posted
GIven the TOS Enterprise is 190000 metric tons in mass, how much antimatter must be annihilated with an equal mass of normal matter to achieve a delta v of one light year? What formula do we use?
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Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
Your question isn't well formed. "delta v" means "change in velocity". E.g. you want to go from 0m/s to 10m/s (relative to something). It's a way of expressing the point that in most space flight situations the important thing is having enough energy to change your velocity, not how quickly you do it (so it's not acceleration).
A light year is a measure of distance. Given a velocity of 1m/s you can make that trip - it'll just take a while. We need to know how long you want the trip to take.
That will also tell us whether we can cheat and use the approximation of classical physics or if we have to use relativisitic physics. (We probably want the latter anyway; I'm assuming you care about the time dilation for the occupants.)
posted
Also, unless I'm mistaken, Star Trek's never given any kind of ratio for how much energy it takes to create and sustain a warp field, so unless you're talking about using matter and antimatter as an animatter annihilation engine (for impulse), there's absolutely no way of knowing any of this.
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Registered: Feb 2001
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posted
Sticking with the strict 1:1 ratio, not allowing for lower-warp imbalanced-ratio reactions to provide energized plasma for the EPS taps/maintain WPS pressure.
But we also need to know if you're talking sublight or FTL travel here.
And a last BTW... Delta v does refer to change in velocity, velocity being speed in a given direction. To change your delta v, you can change either speed or direction or both. So we need some more specifics.
--Jonah
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Registered: Feb 2001
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Registered: Aug 2002
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