What's new
Star Army

Star ArmyⓇ is a landmark of forum roleplaying. Opened in 2002, Star Army is like an internet clubhouse for people who love roleplaying, art, and worldbuilding. Anyone 18 or older may join for free. New members are welcome! Use the "Register" button below.

Note: This is a play-by-post RPG site. If you're looking for the tabletop miniatures wargame "5150: Star Army" instead, see Two Hour Wargames.

  • If you were supposed to get an email from the forum but didn't (e.g. to verify your account for registration), email Wes at [email protected] or talk to me on Discord for help. Sometimes the server hits our limit of emails we can send per hour.
  • Get in our Discord chat! Discord.gg/stararmy
  • 📅 October and November 2024 are YE 46.8 in the RP.

Community Meeting

In Discord Voice 1
In Discord Voice 1

Magneto Contraterrene Projector

Anti-matter is hard to create on its own, with the technology to make large quantities of anti-matter it shouldn't be hard to suspend it in carbon.

If you are going to make a fuss about relitively simple structures like buckyballs and anti-matter then you should really answer the

How does emrys industries produce it's smaller product's like custom-made proteins with quarternary structures et al?
Click to expand...

question.
 
That's significantly easier.

The way it tends to create such complex protiens and other complex molecules is through the creation of a geneticly engineered organic substance. However it also has machinery which can manipulate molecules in that rather fundamental fashion.

Fitting anti-matter in something is far harder, since you require fitting together two complex molecules, in a complex fasion, around anti-matter which you have to suround in a magnetic containment field untill the buckyball is formed, and make sure this magnetic field doesn't repel the bucky ball.

It's exspensive.
 
Magnetics don't affect carbon.

The way it tends to create such complex protiens and other complex molecules is through the creation of a geneticly engineered organic substance. However it also has machinery which can manipulate molecules in that rather fundamental fashion.
Click to expand...

Explain points 1, 2 and 3? Most other people say how. You just added more questions :p
 
Organics create protiens.

Creatate an organism - organism creates protiens.

By modifying organism - you can create more complicated protiens.
 
Exspensive does not apply to anything in this RP because there is no real economy as can be defined in terms that are understood by traditional economics.

In the case of anti-matter, its cost would be directly related to the cost of power. Because there are no utility companies it can be assumed that anti-matter is related to the cost of ZPE generators although becuase there are no prices listed for ZPE generators then it can be assumed that power is free and comes in 120v whateveramplitude via an outlit in the wall.

If anything, because anti-matter is power based and requires no resources from a mine it could be considerably cheaper than other explosives.




And how is it you modify these organisums? And how do these organisums produce these reactions anyways? They can't physicaly manipulate the structures beyond chemical reactions so it is safe to assume that you can replicate the effects much easyer in a vat of chemicals.
 
Organics create protiens.

Creatate an organism - organism creates protiens.

By modifying organism - you can create more complicated protiens.
Click to expand...

Again, no actual info here.

Also, mr. Z is right! AM is free! free doom for all! o.o[/code]
 
Uhm ...

The amount of energy you'd need to create a meaningfull amount of anti-matter would be ridiculous. 60% higher than it's output (due to 60% of a AM-M explosion escaping as neutrino's). Simply collecting energy and turning it into matter isn't really feasable. I'm not saying it's not possibly, it's just not neccesary.

SA - Uses transmogrification technology to get all the AM it needs.
Nepleslia - Has a real economy, so suddenly being cost effective matters. And having huge generators rigged to creating small amounts of anti-matter isn't a great use of resources. Especially with this complex and labour intensive mode of creating storable AM.
 
Power output in this sci-fi universe is signifigently higher than what is avalible in modern days.

Simply collecting energy and turning it into matter isn't really feasable.
Click to expand...

Not only is it feasable in this universe it is how you create anti-matter. Nep dosen't have a real economy either, or at least nothing as advanced as present day nations. You can not determine the cost of power but with ZPE generators fairlly common in this universe it is likely that anti-matter will be cheaper to produce because you don't need to get it from a mine, transport it, and ect. Labor also isn't an issue. The entire process could easily be automated as there aren't many steps to it and again because it only requires carbon and energy to produce the final product the cost of resources is minimal.
 
The amount of energy you'd need to create a meaningfull amount of anti-matter would be ridiculous. 60% higher than it's output (due to 60% of a AM-M explosion escaping as neutrino's). Simply collecting energy and turning it into matter isn't really feasable. I'm not saying it's not possibly, it's just not neccesary.
Click to expand...

What are you smoking? Only I want some.
The output of neutrinos in an AM-M reaction has nothing to do with the amount of energy required to make antimatter.


SA - Uses transmogrification technology to get all the AM it needs.
Click to expand...

This is relevant how?


Nepleslia - Has a real economy, so suddenly being cost effective matters. And having huge generators rigged to creating small amounts of anti-matter isn't a great use of resources. Especially with this complex and labour intensive mode of creating storable AM.
Click to expand...

No it doesn't, and who says it's made on nepleslia? Oh, and the weapon only needs tiny amounts of antimatter ANYWAY. As in, less than a gram per casing.
 
Mr Z makes more of a point than I do. I bow before his knowledge, and not in a sarcastic way!

...couple of milligrams suit?
 
Just so you know, since it hasn't been brought up yet, antimatter is simply matter with a charge of opposite sign to normal matter. This means the positrons will be attracted to Fullerene's electrons and the anti-protons of the anti-lead will also be attracted to the protons in carbon atoms.

