Why do Borg vessels lack shields?

Post by **Mikey** » Mon Sep 10, 2007 9:24 pm

In the case of dimensional conversion, the mass in questions will "disappear" to all forms of observation in the mass' original dimensionality, but will not violate the conservation of matter. Plus, we don't have to explain a ridiculous amount of energy due to the extremely low mass of neutrinos, and we have a perfectly good reason for not frying everything else in the vicinity.

Post by **Captain Seafort** » Mon Sep 10, 2007 9:30 pm

If the mass dissapears, where does it dissapear to? Unless you start considering conservation of mass/energy to apply on a multiverse scale, which is not how I understand it, you're still violating a fundamental law of physics.

How do you have to explain a huge amount of energy? The process is independant of target mass, and therefore must be a chain reaction of some sort. Since we don't know the process of this chain reaction, and can only hypothesise the end-product, we can't estimate the energy requirements.

Post by **Mikey** » Mon Sep 10, 2007 10:29 pm

The process is not independent of the target's mass - in fact, that's the only mass we have to deal with. And we can assume safely that the amount of energy released would have to be HUGE, because the mass of a neutrino is so small - we would probably have to end up wondering why adjacent objects weren't damaged, as in the vaporization scenario.

Why wouldn't conservation of matter and energy hold when dimensionally transferring?

Maybe tachyons could also have a part in this?

Possible, because of their preference for subspace. But we've seen tachyon weaponry, and no similar effect resulted from its use.

Post by **Captain Seafort** » Mon Sep 10, 2007 10:36 pm

Mikey wrote:The process is not independent of the target's mass - in fact, that's the only mass we have to deal with. And we can assume safely that the amount of energy released would have to be HUGE, because the mass of a neutrino is so small - we would probably have to end up wondering why adjacent objects weren't damaged, as in the vaporization scenario.

The process IS independant of the target mass - it works the same way, with neither a deficit or excess of energy regardless of whether the target is large or small.

Why would there be a large energy release if the target is turned into neutrinos simply because of the small mass of a neutrino? I was reffering to the target's entire mass, not individual particles.

Thorin · Post by **Thorin** » Mon Sep 10, 2007 11:10 pm

I think it would be useful if matter was referred to as energy for this discussion - remember they are completely interchangable. The amount of energy released wouldn't have to be [comparatively] huge - it would be whatever the mass-energy of the "vapourised" was.

Post by **Mikey** » Tue Sep 11, 2007 1:08 am

I simply mean that for a given quantity of matter, conversion to neutrinos would require a lot of energy relative to the mass converted - which would be a small amount... unless you're talking about a ridiculously high NUMBER of neutrinos.

The total amount of mass and energy is what I referred to as being dependent on the mass of the target.

Thorin · Post by **Thorin** » Tue Sep 11, 2007 11:50 am

Mikey wrote: unless you're talking about a ridiculously high NUMBER of neutrinos.

Precisely. It would have to be a very high number of neutrinos to account for the mass of whatever was "vapourised", due to their (currently) unmeasurably small mass.

Post by **Teaos** » Tue Sep 11, 2007 12:03 pm

Yeah it would have to be several billion at least to account to for a human body.

Thorin · Post by **Thorin** » Tue Sep 11, 2007 12:13 pm

Teaos wrote:Yeah it would have to be several billion at least to account to for a human body.

It's a hell of a lot more than that

My estimation places it at ten trillion trillion trillion (10^37).
That's realistically a minimum, too, as we don't know the exact mass of a neutrino, we only know it's maximum possible mass - realistically it could be a hundred orders of magnitude lighter than this!

Post by **Mikey** » Tue Sep 11, 2007 12:18 pm

Exactly. That large a number of neutrinos, even if it is has no easily visible effect on the surrounding area, would at least be readily observable in the 23rd-24th centuries.

Thorin · Post by **Thorin** » Tue Sep 11, 2007 12:22 pm

Mikey wrote:Exactly. That large a number of neutrinos, even if it is has no easily visible effect on the surrounding area, would at least be readily observable in the 23rd-24th centuries.

On tricorders, of course. Perhaps that is how they detect when a phaser has been used (above stun level), because some matter has been converted to neutrinos?

Post by **Mikey** » Tue Sep 11, 2007 12:24 pm

We're not talking about a trace - on tricorders, internal sensors, whatever, that amount of near-massless, high-energy particles would stick out like a blue whale in the middle of Central Park.

Post by **Teaos** » Tue Sep 11, 2007 12:26 pm

Not these types of particals. They are totally invisible even in high numbers.

Post by **Mikey** » Tue Sep 11, 2007 12:28 pm

Don't ask me chapter and verse, but I know I've seen neutrino detection mentioned onscreen.

Post by **Captain Seafort** » Tue Sep 11, 2007 12:34 pm

Teaos wrote:Not these types of particals. They are totally invisible even in high numbers.

We can detect neutrinos even today - I think the method involves a very large tank of heavy water and a lot of patience. The problem is that because they have no charge they don't interact electromagnetically, like everything else does, so you have to rely on one physically hitting an atomic nucleus.

They are, however essentially undetectable - the method mentioned above took years to produce a result despite the scale of the detector.