The Zero Point Module: Fact or Fiction?

[Splitsecond]

A watt is one joule per second. 20GJ per second is 20GW, or 20,000,000 kW. To get to kW hours you divide by 360 (seconds to hours), which give 5555.6 kW hours. Also 2.7778×10^-7 * 20X10^9 = 5555.6.
=> 20TJ= 5,555,600 kW hours.
Again, bad math.

Also Joules are units of total energy. 20GJ could be over a day or a year or a second and still be a total of 20GJ. You need a measure of time to go with it. That way you have power and watts.
For example, if it's 20GJ for 10 seconds of shield:
it's 2GW.
For 1 year,:
it's 633.8W.

Also 4.31 GW per year makes no sense. A watt is a measure of J/s
Sustaining 4.31 GW for a year would be 136*10^15 J or 136 million trillion joules.

A lot of people get confused between power and energy. The kWh is a really stupid unit when you look at the maths and the physics of it.

[TheTraveler]

I'm sorry but you see you're wrong. My information comes from two verified sources here. A gigajoule is a measure of work, not a measure of power. I'm only showing the amount of power needed to perform the amount of work. So you're not paying attention to what is being said, and then making assumptions.

1gj ~ 277.78 kwh. That means it takes 277.7 kwh to do one gigajoule of work.

If we know that we have a sustained GJ amount meaning at a measure of 1kg per meter square per second to the inverse square, we know that the GJ limit that is sustained is per second.

All I have done is translated that sustained information to a total based on a 10,000 year period. Or a 315 569 260 000 second period. Now if we take 20gj multiplied by 315 569 260 000secs that is how much work the three ZPM produced over 10,000 years. Which can then be translated into kwh and then to per ZPM measure.

1.75330281 × 10^15 kwh over 10,000 years. ZPM life cycle is then 1/3 of this measure (3333 years *333 was a typo in previous post* at a given KWH total output during this time of 5.8443427 × 10^14 Which isn't far off from my original calculation of 555,560,000,000,000 kwh

A Watt is not a bad unit of measure: lets get a few things straight here. A Joule is; The work done by a force of one newton travelling through a distance of one metre;
The work required to move an electric charge of one coulomb through an electrical potential difference of one volt; or one coulomb volt, with the symbol C·V;
The work done to produce the power of one watt continuously for one second; or one watt second (compare kilowatt hour), with the symbol W·s. Thus a kilowatt hour is 3,600,000 joules or 3.6 megajoules;
The kinetic energy E of a 2 kilogram mass m moving at a velocity v of 1 metre per second (m/s). The energy is linear in the mass but quadratic in the velocity, being given by E = 1?2mv^2.
-In otherwords a measure of WORK, not total energy.

A watt is; One watt is the rate at which work is done when an object is moving at one meter per second against a force of one newton. 1w=1j/s or 1(n*m)/s

Splitsecond you have Joule's and Watts mixed up. A Joule is the measure of work, a watt is the rate at which the work is done. 4.31gw hours over a year's time is only 15516gj. 20gj is only 0.005555556 gwh.

Character: I am basing it on what knowledge we do have about it's power consumption. It is possible the shield uses more power than the initial amount but for the sake of showing the amount of energy being produced the initial amount is sufficient.

[Character]

You somewhat misunderstood me. Where are you getting the 20 GJ figure from? The only thing i can think up, that would suggest such a specific numbers is the ep where they used lightning to charge the shield, are you using this or something else? Assuming your using the info from "The eye", the 20 GJ was used to innitialy activate the shield. Meaning that the innitial 20 GJ (not gw) was used for whatever minutes or hours until the storm passed, not that the shield consumed 20 GJ every second.

[morrismike]

Ok my math's were wrong, and on the conservative side. The shield uses 20giga joules as a steady power output of work. A gigajoule is a measurement of a gigawatt's work load. One Joule is 2.7778×10^-7 kilowatt hours. A joule is 1kg*m^2*s^-2 or the work required to move an electric charge of one coulomb through an electrical potential difference of one volt; or one coulomb volt, with the symbol C·V. That means for the force of the sheild to hold back substantially (and assumingly balanced) the water. You're talking alot of power needed per second. In other words that is 20gigajoules sustained over 10,000 years (according to the episode where Weir was found in a stasis pod). Originally Atlantis ran on three ZPMs paralleled in powering, but the person who helpd Weir made it so that the city could run with a sequence of ZPMs which had to be replaced on a schedule to ensure the sheild remained, thus Weir being stuck in a stasis pod.

Now 3 zpms, running at 20gj (just for the sheild) over 10,000 years. Now I calculated it at 20gj per year to get to the 200,000 tj. So technically speaking my math was wrong, because it is a sustained output that I was measuring here. But I was trying to show the magnitude in power. In reality that is 20gj per second, 120 gj per min, 7200gj per hour, 172800 gj (or 1.728 tj) per day. That's 63072000gj per year and multiply that by 10,000 years you get 630720000000gj total. We know that one third of this is the power output limit of a ZPM as they had to be switched out to make sure the shield remained powered. So one ZPM has a max output of 210240000000gj over 333 years roughly.

