Balck Holes too soft

[BeeDee10]

quote:

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Originally posted by Kadste:
The Large Hadron Collider at the CERN physics lab near Geneva is 27 kilometers in diameter. The article states that they will create a black hole every second.

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Right, but photons are not hadrons. They're leptons, IIRC. Hadrons are big, massive things like protons. They can be accelerated to any energy level one likes; it's only when they're collided at high speeds that black holes might get made, depending on how physics turns out to work (it's not _known_ that black holes will be produced, it's only predicted by some of the proposed theories).

[TallTroll]

>> High-energy gamma rays have a tendancy to decay into electron-positron pairs

True, the Pair Formation Threshold is only 1.022 MeV, but note that this only makes it POSSIBLE for a high-energy photon to decay. An interaction with matter is required to trigger the decay.

Pair production is a collision process, so as long as you are able to keep your photons away from heavy nuclei, you'll be fine.

The real problems occur when you consider that you need either a ridiuclously strong field, or a massive accelerator to achieve the required energy.

We either need to learn to produce stable magnetic fields many orders of magnitude stronger than anything we can manage today, or produce really high quality vacuums. If you need an accelerator than can realistically be measured in AU, you don't have much chance of getting a photon to survive the round trip without hitting something, unless you can COMPLETELY empty the chamber. Even interstellar space has a density of about 1 - 100 atoms/cm3.

As Pluto is about 38.5 AU away (approx. 3.6 billion miles, I think), you can see that you need a VERY clean acceleration chamber for any significant chance of a photon surviving the trip.

Theoretically possible to do it then, but much engineering needed first

[Verigen]

Going back to the original topic of this thread I would say that Black Wholes should neither pull in ships or leave them be. If we were talking in the game sense doesn't a turn just stop time for you and start it for the next player? I would say that in this case the black whole should only slow down the ships perhaps makeing movement half of normal. The damage that they do should also be increased to compensate for the new larger ships being built in the various mods that have been released. No ship should be able to survive a black hole no matter what the size!!!

[BeeDee10]

quote:

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Originally posted by TallTroll:
True, the Pair Formation Threshold is only 1.022 MeV, but note that this only makes it POSSIBLE for a high-energy photon to decay. An interaction with matter is required to trigger the decay.

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Cool, I wasn't aware of that detail.

quote:

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you can see that you need a VERY clean acceleration chamber for any significant chance of a photon surviving the trip.

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But how does one "accelerate" (actually, add energy to) a photon directly once it has been emitted, without having it interact with matter? The only thing I can think of offhand would be by dropping it down an intense gravity well, and it seems somewhat perverse to contemplate sending a photon into a black hole in order to boost it to the energy level necessary for it to turn into a black hole.
I suppose you could also accelerate _yourself_ to near lightspeed, so that the photons you encounter along the way will appear to be so intensely blueshifted that they turn into super-high-energy gamma rays from your frame of reference, but I suspect it will be hard to report what you observe afterward.
I just dabble in this stuff, though, so if I've made any further oversights I will renounce my skepticism gracefully.

[Suicide Junkie]

quote:

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No ship should be able to survive a black hole no matter what the size!!!

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Yeah, but then again, black holes shouldn't drag ships in. Captains antomatically go into orbit of planets & stars, and its no harder to do the same with a black hole.

But if you remove the movement towards center in the BH system, ships would never go near.

I would prefer a rotational movement ability for the system, so that ships left in there would circle around, but not fall in. Going with the flow would save you time and fuel.

[Puke]

would you rotate slower further from the center?

SPACEWAR (argueably, the first arcade game) had gravity effects, why the heck dont we?

edit: it also had a real starfield that panned across the night sky between i-forgot and i-cant-remember latitudes. i bet our starfield is just a bunch of random dots, and i sure dont see it panning either. considering that the stars are the same in every system, i am left with the destinct impression that each system is in about the same place, and any since of scale is lost upon me while playing. if its going to be a random starfield, at least have the decency to randomize it for each system.

edit: yes, im trying vainly to be funny.

[This message has been edited by Puke (edited 12 October 2001).]

[dmm]

quote:

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Originally posted by Tileus:
... I would say that Black Wholes should neither ...

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"Black Wholes" ??? LOL! Looks like the title of a gangsta-rap album! One more typo, and you would've been locked out!