correct, and physically apt, which is why fission is very commonly described as "releasing nuclear binding energy."

Again with the focus on it's "semantically" correct and "commonly described".

Is this imbecile honestly so fucking stupid that he doesn't understand how binding energy is the thing that gets BIGGER as you go deeper into debt and potential energy is the thing that gets SMALLER as you go deeper into debt, so they AREN'T THE SAME FUCKING THING no matter how much bullshit he tries to pull out of his ass? And has he forgotten that "exotic reaction to negate the binding force" bullshit that he tried to pull earlier, which completely annihilates his claim to have been pushing this revised position all along? He honestly thought that binding energy was some kind of secret store of energy that could be released, if you could just turn off the binding force that was holding it in. He can pretend that this isn't what he meant all day long, but it's right there in black and white.

This weaselly little twerp had not the slightest idea what the fuck he was talking about; he based his "research" solely on Googling, and as you explained the situation to him, he tried to pretend that this is what he meant all along. But if he actually meant potential energy, then why the fuck would he talk about an exotic reaction to negate the binding force, since the binding force is necessary for potential energy? This is like saying that you can "release" all of the gravitational potential energy of a mechanical system if you turn off gravity! Not to mention the absurd conservation of energy problems if you just "negate" a fundamental force like that, since you could easily use this "negate" reaction to produce a perpetual motion machine ...

He refuses to admit it, but it's plainly obvious just how ignorant he was, and it's also obvious how he has tried to amend his position after the fact, without ever admitting error.

[Vympel]

I called him on his "interest" red herring the moment he gave it, he just gave an empty response as "your analogy is ludicrous" and left it at that- he's dropped the entire issue now. The entire thing was extremely frustrating- it was kind of like arguing over the colour of the sky- outright contradiction.

And has he forgotten that "exotic reaction to negate the binding force" bullshit that he tried to pull earlier, which completely annihilates his claim to have been pushing this revised position all along? He honestly thought that binding energy was some kind of secret store of energy that could be released, if you could just turn off the binding force that was holding it in. He can pretend that this isn't what he meant all day long, but it's right there in black and white.

Mr "negate the binding force" was GStone [going off something hairball said]- he quickly abandoned that to a safer, completely undefined position, but hairball subsequently came in and accused me of "misunderstanding" nuclear potentional energy (i.e. him equating the two as he always did), which is what led us to here. Both of them are a special kind of crazy- GStone for using the dictionary to define energy, force and power compeletely backwards, claiming that the word "sun" is a special classification of star, and similar silliness, while hairball instead focused on the above. Even *he* has admitted it's not "practical" (understatement of the fucking century) ...

[Patrick Degan]

I don't think he's basing his (we can hardly call it) "research" even on Googling. This moron not only has no understanding of the fundamental concepts of binding and potential energies, he is proudly goldplating his ignorance as he goes along in the hopes that sufficent jargonese will produce an argument that is unanswerable. This is Darkstar's technique down the line, barring the outright dishonesty he indulges in trying to warp your own arguments into his strawmen.

[Darth Servo]

I called him on his "interest" red herring the moment he gave it, he just gave an empty response as "your analogy is ludicrous" and left it at that- he's dropped the entire issue now.

Kind of like how the owner of strek-v-swars treated the history book analogy of the EU.

[Lone_Prodigy]

Just now I read the Mike vs. Dark Star debate again, and it never gets old how hilariously insane RSA is.

[Trekdestroyer]

Just now I read the Mike vs. Dark Star debate again, and it never gets old how hilariously insane RSA is.

He may be stupid, but he does hide it behind flowery language and ear pleasing rhetoric to charm the foolish.

[Stark]

Whats amusing is so many Trek debaters do RSA-style attempts to disprove the weight of evidence with ONE example (like the Defiant-shields-up-in-nebula thing). It shows they don't understand logic, and are arguing backwards from their preferred conclusion.

[Setesh]

Watch out guys, we're standing on a giant nuke, just waiting to go off.

We're on a Galaxy-class starship, ahhhhhhhhhh *runs screaming into the night*

[Ghost Rider]

Necroing a thread for a bad joke?

Pooor form