Discussion of proposed new arguments

Jim Raynor · Post by **Jim Raynor** » 2006-10-22 08:49pm

This was split off from the other arguments thread.

The Silence and I · Post by **The Silence and I** » 2006-10-23 04:44pm

Darth Servo wrote:Firepower from "Whom Gods destroy"
"The Paradise Syndrome" shows Spock trying to split into pieces an asteroid stated to be nearly the size of Earth's moon using phasers after failing to deflect it sufficiently using the ship's deflector screens. Even considering that he was attempting to take advantage of a "weak spot" in the asteroid, as well as the asteroid being somewhat less than actually moon-sized, this would require zettajoules of imparted energy if not yottajoules to pull off - i.e., the equivalent of gigatons to teratons of TNT. The actual effect achieved is somewhat less impressive; the first normal phaser blast used on the asteroid produces a splash of glow about a third the diameter of the asteroid; a full broadside with the phasers only causes a small square of the asteroid to glow molten red.

++http://www.starfleetjedi.net/Square_Blast.jpg
Give me a break. You can tell just from the size of the phasers comparative to the asteroid that the rock isn't anywhere near the size of the moon.

I'm going to nitpick you here: phasers are capable of wide beam, and if the range is long you won't notice the change in beam width across the screen--and lets face it, in TOS the range was almost always long, and hitting a moon/asteroid is easy at any range.

Just saying, you'll need to go more into depth than "the phasers are too wide for the asteroid to be that big." The asteroid is not spherical, I suggest using that approach might be more convincing.

Darth Servo · Post by **Darth Servo** » 2006-10-24 01:10am

The Silence and I wrote:I'm going to nitpick you here: phasers are capable of wide beam, and if the range is long you won't notice the change in beam width across the screen--and lets face it, in TOS the range was almost always long, and hitting a moon/asteroid is easy at any range.

Just saying, you'll need to go more into depth than "the phasers are too wide for the asteroid to be that big." The asteroid is not spherical, I suggest using that approach might be more convincing.

Any particular reason why they would disperse their power over such a large area in that incident?

The Silence and I · Post by **The Silence and I** » 2006-10-24 03:41pm

Darth Servo wrote:
The Silence and I wrote:I'm going to nitpick you here: phasers are capable of wide beam, and if the range is long you won't notice the change in beam width across the screen--and lets face it, in TOS the range was almost always long, and hitting a moon/asteroid is easy at any range.

Just saying, you'll need to go more into depth than "the phasers are too wide for the asteroid to be that big." The asteroid is not spherical, I suggest using that approach might be more convincing.
Any particular reason why they would disperse their power over such a large area in that incident?

Yes: phasers are chain reaction weapons, wide beam may (it also may not but we lack the information needed to make a determination) be more efficient if you wish to affect large areas of a large target. You would certainly be correct if phasers were primarily DET, but we know they are not.

It is far more convincing to argue with something you know (asteroids above a certain size ought to be spherical) than with something you think makes the most sense, maybe (phasers probably won't work as well against rock when spread out just like a laser which phasers really don't resemble in any meaningful fashion). After all, the idea is to convince other people, right? You thinking the phaser chain reaction isn't self sustaining enough to make wide beam work isn't very solid. Pointing out that an object the size of Earth's moon has to be very round because of X Y and Z is much more solid.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2006-10-24 03:53pm

It's also noteworthy that very large objects will not fracture the same way small ones do. Explosion effects do not scale up linearly with dimension. You can crack a rock in two with a hammer, but if you tried to crack a Moon-sized rock in two with a giant hammer, you'd have the contact face vapourizing from the energy of impact, with blinding plasma shooting everywhere. It wouldn't look remotely similar.

Solauren · Post by **Solauren** » 2006-10-25 07:49am

Is there a set of calculations you can use to show that? Cause that would be a very interesting point to include.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2006-10-26 09:19am

Solauren wrote:Is there a set of calculations you can use to show that? Cause that would be a very interesting point to include.

The only necessary calc is incredibly simple: volume (and therefore mass) scales up to the third power, while surface area scales up to the second power. So the amount of energy necessary to impart proportional fragment velocity to the fragments generated by a fracturing incident goes up much faster than the size of the surface area being struck, thus necessitating a linear increase in the energy density at the contact face.

In other words, an object which is 1000 times larger will require an impact which has 1000 times the energy density at the face of contact. In the case of scaling up from 1 metre rock to a 1600km moon, you're talking about 1.6 million times the energy density at the contact face.

Solauren · Post by **Solauren** » 2006-10-26 11:34am

Easy enough to follow

An complete 'step by step' example on the website might be a good idea for the scientifically declined/ignorant however.