Further, simple Van Der Walls interactions would cause random charge fluctuations within the buckyball. Since the ball is, for the most part, otherwise neutral, these interactions would the only meaningful electric charge within the C60 molecule. This is only going to be exacerbated by incredibly small size of the C60 molecule (~1 nm in diameter).

Assuming the random fluctuation of the molecules electrons momentarily creates a net charge of 8e-20 C (or ½ the charge of a electron, not unreasonable considering a c60 molecule has 360 electrons) and the lead posses the same net charge (but opposite sign). Since the Vand Der Walls radius of lead is .202 nm and the carbon's is .170 nm, the effective distance between the charges is just 110 pm. This would create a force of 4.7550e-9 N. A single lead atom has a mass of 3.44064e-25 kg and the C60 molecule has a mass of 1.1966e-24 kg. The force above would create an acceleration on the two as follows:

a(C60)= 3.9736e15 m/s^2

a(Pb)= 1.38202e16 m/s^2

If the charge imbalance existed for a period of 250 femtoseconds, the two would collide while still undergoing acceleration. If it existed for a mere 1 attosecond (or million trillionths of second, over which a photon would half made it over only 1/10th of the buckyballs diameter) it would impart enough velocity for them to collide within a pico second.

As you can see, the ammunition would destroy itself essentially instantly, the tiny charge fluctuations (which cannot be stopped, btw) would lead to its destruction without question or comment.

Also, just 1 billionth of a kilogram (1e-9 kg) would produce the explosive power of nearly 44 kg of TNT, 1 millionth of a kg (1e-6 kg) would yield as much energy as 44 tons of TNT. 3 milligrams would yield 132 tons of TNT.

As was previously stated, the radiation from the blast would do something similar to a nuclear bomb, but probably a bit more spread out (since the gamma rays would go through much more air before being captured than would the x-rays in a nuclear blast). If you would like a comparison, the 3 mg payload of AM would yield ~ 1/100th of the yield of "Little Boyâ€
 
I'm going to have to disagree with that. First off for this to work anti-protons will need to be used instead of lead (or anti-lead). In this case the overlapping walls of electron clouds would in theory be more than enough to contain the anti-protons and keep them in a state of minimal acceleration through mutual repulsion from all of the electron clouds . Even if the charge were to fluctuate the repulsion would be greater as the anti-protons approach the walls of the buckyball.

You have a lot of math, but it doesn't apply to this situation because:
1: the equation is using lead instead of anti-protons
2: The equation assumes that the lead is outside of the buckyball.
3: In the case of Vand Der Waals reactions, anti-protons would not have a Vand Der Waals radius as they are not atoms.




But yes, anti-matter is not the greatest nor the most efficent thing to use in a weapon but it is possible.
 
Appparently i missed a change somewhere, as I had assumed lead was still being used as the antimatter, and, Vand Der Waals interactions could still occur to the electron cloud of the C60 molecule, as this is just do to random motion of th electrons, which still occurs in C60 and would affect charged particle within the molecule. This will increase the distance between them by a ~3 times what it was before, but the charge product (the product of the two charges multiplied together) will dobule and the mass that will be accelerated will be 1/208th of what it was before. So, the force will be 2/9ths of what it was with the anti-lead molecule, but the mass is 1/208th of what it was before, meaning the acceleration will be 46 times as great as before. Over the distance of 3.3e-10 m (vs the 1.1e-10 meters it was before) it will actually travel much faster, striking the C60 molecule in 1/6th the time of the anti-lead atom.

[Ty for the spelling correction, btw]

Edit: I think i see where you are coming from with the repulsion, since the electrons would repel the negativly charged antiproton, right? However, the random electron movement could still produce a net positive charge, as seen by the antiproton at the center, still causing the acceleration.
 
The Vand Der Waals thing actually covers this bit in theory. Much like a set of atoms, even if they are attracted the anti-protons and electrons still can't get within a certain distance of eachother so the overlaping electron cloud fields act as an armor for the nucleous.

Of course all of that is just theoretical applications of buckyballs.

(Well, I found out it was mispelled after searching for about 10 minutes for a scientist named walls)
 
'Fraid not. The anti-proton would polarize the C60 molecule (from the inside to the out, as opposed to one side to the other) because it is repeliing the electrons. This polarization would continue as the antiproton approached one side of the molecule, further decreasing the shielding effect of the electrons, rapidly incresing the strength of the field acting on the antiproton, which would make it move further and further towards the nucleus until it hit it. And then "boom" would follow.

[As a note, the above was the conclusion reached by 3 physics professors with whom I discussed the subject.]
 
Molecules get polarized, not atoms (well, not to the degree that you seem to be assuming). We're comparing london forces to the weak nuclear force, here. The antiproton might make a tiny net positive charge on the inner surface of the fullerene; that would reduce the magnitude of the fluctuations that occur and thus the chances of it becoming imbalanced and rapidly accelerating towards the edge of the particle are pretty damn small.

Also, I'm willing to bet that an entire half an electron directly on one side of the buckyball will not last an attosecond very often. So, maybe the anti-matter pellets ARE bio-degradable, but they should still be able to stick around in the ammo cartridge for a week without disintegrating.
 
Would they stick around longer if the magazine cooled/froze them? (normally I'd say yes - but we're talking about anit-matter and carbon bucky balls here <.<)

This is of course assuming that we can create some kind of refridgerator clip as well (which - all things considered - we probably could).
 
RPG-D RPGfix
Back
Top