How do they know anything about a ZPM?

[Three PhDs]

I just realised, they go on about it like they know all about it, but we've never seen nor heard of one being reverse engineered, or even opened up. As far as we're concerned it's just like a battery with a positive and negative end. I mean , what could actually be inside it? It lasts over 10,000 years so I very much doubt there are any moving parts there. They'd give long before 100 was over. (Stargate itself being an obvious exception). I just find it odd that they claim to know how it works when there's just not enough info there, and if they had reverse engineered it, ZPMs themselves wouldn't be the big be all and end all, as we'd be able to manufacture our own ones based on the principles uncovered.

[Stevos]

One major problem is the lack of charged ZPM's, the only ones they have had upto now have been needed upto when they have been drained. Without a charge they would be harder to reverse engineer.

[Three PhDs]

One major problem is the lack of charged ZPM's, the only ones they have had upto now have been needed upto when they have been drained. Without a charge they would be harder to reverse engineer.

I don't see why? It's not the charge but the method of extraction which interests us.

[Stevos]

Actual its the charge that interests us, if you took a competely empty battery, and examined it, you would have no really idea how it actually powered it. If you took a hyproelectricity plant in isolation (away from a river) and said it produced electricity you wouldn't have a clue how it actually worked with the key ingredient of the flowing water.

To the extreme, take a nuke plant, with the urainum completely spent, looking at the parts wouldn't let you know how it worked, without knowing about the need for a radioactive ingrident.

I hope that makes some kind of sense, as my ability to spell appears to have died tonight.

[RA the sun god]

they ran loads of scans on them and made assesments judging on the results

[Three PhDs]

Actual its the charge that interests us, if you took a competely empty battery, and examined it, you would have no really idea how it actually powered it.

A simple analysis of the materials and structure (and an attempt to recreate them) would show an electrochemical reaction taking place.

If you took a hyproelectricity plant in isolation (away from a river) and said it produced electricity you wouldn't have a clue how it actually worked with the key ingredient of the flowing water.

Yet the ducts where the water is supposed to flow, with the big wheels that are turned by the water would give the game away.

To the extreme, take a nuke plant, with the urainum completely spent, looking at the parts wouldn't let you know how it worked, without knowing about the need for a radioactive ingrident.

A nuchlear power plant would still have control rods, and a heat exchanger, making it quite clear to the scientists that the idea of the device is to create heat to boil water, to drive turbines. The presence of the control rods would immediately suggest that the heat is derived by means of a nuclear reaction.

[Laros]

It seems to me that the only explination for their knowledge of ZPMs would have to come from the Ancient computer (I can't remember if they started giving details about them prior Atlantis). Our current understanding of Zero Point energy is relatively minimal. All we've been able to do with it is move a piece of metal that weighed 1/30000th the weight of an ant's abdomen. So, given the technology available in Stargate, it is conceivable that they might have the means to realize that it is Zero Point Energy, but I highly doubt that a dissassembly and analysis of a ZPM would provide any clues that we could reverse-engineer from. It would be like giving a medieval alchemist a computer and a generator. He might be able to figure out how to get them to work, and he might have some highly rudamentary understanding of the generator (requires torsional force to produce power), but beyond that, no amount of reverse-engineering would allow him to understand the process that allows the computer to produce moving images. Still, nothing's stopping him from figuring out how to use the computer.
Not exactly a perfect comparison, but I have to get some work done, so I don't have time to come up with a better one.

In summary: ZPMs are too far beyond us to reverse engineer. They know what they do either by Ancient Database or inference. (or scientists know more about ZP energy and the production of mini-parallel-universes than they let on)

[Wick]

do you think the asgard can make ZPM's if so they could help earth understand them and produce them

[AsgardCarnage]

Ancient Database?

But we knew they were a contained region of subspace time using vaccume energy before that. well we guessed thats what they were based on what they look like, how they act and the amount of power produced from its size. i guess the ancient database just confirmed that.

[morph166955]

Heres my theory...take it as you will.

Some how they figured out that the zpm has inside of it a self contained region of subspace time (the whole universe in a bottle thing)...what that actually means who knows since thats still being considered a scifi term and has very little basis in reality.

Assuming we go with the universe in a bottle thing then we can assume that some how there is a containment field or something inside the zpm (similar to the shield that contained the energy in the reactor in the episode trinity) to contain this micro universe which in theory could also be powerd by the energy being extracted from the micro universe (this in itself is a whole other topic for debate as for how the zpm contains this and doesnt end up killing its own power in the process over 10000 years or so). The other thing this brings me to think about is how this micro universe was created. Was it created in a lab and then placed into the zpm (eg building the ship and trying to stick it in the opening of the bottle) or did the zpm create it once it was built some how (eg building the ship inside the bottle). So the question here really should be, how was the universe created and how does the zpm maintain it.

