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Mailing List Logs for ShadowRN

Message no. 1
From: Starjammer <starjammer@**********.COM>
Subject: [OT] Antimatter tech (was Re: Increased Reflexes Spell)
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1998 12:06:15 -0400
At 11:02 AM 10-2-98 -0400, you wrote:
>
> Agreed. It's definitely beyond the current SOTA for SR magic. I
>think that it's within the theortical boundaries of SR magic, judging from
>existing spells, but then, antimatter reactors are within the theoretical
>boundaries of physics. That doesn't mean I can go out and build one :)
>
> --Sean

Don't be too sure. An engineer/SF writer by the name of Robert Forward has
actually designed practical antimatter-based power systems using
contemporary tech, and I heard some weeks ago that there's some Swiss
outfit set up to begin manufacturing antimatter on a regular basis. (That
was a news blurb, and I haven't been able to find any more info on it,
though.)

Sleep tight. ;)
Starjammer | Una salus victus nullam sperare salutem.
starjammer@**********.com | "The one hope of the doomed is not to hope
Marietta, GA | for safety." --Virgil, The Aeneid
Message no. 2
From: Sean McCrohan <mccrohan@*****.OIT.GATECH.EDU>
Subject: Re: [OT] Antimatter tech (was Re: Increased Reflexes Spell)
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1998 12:18:35 -0400
On Fri, Oct 02, 1998 at 12:06:15PM -0400, Starjammer wrote:
> Don't be too sure. An engineer/SF writer by the name of Robert Forward has
> actually designed practical antimatter-based power systems using
> contemporary tech, and I heard some weeks ago that there's some Swiss
> outfit set up to begin manufacturing antimatter on a regular basis. (That
> was a news blurb, and I haven't been able to find any more info on it,
> though.)

Is Forward an engineer? I thought he was a theoretical physicist.
I remember the novel he wrote that was set on the surface of a neutron
star....
Anyway. Yes, and NASA is researching antimatter-based propulsion
systems, which they currently expect to have in at least prototype
production by sometime around 2010 - I think. I don't remember the date, nor
the URL of the web page (I think it was at JPL) that I read this off of.
That's actually why I used it as an example. We know it's POSSIBLE,
we can even see how you might do it, but our current techniques aren't yet
refined enough to pull it off in a practical fashion.

--Sean
--
Sean McCrohan (mccrohan@**.gatech.edu) | "He uses his folly as a stalking
Grad Student, Human-Computer Interaction | horse, and under the presentation
Georgia Institute of Technology | of that he shoots his wit."
http://www.lcc.gatech.edu/~smccrohan | _As You Like It_, Act 5 Sc 4
Message no. 3
From: Adam Getchell <acgetchell@*******.EDU>
Subject: Re: [OT] Antimatter tech (was Re: Increased Reflexes Spell)
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1998 10:17:58 -0700
>Don't be too sure. An engineer/SF writer by the name of Robert Forward has
>actually designed practical antimatter-based power systems using
>contemporary tech, and I heard some weeks ago that there's some Swiss
>outfit set up to begin manufacturing antimatter on a regular basis. (That
>was a news blurb, and I haven't been able to find any more info on it,
>though.)

Dr. Forward is a physicist, as he has kindly given me a number of his books
and papers on antimatter and other interesting physics phenomena.

Swiss outfit? That would have to be CERN. A fair amount of energy is
necessary for efficient production ... almost any cyclotron can make
positrons, but making anti-protons requires several orders of magnitude
more energy.

As I mentioned earlier, antimatter is best used as rocket fuel. One
milligram is equivalent to 20 tons of chemical fuel. It does not take much
antimatter to get appreciable thrust.

For a Traveller campaign I was running, I designed a spacecraft using
antimatter rockets. It took a mere 525 grams of antimatter to propel an
80,000 ton vessel at ~1G of acceleration for 800 AU.

>Starjammer | Una salus victus nullam sperare

--Adam

acgetchell@*******.edu
"Invincibility is in oneself, vulnerability in the opponent." --Sun Tzu

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