We have Matter meeting Antimatter, then ????? then POWER!

[Shroom Man 777]

Fun thought: What if the M/AM reactors were a massive internal combustion engine? WITH PISTONS!

[McC]

It wasn't cooling fluid.

I just re-watched the movie this weekend, and though the label there says inert reactant, the computer voice also says, "Turbine release valve activated" when Kirk opens the hatch for Scotty to escape. Then, on the bridge, Chekov says: "Captain Spock, detecting unauthorized access to water turbine control room."

[Simon_Jester]

It wasn't cooling fluid.

I just re-watched the movie this weekend, and though the label there says inert reactant, the computer voice also says, "Turbine release valve activated" when Kirk opens the hatch for Scotty to escape. Then, on the bridge, Chekov says: "Captain Spock, detecting unauthorized access to water turbine control room."

My first guess is that the turbine is actually driving the flow, not tapping it for power, but that's probably ridiculous for some reason.

[Abraxas]

If it was cooling fluid, Scotty would have been boiled alive. Despite the superficial implication of the name, cooling fluids are actually hot; that's the whole point of them.

As an engineer aboard a real ship, I can say you're half right. On real ships, seawater can usually be used to cool off most machinery components - except the main engine, which usually uses a closed loop system. Coolant fluid (water and glycol mix) circulates through the engine and then back out, where that fluid is cooled off by seawater. It usually goes to a fresh water generator of some kind to take advantage of the "free" heat, but either way, after it gets hot in the engine, it cools down somewhere else.

It's the same reason your car, also utilizing a closed loop system, has radiator. In space flight, It's more logical to recycle fluid, which means they probably use some sort of closed loop system as well.

So, no. There is no garuntee that the coolant fluid would boil him alive.

If it really is water and the ship really uses turbines, they would need a crap load of water. You can make the future as efficient as you want, but you'd still need a ridiculous amount of feed water...

It's entirely possible that the ship simply has an onboard plumbing system for showers and drinking water, and that's what he fell into.

Very true.

But those pipes are moving A LOT of water just so people can wash their hands.

It wasn't cooling fluid.

Well, that setteles that.

It wasn't cooling fluid.

I just re-watched the movie this weekend, and though the label there says inert reactant, the computer voice also says, "Turbine release valve activated" when Kirk opens the hatch for Scotty to escape. Then, on the bridge, Chekov says: "Captain Spock, detecting unauthorized access to water turbine control room."

My first guess is that the turbine is actually driving the flow, not tapping it for power, but that's probably ridiculous for some reason.

Well, then it's a pump. Not a turbine.

And once again, SciFi writers prove they don't know jack about engineering.

[Sea Skimmer]

Fun thought: What if the M/AM reactors were a massive internal combustion engine? WITH PISTONS!

Couldn't be! HAB already has the exclusive patent on that related to our Atomic Ignition Engine technology. Speak of this further and you owe us a quarter.

My first guess is that the turbine is actually driving the flow, not tapping it for power, but that's probably ridiculous for some reason.

Nope not at all, turbine pumps are very very common things. In fact in the modern age pumps which are not some kind of turbine are probably a minority. A modern car easily has four or five different turbine pumps in the engine and transmission already.