Particle Beams
Posted: Sun Jan 01, 2023 1:12 pm
Just noticed Spacedock did an episode on particle beams. Worth the watch!
A possible power source for the beams is... once again Taimat.... or a derivative of itArioch wrote: ↑Mon Jan 02, 2023 8:05 pmSuch weapons will require a lot of power, but the noactual mass of the beam is fairly small, so I think the power requirements of the weapons will pale in comparison next to the power requirements of the drives, if they can push a massive starship at high accelerations.
The figures are absolutely mindboggling and once again, the OMG particle lives up to its name.Arioch wrote: ↑Mon Jan 02, 2023 8:05 pmSuch weapons will require a lot of power, but the actual mass of the beam is fairly small, so I think the power requirements of the weapons will pale in comparison next to the power requirements of the drives, if they can push a massive starship at high accelerations.
G. Janssen wrote: ↑Mon Jan 02, 2023 10:49 pmThe figures are absolutely mindboggling and once again, the OMG particle lives up to its name.Arioch wrote: ↑Mon Jan 02, 2023 8:05 pmSuch weapons will require a lot of power, but the actual mass of the beam is fairly small, so I think the power requirements of the weapons will pale in comparison next to the power requirements of the drives, if they can push a massive starship at high accelerations.
I looked up a few numbers from the CERN site.
The total CERN energy consumption is 1.3 TWh per year. The total electrical energy production in the world is around 20,000 TWh.
The EU produces about 3,400 TWh per year.
At peak consumption, usually from May to mid-December, CERN uses about 200 megawatts (1 Watt = 1 joule per second) of power, which is about a third of the amount of energy used to feed the nearby city of Geneva (627,000 inhabitants) in Switzerland. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) runs during this period of the year, using the power to accelerate protons to nearly the speed of light.
So, the LHC uses about a third of the power needed to power a city with 627,000 inhabitants to accelerate its particles while it accelerates them. If it takes CERN one hour to accomplish that, CERN uses the power to power one third of Geneva for one hour.
Wikipedia says that the energy of the OMG particle was some 40 million times that of the highest-energy protons that have been produced in any terrestrial particle accelerator.
I'm only an Oompa Loompa of science, but seeing that it's only possible to get an amount of energy out of a system after at least putting that amount in first in one form or another, doesn't that mean that the amount of energy needed to produce an LHC sized particle beam that consists of OMG particles, is enough to power 40,000,000 / 3 = 13,333,333 cities the size of Geneva while those particles accelerate?
That's power for 13,333,333 * 627,000 = 8.36*10^12 city folks. That's 1,045 times the current world population if everyone would live in a city like Geneva.
That's a lot of Starbucks lattes. And a lot of cuckoo clocks.
I think that it's safe to say that particle beams that consist of OMG particles are out of the question, unless fired from a Deathstar.
Unless I made a mistake.
Let's do starships next.
From some university site: to calculate acceleration from joules of energy, multiply the energy by 2, divide by the mass, square this result, then divide by the time. Finally, take the square root of this result.
A=SQRT((2∗E/m)^2/t)
Where A is the Joules to Acceleration (m/s^2)
E is the joules of energy (Joules)
m is the mass (kg)
t is the time (s)
Tempest data from the Insider page: 1,200,000,000 kilograms, 30G max acceleration.
Lets accelerate her for a single second at 30G and calculate the energy it would take.
9.81*30=SQRT((2*E/1,200,000,000)^2/1)
294.3=SQRT((2*E/1,200,000,000)^2)
Cross out square root against power of two
294.3=2*E/1,200,000,000
294.3*1,200,000,000=2*E
E=(294.3*1,200,000,000)/2
E=1.766*10^11 joule per second.
Joules to Watts: Watts are defined as 1 Watt = 1 Joule per second (don't you just love Metric?)
This means that Tempest uses 1.766*10^11 / 600*10^6 = 294.3 times the power that the city of Geneva uses to accelerate at 30G.
Or, expressed in power used by city folks, 294.3 * 627,000 = 184,526,100 Uber Eats users would use this amount of power.
Indeed. One should never bring math into science fiction. In fact, it should be written "science FICTION". I made that mistake with the railguns on my stealth ships.Bamax wrote: ↑Tue Jan 03, 2023 3:48 am
Nice calculations... but there is more.
