What would you take?

[Thorin]

I wasn't 'accusing' you of looking it up, I said I could have done if I wanted. The 2nd law is about entropy, and the increading 'complexity' of a system, so the analogy to fridges, for example, while correct in that as time goes forward the entropy increases, the heat pumping has got very little to do with it, while the fridge does get colder and so reduces entropy, it is not an isolated system so overall the entropy still increases.

[Captain Picard's Hair]

Actually, I was just giving an excuse for why I wasn't completely accurate (not accusing you of anything) - sorry about the mixup. Though, what I said was basically a rewording of the Clausius statement. Naturally, it follows from the second law that the entropy of the Universe always increases; I believe the current forecast for the Universe is a long, cold, death by entropy, rather than a violent crunch. The "Big Rip," they call it.

[Captain Picard's Hair]

I agree, though, that it was still a rather imprecise rendition of the Clausius statement. Also, the actual mathematical form of Clausius' inequality does take us to where you were leading. Sorry about the confusion.

[Duskofdead]

Well just to throw this in as a consideration.... it's from the Enterprise-D tech manual, not canon.

It says that antimatter even using the most advanced methods still is created at a net 24% energy loss, but that this is deemed acceptable by Starfleet in order to conduct distant interstellar operations.

[Thorin]

It says that antimatter even using the most advanced methods still is created at a net 24% energy loss, but that this is deemed acceptable by Starfleet in order to conduct distant interstellar operations.

That's damn impressive, but it doesn't show absolutes - such as how it compares to the mass-energy of the matter.

For example, if you put in 100 joules of energy into the 'converter' (input), only 76 joules of energy are used to convert the matter to anti-matter (output), thus being a 24% loss.

The conversion (and required energy) of the matter to anti-matter is independant of the output (ie the mass-energy) of the anti-matter/matter reactions. Just because increadible amounts of energy come from M/AM reactions doesn't mean lots is required to convert matter to anti-matter, and indeed it can't - as shown by the fact ships must require anti-matter converters and they clearly can't require an input more than the output of the warpcore.

[Duskofdead]

I am not physicist and didn't mean to get into the technical debate of it. Only to bring up that in a pseudocanonical source, Trek does not claim that it can create antimatter at a net energy profit.

[Thorin]

I'd hope not. Thought I doubt the Trek writers would care too much about breaking the Laws of Thermodynamics.

[stitch626]

Like all the other laws they have broken?

[ultron2099]

My take would be the anti-matter generators used by the federation to create and contain anti matter. Think about that, a virtually unlimited supply of energy that we can easily figure out how to transport and utilize with today's existing technology. Everyone could drive around in electric cars because the electricity is generated by antimatter being converted to plasma and used to drive a gigantic steam engine to generate electricity

or put more simply, take out the fusion part of the nuclear reactor and replace it with anti-matter not only do you create hotter plasma to generate the steam to drive the turbines to create electricity, but none of that annoying nuclear material left over.

[Captain Seafort]

or put more simply, take out the fusion part of the nuclear reactor and replace it with anti-matter not only do you create hotter plasma to generate the steam to drive the turbines to create electricity, but none of that annoying nuclear material left over.

The problem there is that you need some way of containing the antimatter, and if it starts to overheat you can't just scram it by dropping the control rods. From a power-production point of view you'd be better off taking the Feds fusion reactor technology - it's close enough to todays tech that it should be reverse-engineerable.

[Tsukiyumi]

or put more simply, take out the fusion part of the nuclear reactor and replace it with anti-matter not only do you create hotter plasma to generate the steam to drive the turbines to create electricity, but none of that annoying nuclear material left over.

The problem there is that you need some way of containing the antimatter, and if it starts to overheat you can't just scram it by dropping the control rods. From a power-production point of view you'd be better off taking the Feds fusion reactor technology - it's close enough to todays tech that it should be reverse-engineerable.

I agree. We have neither the knowledge or experience to produce or handle antimatter, and any mistake would be catastrophic.

[Teaos]

While you couldnt have something like a control rod to stop the anti matter reacting you might be able to have a system to absorb and "waste" the energy created.

[Captain Seafort]

While you couldnt have something like a control rod to stop the anti matter reacting you might be able to have a system to absorb and "waste" the energy created.

We don't have any material strong enough to contain an out-of-control antimatter reaction - even Chernobyl's reactor house, built like a nuclear bunker, got the roof blown off it. How's anything going to stop the thermonuclear blast even a few grams of antimatter will cause?

[Teaos]

Anto matter causes pure energy. If you could somehoe rout that into a system that burns through that energy right away. It doesnt need to do anything but waste the power.

You could wrap the area in some strong matterial. As strong as you can, then create one weak point. Since it would natrally go to the weak area thats where you get ready to grab the energy and burn it.

[Captain Seafort]

Anto matter causes pure energy.

Exactly - lots of it. We don't have reactors that can survive strategic nuclear weapons going off inside them, so why should they be able to survive an antimatter reactor meltdown which, if anything, would be a bigger bang?