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The rebel ships jump to hyperspace. The passage refers to the starline effect visible from within the ships, and to the transition to hyperspace being marked by a muon flash. Whether this is just poetic language or whether muons are genuinely created by the jump process is not clear.
A wise reader questioned whether starline effects and muon flashes can be seen by characters inside a space ship as they enter/exit hyperspace or only by characters elsewhere in space observing the ship entering/exiting hyperspace. I would think, as in the quote above from technical comments about Star Wars, that no one actually knows since hyperspace isn't a reality. Any thoughts?
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Main Entry: mu·on
Pronunciation: 'myü-"än
Function: noun
Etymology: contraction of earlier mu-meson, from mu
Date: 1952
:an unstable lepton that is common in the cosmic radiation near the earth's surface, has a mass about 207 times the mass of the electron, and exists in negative and positive forms
That's the Merriam-Webster definition of a muon. I don't know if a muon would flash when jumping into hyperspace. I know it's nitpicking, but I'm a partial hard SF fan. At least try to use words that mean what you want them to.
Of course there’s the sort of argument OSC presents about warp speed -- don't use it if you want to be read seriously -- yet hyperspace, which is also a figment of someone's imagination, is fair game even if it's presented "...as safe and fast as the Concorde..." and people whip around the universe as they do on Earth.
What tips the scale for me toward legitimizing muon flashes and starline effects is a picture a Navy photographer took of a jet breaking the sound barrier.
If you haven't seen it, do check it out: http://www.wilk4.com/misc/soundbreak.htm
Granted, it happened in a microsecond, but what sort of cloud/flash/whatever can be imagined with a hyperspace entry/exit? Starline effects and muon flashes become more than poetic imaginings.
In a nutshell: relativity doesn't say you can't move faster than light, it just says you can't accelerate to a speed faster than light. If you could warp space, you could change your location without accelerating. We know it is possible to warp space, since gravity does it a little bit.
There are a number of technological obstacles to overcome, but the biggest obstacle to a practical warp drive is energy. To move a ship the size of the Enterprise a few lightyears would require a chunk of antimatter bigger than the whole Milky Way!
. . . if it exists.
For example, I am currently doing Cosmic ray muon detection using scintillators and photomultiplier tubes, and the only way that the equipment can detect these charged particles is because they pass through the detector medium, charge some of the material, cause a "flash", and then those photons enter into the PMT.
So basically, what I'm trying to say, is that muons wouldn't naturally emit light. They only emit light if they strike something, ionize it, and then emit a photon of some sort of 'visible' length.
Star Wars writers aren't constrained to give their words that same technical meanings we might associate with them. They are free to choose words that sound cool and employ them for any purpose.
The thing is, I believe the products of muon decay are only electrons (or positrons), and neutrinos (or antineutrinos). Granted, this part of the reaction I haven't studied much, but I don't believe that they have any reason to emit radiation (unless, perhaps, the electrons are accelerated in some way).
But, if these muon bursts happened in the vacinity of some sort of scintillation material (which, in the emptiness of space is probably not likely) then they may be able to radiate light. But I'm just doubtful.
But I'm not a high-energy physicist. This is just what I recall from my subatomic class.
It's all simply speculative. The speculative side of science fiction. There's absolutely no basis for making the statement except in a speculative sense.
Actually, it's quite a relief that at least they're not discussing Tachyons, as most the fashion would dictate - unless the Muons are a decay product.
If they'd have wanted to play safer they could have just referred to the "M Flash" of "flash of light". Which would be observable only outside of the ship if using the visible wavelengths.
Obviously, it is a flash of light being observed - but I don't believe humanity in general ever makes an issue of the causation of a light source with reference to high-energy physics, unless being studied. Thus a light bulb is "light bulb", not a "Tungsten Electron Compression Matrix". Sometimes spec fic gets lost in itself.
As for Star Wars - well, really, jet-turbines in space kills the speculative side of the movies. Actually, everything technical does. The illusion of the film is in the visual details, not the technical scope, which is little evolved from 1950's sf.
http://www.wilk4.com/misc/soundbreak.htm
It's *not* a flash of light - it looks basically a form of condensation due to the pressure gradients created in the air.
[This message has been edited by Chronicles_of_Empire (edited May 21, 2003).]
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what sort of cloud/flash/whatever can be imagined with a hyperspace entry/exit?
Actually, I feel sorry for hard SF people. I can't believe they have any fun.
[This message has been edited by Kolona (edited May 21, 2003).]
