The Sci. & Tech. Concordance and Discussion Thread

[Wraith Scientist]

Yeah i was thinking that they are the kind of thing that the SGC need, instead of the malp.

Yeah, they would be very cool

You have talked about NPP quite alot and i think its a good option but its quite hard to test and build soemthing like that without massive public opposition, you know how humans work, it wouldnt get off the ground..
if only gravity drives could be figured out.

Public opinion is bound to be dead-set against something like a NPP drive from ever been built. NERVA-style nuclear thermal rockets are slightly better in the public perception respect, as they emit negligable amounts of radiation, but are still nuclear

Hey, I've just had a thought ...

There's always beam-powered propulsion for getting into orbit. Maybe the pusher plate could double-up as a mirror to reflect a laser beam and power the ship into orbit using a ground-based power source. After achieving orbit, the craft could engage it's nuclear engines with no adverse consequences to Earth.

[Seastallion]

Save Stargate SG-1 Now!!!

Everyone needs to do something about it..! Send email, snail-mail, tissue boxes (that say, "send more"), sign petitions, and do what ever can be done! Don't let SG-1 go down without a fight..!

[immhotep]

SAVE THE SHOW, SAVE OURSELVES!
SIGN THE PETITION FROM MY SIG!

[Daryl Froggy]

Does anyone know how shallow the atmosphere has to be so that you can see the stars during the day?

[Ophiuchus]

Does anyone know how shallow the atmosphere has to be so that you can see the stars during the day?

It depends on what magnitude a star you want to see? You can easily see -26.7 (the sun) down to something like -11 (a moon crescent during the day). But if you want to see all the way down to +5 (about 3000 billion times fainter then a crescent moon), then you need almost no atmosphere.

[beale947]

also a problem about ship battles. In deep space such as in Prometheus Unbound, sinse there is no star near by, you wouldn't be able to see any of the ships because there is no light. just a thought that crossed my head

[Seastallion]

also a problem about ship battles. In deep space such as in Prometheus Unbound, sinse there is no star near by, you wouldn't be able to see any of the ships because there is no light. just a thought that crossed my head

Well, it depends on just 'how' deep into space you are, I suppose.

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To a different topic... I'm gonna start coming up with various possible applications of all the different technologies the SGC has gotten hold of. Which is quite a lot, actually. Anyone fee free to jump in.

Asgard Beams...

Transportation- Obviously, speedy transportation would be the prime usage. Earth could set up a complex predestined network of Beaming sites to allow for mass transport quickly all over the world. There would be smaller networks within individual cities, which would be interconnected by a larger global network. It would be sort of like getting off of the local streets, and getting on an Interstate Highway. The Beams could be used to transport both people and materials. Shipping could be reduced both in terms of costs and time dramatically.

Construction- We've seen the Asgard beams used to construct a device from scratch, aboard Thor's ship. This means that they could potentially be used in an industrial capacity to build advanced components and/or machinery that might not otherwise be possible to construct. I don't know if it would actually need raw matter for such a usage, or if it only needs the pattern of the matter needed for construction by 'simply' using an energy source to create that matter instead of pre-existing raw elements.

Medicine- We've seen Hermiod use the Teleportation Beams on board the Daedalus to remove the Goa'uld from inside Col. Caldwell, with no ill effects. This means that it might also be used to remove other foreign objects within the body as a surgical tool. Possibly tumours, shrapnel, or other unwanted objects for example.

Mining- In conjunction with the Asgard sensors, the Beams should be able to take valuable metals and other substances out of the ground directly, without drilling holes. Had the SGC had this option when they met Tenani's people, they might have been able to get the natives of his world to agree to allow them to mine it. It would not have disturbed anything, only taking the Trinium out of the mountain. They wouldn't have to replant trees or anything else. The environment itself would remain untouched. There are also literally Billions of dollars worth of valuable resources beneath the ocean floor that are currently unreachable (or not easily) that would easily be able to be accessed. It would cut mining costs dramatically.

Anyone else have any ideas?