Now from what we know of power (which i believe this to be impossible to change) you must have some terminal point for the power to go (the "loop") once it goes through the system its trying to run (eg the positive and neg side of a battery). We can also reasonably assume the zpm operates under DC rather then AC as i have no idea why the zpm would run AC power...and if it does well thats weird, we also know that the gate works off of DC power thanks to the ernest episode which makes me belive this is true as well. So then the next question is, wheres the positive side and wheres the negative side (or what ever you want to call them im just using pos and neg for ease of explantation)?

Now for a contradiction that they did probably with out realizing it. In "Before I Sleep", Jonas was able to have all 3 zpm's rise up out of the reactor (or what ever you want to call that interface) with out having the power to the city go offline. In "Seige 3" the zpm didnt work with out it being fully in the reactor. In a few other episodes the zpm was taken offline by having it rise up out of the reactor. My theory based on those episodes and the knowledge that in "Rising" the zpm module that they used to connect it to the gate had two rings, one on top and one on bottom (possibly the pos/neg terminals or interfaces or what have you?) was that "Before i Sleep" must have been an oops.

So in the end my theory is that even if they could open up the zpm and get to the innerds of it that doesnt mean we could reverse engineer one because we cant create these micro universes anyway. And even if we could, we dont have the continment field technology to contain such a universe so it would either deteriorate or begin to expand and destroy us in the process. The theory however of the zpm (assuming that it were possible to create such a universe, contain it, and extract the zero point energy from it) is sound in my book...it would simply be like one huge battery.

[AsgardCarnage]

do think the asgard can make ZPM's if so they could help earth understand them and produce them

the asgard seem to use 4 large Ion generators to power their ships. according to thor in an ep somewhere but the zpm can be combined with these generators in order to make them heaps better.

so my guess is the asgard dont use ZPM's or any kind of zero point technology, i guess they arn't upto that part in their ancient research or havn't tried to do anything with them because for now they have bigger problems then not enough power like cloning

also they might have held back such research so they didn't give the replicators some huge advantage like zpms while they were still a problem

[AsgardCarnage]

Now for a contradiction that they did probably with out realizing it. In "Before I Sleep", Jonas was able to have all 3 zpm's rise up out of the reactor (or what ever you want to call that interface) with out having the power to the city go offline. In "Seige 3" the zpm didnt work with out it being fully in the reactor. In a few other episodes the zpm was taken offline by having it rise up out of the reactor. My theory based on those episodes and the knowledge that in "Rising" the zpm module that they used to connect it to the gate had two rings, one on top and one on bottom (possibly the pos/neg terminals or interfaces or what have you?) was that "Before i Sleep" must have been an oops.

My guess on that one is, either
1) there is more to powering atlantis then 3 ZPM's maybe some kind of back up other smaller power stations around the city we arn't using.

2) jonas was an ancient with a very detailed understanding of how the city works, how zpm's work and their interaction. maybe there is a buffer or storage of energy between the zpms and the city that we dont use. like a capasitor we just take energy straight from the zpm and channel it where we want it, the ancients can unplug the zpms for a little bit and work off the storage.

[SmallTimePerson]

IAll we've been able to do with it is move a piece of metal that weighed 1/30000th the weight of an ant's abdomen.

some guy claims that you can extract zpenergy from pieces of metal, while he says it is only a small charge, i dont believe him

[Three PhDs]

some guy claims that you can extract zpenergy from pieces of metal, while he says it is only a small charge, i dont believe him

That's using the Cassimir effect to create work.

[Gate Master]

I just realised, they go on about it like they know all about it, but we've never seen nor heard of one being reverse engineered, or even opened up. As far as we're concerned it's just like a battery with a positive and negative end. I mean , what could actually be inside it? It lasts over 10,000 years so I very much doubt there are any moving parts there. They'd give long before 100 was over. (Stargate itself being an obvious exception). I just find it odd that they claim to know how it works when there's just not enough info there, and if they had reverse engineered it, ZPMs themselves wouldn't be the big be all and end all, as we'd be able to manufacture our own ones based on the principles uncovered.

Thats a very good point especially since its far beyound asgard tech and Ra had one in his posession for an undisclosed amount of time and never even realised it was a power source. If goauld sensors cant even register it as a source of power what tests could we have done to even begin to understand how it works.