Yes, I was thinking that you couldn't be seeing many muons if you were looking at naturally occuring particles. I think that you're right about their decay producing both electrons and positrons, which would annihilate each other and produce a lot of radiation should there be a large quantity of muons being produced for some reason.
Of course, this still doesn't explain why a hyperdrive should produce a burst of muons....
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possibilities that former generations lacked even the conceptual tools to imagine
Actually, it sounds like a chicken and egg argument -- do you need real science to imagine, or do you need to imagine before real science is possible?
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If hyperspace is purely speculative, what if there's a band wholly unique to it and unknown to us presently? Who knows what you'd see when and from where?
The problem there is that the electro-magnetic spectrum is very well understood.
Of course, perhaps the laws of physics are completely messed up by hyperspace - they must be if the Star Wars writer is claiming that visible light shines through brick walls.
The following looks like a decent enough article on the EM spectrum: http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/science/know_l1/emspectrum.html
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Yes, I was thinking that you couldn't be seeing many muons if you were looking at naturally occuring particles.
Muons are very natural occurring. Think of them as nothing more than a form of heavy electron.
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the Star Wars writer is claiming that visible light shines through brick walls.
Just had a thought. The windows themselves could have certain properties to allow those in the ship to see the jump effects. If sunglasses can keep out UV rays and prisms can "break" light, why not? It could be an inadvertent result of properties the glass/whatever needed for other spatial applications.
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The problem there is that the electro-magnetic spectrum is very well understood.
In fact, there was -- if not a study, then certainly an article -- about how many, many (redundancy intended) inventions were the work of people not in the particular field. People who not only thought, but lived and worked outside the box, who because of that distance, were able to see with new eyes in a way the experts in the field could not.
Where an expert would say something couldn't be done because of such and so, the outsider wouldn't have such a mental block and proceed blissfully on, sometimes to great success. Of course not all the time, but I had a list at one point of inventions with just such a history.
All that to say, I don't care how well understood something is. I like to entertain the "What if" principle in all its impossibility. No slam to you, Brian, or anyone else who sees the world in strict scientific parameters. We need you, too. But you guys also need us.
Makes sense though .. to me anyways.
My opinion is that it is not feasible, and will never happen. But I am no more qualified to make that statement than anyone else.
What I'm saying is that the whole point of bungy jumping is that the stretchy-ness of the bungy cord slows down the impact and lessens the force.
If Spiderman's web isn't stretchy, then, yes, the victim would die from the sudden stop. (Consider two such stupid saves in one year when Spock caught Kirk in his fall from El Capitan and Batman and what'shername were saved from a fall from Gotham Cathedral by Batman's batrope--which isn't stretchy. Both were sudden stops and in both cases people should have died.)
It's a force x time equals mass x velocity thing, and having taught physics myself, I approve--but I still would want to be sure to use the right example.
No problem - I think it was just a communication issue - namely that I would need to have read exactly what you had to understand your query better. In fac...what were you even asking again?
And the Spiderman thinkg - yes, that was Mary Jane who died in the comic. I remember that because I never understood how she could have just died from the fall. Shame they didn't do the same in the film.
The physics would be pretty easy to calculate, if you knew the modulus of elasticity of the rope. Barring that, you could make a quick estimate. Suppose you free fall at one G for ten feet then begin uniform deceleration for the next ten feet then stop (i.e. you don't spring back up). During the deceleration you'll experience two Gs, the deceleration plus regular Earth gravity.
Even the springiest nylon rope won't stretch that much. From a 10 foot rope you'd be lucky to get more than a couple of inches of elastic action. Thus the deceleration would be many, many times greater than 2 Gs. If it's tied around your waste you could be cut in half!
Of course I've never tested it myself.
Kathleen, I recently came across an article in an old U.S. News & World Report (Jan.28-Feb.4/02) about scientists working on a man-made version of spider silk for bulletproof clothing and replacement knee parts precisely because of the strength and elasticity of webs. Says "they took silk-making genes from spiders, inserted them into mammal cells, then spun the cell-made products into silk that closely resembles the spider's own." Crazy, huh? Maybe a future Spiderman will shoot webs without computer graphics.
LOL CofE -- twice.
After what Doc wrote, anyone for bungi jumping?
So, I don't think that SpiderMan will shoot webbing without the aid of computer graphics, no...
See, Kolona? Those of us that follow the science have a lot of fun, even it it isn't always good, clean fun
Yeah, I see how this can be fun.