[immhotep]

Ive gave my opinions in the visions of the future thread, i have got ideas about technology though, ill post them someday lol

[Seastallion]

Ive gave my opinions in the visions of the future thread, i have got ideas about technology though, ill post them someday lol

Actually, this is a little different. I'm just thinking of cool ways to use the tech that the SGC has gathered over the years. Not necessarily a 'look at the future'. This is all about the tech, and not the events.

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The Virtual Reality Pod-

Entertainment- Basically, as a big video game console, much as Teal'c was using it. Instead of controlling an Avatar across a screen, one could be involved in the actions oneself. A 'cheap' holosuit type deal... It would also allow people to potentially meet over a new 'Internet' in a sort of virtual chat room. It could become the doorway into a virtual world that could allow people from all over the world to gather and meet as they wouldn't be able to do in real life. Much like the internet now, except that you'd be able to interact in virtually everyway one could in a physical meeting. A nearly infinite number of uses could be made of it allowing people to work and play in a virtual world. Potentially, even um... more intimate experiances.

Business, Construction, and Research- It could also serve as means for business people to meet in 'live' meetings without actually having to leave their homes and yet have the full impact of physical contact. Researchers could use it for the same purposes. They would also have the benefit of meeting in a 'holographic' environment that would allow them to work virtually with models of any potential size. They could move their work area to any environment they chose. They could literally walk among the stars in virtual simulations and construct objects of enormous size, or they could walk among the individual atoms of a nano machine while directing its construction of an individual nanite.

Training and Education- The Virtual Pod could allow troops, students, workers, or any number of other users to train and simulate situations that might be either too dangerous or too expensive to do in real life. This would make it an invaluable training tool because the limit to its variety of simulated actions is limited only by the imagination. It could also allow students to train and learn in a virtual classroom in situations where they are simply unable to go to an actual school. Sort of like online college classes now, only more 'real'. A virtual 'school' could even be created, and not just individual classes.

Therapy- A virtual environment could have many therapuetic applications. In space travel, it could allow the users to 'get away' to blue skies and green grass, or a blue ocean for a while. It could also be used to allow people with mental problems to exist in a soothing and helpful environment until they were ready to go into the real world. There are probably a million therapuetic uses I haven't even considered myself.

I'm sure there are other uses, that I haven't thought of yet.

[Wraith Scientist]

Sorry to go off at a complete tangent, but I've had some new ideas regarding FTL travel and wormholes

First, you'll need to read this article:

Negative Energy, Wormholes and Warp Drives

Fortunately (or not, depending on your point of view), although quantum theory allows the existence of negative energy, it also appears to place strong restrictions - known as quantum inequalities - on its magnitude and duration. These inequalities were first suggested by Ford in 1978. Over the past decade they have been proved and refined by us and others, including Eanna E. Flanagan of Cornell University, Michael J. Pfenning, then at Tufts, Christopher J. Fewster and Simon P. Eveson of the University of York, and Edward Teo of the National University of Singapore.

The inequalities bear some resemblance to the uncertainty principle. They say that a beam of negative energy cannot be arbitrarily intense for an arbitrarily long time. The permissible magnitude of the negative energy is inversely related to its temporal or spatial extent. An intense pulse of negative energy can last for a short time; a weak pulse can last longer. Furthermore, an initial negative energy pulse must be followed by a larger pulse of positive energy. The larger the magnitude of the negative energy, the nearer must be its positive energy counterpart. These restrictions are independent of the details of how the negative energy is produced.

OK, so a permanent wormhole or warp drive is out of the question. So now what?

I'll come to that problem later. Firstly, it's possible to pluck a wormhole straight out of the spacetime foam. At small scales wormholes pop into and out of existence all the time. Building a wormhole yourself is out of the question, but harvesting one of those is relatively easy.

Now, using a laser and quantum optics (see article), it's possible to create a pulse of negative energy. If we can configure that pulse right, at very high frequencies we may be able to inflate a wormhole. One problem: we can't produce enough negative energy in one pulse to inflate it very much at all. What we can do, however, is use that negative energy pulse to configure the wormhole's geometry to do it for us.