Now New York uses only 4.31 Gigawatts of Electricity per year. I say electricity here, not over all power which is something like 1027gw/year. But the 1027 accounts for gas usage and general materials (like food, water, trash, etc).

Now 1 GJ = 277.78 kWh, So the amount of wattage a ZPM puts out over 333 years is equal to 58400467200000 kwh which if translated to yearly is 175376778378.378...kwh per year 175,376,778,378.378 kwh per year, or 175 376.778gwh/year. A ZPM could power 40,785.2973 New York Cities for 333 years.

(BTW: This-"20Gj over what time span? You've assumed 20Gj for one year, which seems quite small for a sci-fi show. Also you're maths is wrong. 20Tj is 5.56 million kilowatt hours or 1.29 years of New York. 1 ZPM is 0.43 years of New York, but it's still just shy of 100 kg of energy." makes no sense. 20gj is 5,555,600,000 kwh. 1 Terrajoule is 1,000,000,000,000 joules so 20,000,000,000,000 j, or 20,000 gj. Which then is roughly 5,555,600,000,000 kwh, or roughly 5.5556 terawatt hours. Get it?)

(NY Power Authority http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2001/PollyHo.shtml, http://209.85.173.132/search?q=cache...s&client=opera)

a watt is 1 joule/sec and a gigawatt is 1 gigawatt/sec. NY consumes a fixed amount of energy per year (xyz Joules) not power per year.
Holding back that water could consume very little power and work is force x displacement (no displacement). If the water was held back by a thin metal dome this would require no energy input and likewise a shield with the proper configuration would consume very little energy.

[TheTraveler]

The 20gj comes from a second season episode. I think it was the one where McKay turned the cloak of one of the puddle jumpers into a shield and he was explaining why it used so much energy.

Though a dome could displace the water without power, we're talking about a fictional shield that requires energy to maintain its form. Which has been exemplified in the series dozens of times over. We know it consumes alot of energy because if it didn't they would never had needed to emerge Atlantis in the first place. Initial or not, the ZPM as described in the series produced enough energy to create the shield and sustain it. Which I believe was stated to be 20gj.

Morrismike and Splitsecond: If you have a problem with the measure of yearly power usage, take it up with the energy commission there, they reported total yearly power consumption in Gigawatts.

[morrismike]

The 20gj comes from a second season episode. I think it was the one where McKay turned the cloak of one of the puddle jumpers into a shield and he was explaining why it used so much energy.

Though a dome could displace the water without power, we're talking about a fictional shield that requires energy to maintain its form. Which has been exemplified in the series dozens of times over. We know it consumes alot of energy because if it didn't they would never had needed to emerge Atlantis in the first place. Initial or not, the ZPM as described in the series produced enough energy to create the shield and sustain it. Which I believe was stated to be 20gj.

Morrismike and Splitsecond: If you have a problem with the measure of yearly power usage, take it up with the energy commission there, they reported total yearly power consumption in Gigawatts.

The point is that gigawatts figure is average over the course of a year not for the whole year.

[Character]

The 20gj comes from a second season episode. I think it was the one where McKay turned the cloak of one of the puddle jumpers into a shield and he was explaining why it used so much energy.

1) I dont remembe Mckay ever turing cloak into a shield in season 2. Zelenka did once to save Mckay, but there were no figures, all he said was that the puddle jumpers shield eats alot of power.
2) No specific figure about power generation, weapons or shields power was stated in SGA, ever.
3) At this point , i'm gonna assume you made up the 20 GJ figure.

[Buba uognarf]

I've seen power figures for ZPM's based on 'The Storm' using the lightning and how long it powers the shields (a few seconds). Mkay has actually said that when not under strain the shield can be maintained by a ZPM almost indefinately.

[Character]

Makes sense, shields drain power depending on how much stress they're under, so if the shield isnt, say, under water or under fire (no pun), it probably doesnt use (or uses barely) any energy, apart from miniscule amounts from wind and stuff.

[Buba uognarf]

Makes sense, shields drain power depending on how much stress they're under, so if the shield isnt, say, under water or under fire (no pun), it probably doesnt use (or uses barely) any energy, apart from miniscule amounts from wind and stuff.

Atlantis is also terribily inefficient as shown by its inability to function at 100% without 3 ZPMs, the real value for a ZPM could be significantly higher than figures calculated by shields suggests. Not that I'm arguing for orders of magnitude of difference.

[Character]

True. That said though, maybe you could point me to actual calculations? i've been searching, but didnt find anything (both the forum and google keep giving me hundreds of irrelevant results). I'd be interested to see them, since, for example, i have no idea how to turn ocean presure into energy usage for the shield.

