LINKING PARTICLE ACCELERATORS

[Jeanway 0]

Weareborg, needs to find out, QIUCK.

[scaleman 0]

Is it possible? I think so, but i think the acurate question should be, Is it feasible? We'd either have to get all the parts from all current accelerators (electronics, magnets, etc) or we'd have to build several more of them, and seeing as how energy intensive they are, i'd say right now doing so would be beyond feasible, unless you want to can the medical, educational, and combative departments.

[nik 0]

It's possible. We do it today. (Here I go talking about my work again.) The place I work IS a linked particle accelerator. Not to difficult. We do sometimes throw around "Star Trekish" terms like "phase invariance" and other. It's not only

possible, but feasible, and worthwhile.

[Jeanway 0]

Really nik? Wow, I didn't know that. How is the energy stored? and used?

[nik 0]

This device is for nuclear physics research purposes only, so the energy produced in reactions is either measured or lost (ignored). The amount of energy produced

is really tiny and impractical. Since we deal with (sometimes near-relativistic) particles, the distinction between matter and energy is blurred. If we could build an

accelerator powerful enough to produce practical amounts of energy, we would have to

learn how to harvest energy in MANY forms - gamma rays mostly. In most cases here, we use our accelerated particles immediately, and the time from production to

use is around 500 ns. In other facilities, people store these particles in what are

called (what else!) storage rings - essentially large racetracks that the particles

go around. Here, we have a small ring and other ways of confinement, but usually, we are just interested in production and measurement.

 

Please understand that the particle accelerator as an energy source via direct conversion of matter to energy is not yet practical. If you refer to the direct conversion of matter to energy, that's very difficult by today's standards, and impractical. Devices around the world known sometimes as tokomaks

are used as "hot fusion" devices or antimatter storage bottles, but the energy produced is also tiny. Give it another 100 years.

[Jeanway 0]

So , therotically nik, in time a particle accelerator COULD be used on a Starship as an Anti-matter power source, correct?

[nik 0]

I can't think of an objection to that. If humans ever decide to take that step, we would probably start off with some sort of reaction that produces positrons (antiprotons maybe? I don't know.) If you can make enough antimatter, getting energy out of it

would be a piece of cake. (By "enough" I mean something on the order of a gram.)

[Jeanway 0]

Could you design something for the U.S.S. ELUSIVE? Doesn't really have to work, just sounds good, ok?

 

 

 

 

[headborg 1]

How do u go about physically linking 2 particle accelerators separated by 1000's of miles? I know u can link the data collected by 2 accelerators but the accelerators themselves?

[Jeanway 0]

I think in this case you have to miniaturize, THINK SMALL

[nik 0]

I think in this case you have to miniaturize, THINK SMALL

YOU'RE RIGHT!!!!!

We do miniaturize! Instead of two accelerators 1000's of miles apart, we build them right by each other. We also play some other tricks to increase power, duty cycle, etc.

[Jeanway 0]

O.K.nik, energy coils. Same as the tunnels?

[WEAREBORG4102 0]

My idea is fusion...

I have the idea...

mmmm...

fusion...