Black holes, with their strong gravitational fields, actually draw in negative energy. Since negative energy is flowing in to the black hole, positive energy in the form of Hawking radiation flows out. Since wormholes also have a strong gravitational gradient, it may be possible to configure a tiny wormhole's topology to produce it's own negative energy, and self-inflate.

At this stage, we might also be able to select a desired topology for the wormhole that we're going to inflate, and so 'filter out' the wormholes we don't want, by providing a configuration of negative energy that only inflates a wormhole with a mouth that ends up at our desired destination.

In addition, our wormhole would have been 'borrowed' from the quantum vaccum, and so would have incurred a negative energy 'debt', that may give the inflation process a welcome boost. The wormhole should expand until it has consumed the entire vessel. Once it has, we can give in to quantum mechanics and beam the inevitable positive energy pulse into the wormhole, which should cause it to collapse.

The collapse needs to be engineered to 'pinch' the wormhole between the ship and the region of space we've just left. Since the wormhole was living on borrowed time anyway, it won't collapse into a singularity, but instead the wormhole should snap at the point at which it was pinched, and the space forming it will spring back and smoothen out. Since the ship would be on the opposite side of the wormhole as the side it's supposed to be it will be carried along to the destination as the wormhole collapses and space reverts to normal.

So, to recap, the stages are:

Step 1
Use quantum optics to produce a high enough density of negative energy to inflate a wormhole from the quantum vacuum of the desired topology, configure it to self-inflate using it's own gravitational field, and let it engulf your vessel.

Step 2
Collapse the wormhole behind you with the inevitable large positive energy pulse, to return the spacetime geometry to normal.

So the general idea is using a very short pulse of negative energy to open a temporary wormhole, and then collapsing it in such a way as to let you out at the other side. Since it's the wormhole that's doing the engulfing and the collapsing, you avoid the problem of moving through such a short-lived wormhole yourself. You don't actually have to move at all.

Such a drive would fall under the class of a 'jump drive'

So what do you think?

[Seastallion]

Not bad..! Although even I have to admit it was a very 'techno-babylish' post. A little hard to follow. Not hard to understand per se, just hard to read. I hate technical manuals. That is why I use analogy so much in my posts. I try to lay things out in laymens terms as much as possible. Other than that, I liked it, and I agree it would definitely look like a 'Jump Drive'. Similiar to the drives on Battlestar Galactica.

Nice job.

[immhotep]

Question: why cant we just be simple and use hyperdrives? Arent they much easier to develop, its just energy to open a window in the subspace, energy to keep the window open while your traveling, and then shut off the energy to drop out of hyperspace.

Travel shouldnt need us to manipulate the fabric of the universe, i dont see it being that usefull either, the worehole might not take you where you need to go or you might not even rematerialise.

[Seastallion]

Question: why cant we just be simple and use hyperdrives? Arent they much easier to develop, its just energy to open a window in the subspace, energy to keep the window open while your traveling, and then shut off the energy to drop out of hyperspace.

Travel shouldnt need us to manipulate the fabric of the universe, i dont see it being that usefull either, the worehole might not take you where you need to go or you might not even rematerialise.

If we're talking Stargate, sure. Maybe. It depends on what is precisely involved altogether. Since it is all theoretical, and we don't really know any of the particulars it is a moot point to discuss which is better. On the other hand, the 'Jump Drive' is potentially faster than a hyperdrive. It is sort like the Supergate only for one ship. I would imagine though, that in either case the further one tries to go, the more complicated the calculations for either would become. It only makes sense.

[immhotep]

but with the energy invovled with either one it would be impractical for along time anyway.

[Exiled Master]

You know about Einstein rings, right? Distortions of spacetime that allow stars behind objects with a strong gravitational field to be seen (from Earth). What about a reverse Einstein ring, a ring (like a supergate) that bends light like a lens using gravity, acting like a hyperbolic lens )( ? Does it make sense?