[Buba uognarf]

True. That said though, maybe you could point me to actual calculations? i've been searching, but didnt find anything (both the forum and google keep giving me hundreds of irrelevant results). I'd be interested to see them, since, for example, i have no idea how to turn ocean presure into energy usage for the shield.

One of my friends on this forum made the calculations, Davidtourniquet. It was done off the forum over the course a discussion between the 2 of us.

Working out a ZPM value from the lightning should be fairly straight forward. Work out the energy contained in a couple of lightning strikes, see how long it maintains the shields for and then times that by almost indefinately.

[ggf31416]

5.8443427 × 10^14 J is too small. It's equivalent to 140 kilotons (1 kt = 4.184 × 10^12 J). The bomb used in "The Siege Parte III" to fake the self-destruction of Atlantis was at least several megatons.

[hawkmajor]

5.8443427 × 10^14 J is too small. It's equivalent to 140 kilotons (1 kt = 4.184 × 10^12 J). The bomb used in "The Siege Parte III" to fake the self-destruction of Atlantis was at least several megatons.

y would a ZPM use less energy than a megaton bomb??

[51 Pegasus]

Before you even get onto how this isn't physically true, your maths is nonsensical - you seem to be intermingling bits of applied maths with pure analysis.

It would seem to me that the zpm works on a principle of Zero mathematics or Null math, in which we measure the potential energy of a space and utilize it by taking it out of the space it occupies and then concentrate it into a single point (a singularity) whch has regulated out put of any number of radiations that exist.

What do you mean by null/ zero math? I've never heard this term, and it doesn't appear to match any mathematical field I've heard of (though I'm willing to concede it may be the American name for a branch I know by another name).

So first the break down of potential subspace, a lesson in null math;

We use numbers as a means of measuring, counting, and so on. However, math, as we use it currently is subject to many flaws which we deem exceptions to the standard rules. For example: 0/0 =0, 0/1= 0, 1/0= undefined and (where I= infinity) I/I=1, I/0=I, 0/I=0.

Ok, nothing technically wrong here, but what type of inifinity? (yes, there is more than one).

So the question is, how do we arrive at the numbers we do?
Most mathematicians use set theory to define numbers.

True, though the ability to define numbers using set theory was a late arriver to number theory.

That is we give a measure of a number an equivalence based on the number of cardinal (exact) pairings between more than one measures.

Not really - numbers are defined in terms of the empty set, {ø}, i.e. they go the empty set (0), the a set containing the empty set (1), the set containing the set containing the empty set and the empty set (2) and so on. The reason we can use this system to define the group (and I'm using the word group in a well defined mathematical sense) of cardinal numbers is that then under the standard arithmetic operations (+,- etc) they return the expected set. (I haven't done this type of maths in a while, so there may be slightly more to this)

Now I:i would not be 1, because there is an uncertain number of cardinal sets.

Assuming I is like the above example and i is A B C D...
then I:i
aA
bB
cC
dD
e?
f?

No. This is just wrong. Assuming you're working with the 'everyday' infinity (Aleph 0) then, using your notation I:i would still be one, as infinity - finite number = infinity (arithmetic with infinity is weird, even by a mathematicians standard - the guy who first worked this all out, Georg Cantor had a nervous breakdown and died in an insane asylum).

Using the good old analogy of "Hotel Infinity': imagine a hotel with an infinite amount of rooms, all of which are currently full. Reaching the end of their stay, the guests in room 1,2 and 3 check out. Now the manager of Hotel Infinity is very fussy and likes his guests to occupy the lowest numbered room possible, so (after cleaning the rooms ) he moves the guest in room 4 to room 1, 5 to 2, 6 to 3, 7 to 4 and so on. However as Hotel Infinity has an infinite number of rooms at no point will he reach a room and not have a guest 3 rooms further on he can move in there. In other words for room number, n, there will always be a a guest in room number, n+3. So, despite 3 guests leaving the hotel, there are still an infinite amount of guests in the hotel, i.e. number of rooms (I) equals number of guests (I) even after 3 have left (i = I -3).

(Wait 0/0=1? 0~[]:I> ([]:I)/([]:I) nulls cancel out, they are nothing, you can't compare nothing to nothing. The division line acts as a cardinal set. I/I=1. How does the division line act like a cardinal set: Well lets take 2/2, you have two apples, and two more apples. Treat the first two apples as set X (I) and treat the second set of apples as set Y (I) I=I, so X:Y is a single pairing structure of exact cardinality, much like the example above of I:I, hence 2/2=1)

As mentioned above, infinity arithmetic is not like 'normal' arithmetic - think of it as analogous to how Newtonian mechanics breaks down when travelling at a significant fraction of the speed of light.

Also there's a big difference between a pure mathematical construct (which is what a lot of set theory is) and a physical theory. Although most physical theories are couched in the language of maths, a lot of maths do not relate to a physical reality.