The Techno-Lance

[Kimura]

Okay. So, we've had some problems with the realism of our stuff. Vesper, apparently the most advanced of us in the field of theoretical physics (not to mention having access to the most valuable resource: physics professors that speak the same language as him >.>), has proposed that many of our currently supposed technologies cannot exist, due to certain basic principles of the universe.

However, some of us, not so far behind him in the field, have disagreed, firstly because the physics behind the technologies was never fully established, and secondly because it's science fiction, and we're supposed to be allowed some room for suspension of disbelief (please spell it correctly in the future; you know who you are).

Unfortunately, these discussions were taking place on a few threads dedicated to certain technologies which were waiting to be approved, and it has been suggested that we form a new thread in which to carry out the debate. Here is the summary (as far as I can tell) of what we've got so far:

Problem #1: Yarvex. It just can't exist.

• Potential explanation #1: Yarvex is made out of threads of quarks held together with gluons.
  • Counter #1: It would be really freaking heavy.
    Response to counter #1: But not if it was really thin.
    Counter #2: It would collapse due to random movements of the particles.
    Response to counter #2: That's what the weaving is for.
    Counter #3: It would still collapse due to the random movements of the particles.
    Response to counter #3: Maybe so, but not as fast; maybe even...slow enough to be held apart by another mechanism?
    Counter #4:
  Potential explanation #2: Yarvex threads are actually neutral pions, arranged in a tetrahedral stack-like fashion.
  • Counter #1: They would decay really fast, just like pions do - either into individual mesons or gamma radiation+neutrinos, both of which would be harmful to the wearer.
    Response to Counter #1:
  Potential explanation #3: They used a shrink ray on a planet-sized spider web in the shape of the armor they was makin' it for.
  • Counter #1: That's just silly.
    Response to counter #1: But if we had a shrink ray, it would be possible!
    Counter #2: Okay, design a shrink ray that obeys the laws of physics, then.
    Response to counter #2:

I'm thinking I'll edit this as the points are brought up..?

 

[DocTomoe]

I'll get on that shrink ray right away!

 

[Vesper]

To the first, the strong and weak forces and random particle motion (or temperature if you prefer) are the essentially the only significant forces involved between quarks and gluons.

The weak force is what causes nuclear decay and would prevent a large quark/gluon arrangement from existing as such for any good length of time. All large particle arrangements (whether made of quarks or hadrons) will decay very fast. For example, the pentaquark Uso was previously using to prove large quark structures existed for a mere 1e-20 seconds (or 10 zeptosecond; 10 sextillionths of a second). All large quark structures are extremely unstable.

For the strong force and the balling up, think of a handful of protons and anti-protons as the quarks. The electromagnetic force is similar to the strong force between the quarks, except the strong force is only attractive. You could never arrange these protons into a string because there mutual attraction is such that they would tend to fall together into a ball (just for this example, assume they don't annihilate each other). This is what the strong force would do between quarks within a large quark structure. It could not be stopped and no particle could block its progress (the weak nuclear force causes them to decay into hadrons, it does not actually repel them). However, as I have said the particle would end up decaying into separate hadrons long before it actually collapsed into a spheroid.