The Tempest... like other Loroi warships... and she is an older model, can do 30g for 100 hours before exhausting their fuel supply.
So that is ultimately more energy than I reckon some ENTIRE countries produce in a year lol.
It is safe to say that Loroi do not really worry about charging their devices... since high enough usage to drain their power would likely take longer than normal day to day or week to week use.
A loroi Ipad could probably go over a month on a single charge assuming you used it nonstop.
Probably also powered by taimat lol.
Exploding panels from star trek anyone?
Loroi tech is based on explodium.
That's because you're using the wrong units in these equations.G. Janssen wrote: ↑Tue Jan 03, 2023 12:24 pmIndeed. One should never bring math into science fiction. In fact, it should be written "science FICTION". I made that mistake with the railguns on my stealth ships.
Besides, I don't get the formula I used. Energy = mass * acceleration. That would give 1,200,000,000 * 294.3 = 3.5316*10^11 joules. That's double the amount. So why does the formula that I used divide that amount by 2? I found an online calculator that also uses it and it gives the answer that I got after I entered the numbers. https://calculator.academy/joules-to-ac ... #f1p0|f2p0
Is there a scientist in the audience? Why does the formula that calculates energy from mass and acceleration return twice the amount of energy that's needed in the formula that calculates acceleration from mass and energy?
It's been a long time since high school physics and engineering school, but I don't think that math is quite correct. Looking at the formula they use to calculate acceleration on the page you cited, I come up with dimensions of m/s after a dimension check (a method I learned way back in e-school to check if your work and derivations make sense). Acceleration should be given in m/s^2. So let me try my own derivation. I've been sorely sleep deprived since Halloween, so I feel about the way I normally did back in e-school. Means I might actually get this right, but don't bet your life on it .G. Janssen wrote: ↑Tue Jan 03, 2023 12:24 pmIndeed. One should never bring math into science fiction. In fact, it should be written "science FICTION". I made that mistake with the railguns on my stealth ships.Bamax wrote: ↑Tue Jan 03, 2023 3:48 am
Nice calculations... but there is more.
The Tempest... like other Loroi warships... and she is an older model, can do 30g for 100 hours before exhausting their fuel supply.
So that is ultimately more energy than I reckon some ENTIRE countries produce in a year lol.
It is safe to say that Loroi do not really worry about charging their devices... since high enough usage to drain their power would likely take longer than normal day to day or week to week use.
A loroi Ipad could probably go over a month on a single charge assuming you used it nonstop.
Probably also powered by taimat lol.
Exploding panels from star trek anyone?
Loroi tech is based on explodium.
Besides, I don't get the formula I used. Energy = mass * acceleration. That would give 1,200,000,000 * 294.3 = 3.5316*10^11 joules. That's double the amount. So why does the formula that I used divide that amount by 2? I found an online calculator that also uses it and it gives the answer that I got after I entered the numbers. https://calculator.academy/joules-to-ac ... #f1p0|f2p0
Is there a scientist in the audience? Why does the formula that calculates energy from mass and acceleration return twice the amount of energy that's needed in the formula that calculates acceleration from mass and energy?
To bring my analysis in line with the OP, if you were to use the full power output of the drive to accelerate a single proton from rest...
F=ma
Yes, I know. But the first formula I used uses acceleration. A has m/s^2 as its unit. That's acceleration.KE=½mv² | Kinetic Energy = ½ Mass * Velocity squared, where energy is measured in kg⋅m²/s² (joules, or Newton-meters)
Let's not mention that anymore.Energy and Force are not the same thing,
Forget the ticket. I'm gonna jump of a cliff.and Acceleration is not Velocity squared (it's velocity/time).
Ouch. I felt that.avatar576 wrote: ↑Thu Jan 05, 2023 4:06 amIt's been a long time since high school physics and engineering school, but I don't think that math is quite correct. Looking at the formula they use to calculate acceleration on the page you cited, I come up with dimensions of m/s after a dimension check (a method I learned way back in e-school to check if your work and derivations make sense).
It was. I trusted it to be correct.Acceleration should be given in m/s^2.
Were going to be stuck on this planet forever, aren't we?W = (1.2x10^9)(294)(147) = 51.8616 TJ
And as already noted, 1 W = 1 J/s, so my math indicates that one second of 30g acceleration requires about three times the entire power output generated on Earth (about 17 TW)