drennan@nybcb.UUCP (drennan) (11/05/84)
A friend of mine and I were talking about this the other day. Since everyone is in agreement that anything over warp 1 is faster than the speed of light, how was the Enterprise ever able to battle other ships at warp speeds? Or did they always engage other ships at sub light speeds? Please post some answers. We can't get to sleep at night. Jim Drennan New York Blood Center ..seismo!cmcl2!nybcb!drennan
raiche@dartvax.UUCP (George A. Raiche) (11/09/84)
> > > A friend of mine and I were talking about this the other day. > Since everyone is in agreement that anything over warp 1 is faster than > the speed of light, how was the Enterprise ever able to battle other ships > at warp speeds? Or did they always engage other ships at sub light speeds? > > Please post some answers. We can't get to sleep at night. > > Jim Drennan > New York Blood Center > ..seismo!cmcl2!nybcb!drennan That's a good question. Assuming that the particle/photons of a phaser cannot propagate faster than the speed of light, one would not expect phasers to be effective at hyperlight speed. However, you will recall that in "The Ultimate Computer" Enterprise engaged Lexington, Hood (?), and Potemkin at speeds of warp three and four with phaser fire. (I believe Potemkin was destroyed.) This should not have been possible. We also know that it is desireable to engage enemies at warp speed rather than sublight (recall in "Elaan of Troius" how the Klingons harassed Enterprise until the warp drive was restored) so it appears that we have a fundamental inconsistency. One way around this would be to use photon torpedoes--presumably a torp could contain a hyper-field generator as well as a warhead, and could therefore exceed the speed of light (and of the ship). Did you ever wonder why, in "Balance of Terror" when the Romulans squeeze off a plasma bolt, that Enterprise tried to escape by backing straight away (rather than manuevering off at a right angle)? One assumes that a plasma bolt can't be guided after launch, and certainly cannot attain hyper-light speeds. Also, the whole problem of attempting rendezvous ( i.e. targeting) in multidimensional space is ignored here. Maybe it is possible to use phasers against another ship moving AT THE SAME WARP SPEED. One other inconsistency associated with phasers. We saw several times (in "Arena" [with the Gorn] for example) that one cannot beam up or down with the deflectors up. Deflectors also stop phasers. So how does Enterprise fire phasers when the screens are up??? Sorry for harping on this, but my area of research is laser-induced chemistry. George Raiche Dept. of Chemistry Dartmouth "Let's get the hell out of here."
dave@ur-valhalla.UUCP (Dave Carlson) (11/09/84)
One might suppose that if two starships were traveling at warp speed
engaged one another in battle that the light of the phasors might be
able to "hop" over the gravity wave "wake" that precedes a warping
ship in much the same way that the starship itself travels.
(It remains how then would a ship fire laterally since the gravity
waves would be at the front of the ship?)
--
Dave Carlson
{allegra,seismo,decvax}!rochester!ur-valhalla!davepaul@wjvax.UUCP (Paul Summers) (11/20/84)
There is, of course, a simple explanation as to why phasers can be fired through the screens. It is related to the way that the old WWI biplanes could shoot their machine guns through their propellers. It is simply a matter of proper phasing. You can't use the transporter through the shields because the transporter 'signal' is substaintialy more complex than a simple energy blast. -- <*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><**><*><*><*><*><*><*> Paul Summers Watkins Johnson, Co. 2525 N. First St. San Jose, Ca. 95131-1097 (408) 262-1411 x3203 (...wjvax!paul) Working is fine, but I wouldn't want to make a career out of it.
bryan@uiucdcsp.UUCP (11/20/84)
I have too also wondered how starship combat can occur between ships with warp power. If combat can not go on at warp speeds what stops a ship from leaving an encounter with unfriendlys at warp speed to run away and fight another day (assuming its warp enginees are operatable). If warp combat is possible one would believe that it must be done at the same warp factor for applying the standard formula v=w^3*c a difference by one factor between two ships is approx. 3*w^2*c which for warp factor say 6 is 108*c ===> there is only a short moment that the two ships are close enough to each other to have combat. other opinions ???? -rob bryan univ of illinois pur-ee!uiucdcs!bryan
mike@smu.UUCP (11/20/84)
Queen of the fast people and the green stuff shoots out like lime jello? Mike McNally ...convex!smu!mik
zubbie@wlcrjs.UUCP (Jeanette Zobjeck) (11/27/84)
Since the phasor beem is limited in its speed of propogation to the speed of light one can only assume that as with any weapon fired from a moving point at another moving point one would aim for a place where the target would be when the beam arrived at that point. sort of like tossing a pop can out the window of a moving car trying to hit a passing garbage truck. The beam is straight only because we are viewing it from a relativistic viepoint. If youwere watching from exactly behind the point of projection the beam would appear to twist wiggle and curve wildly on its way and you would wonder if the saki supply was getting lower with each pasing shot. jeanette zobjeck wclrjs!zubbie ========================================================================= Scot Here: Aye they're aboard and what a motly crew they are sir. ==========================================================================
zubbie@wlcrjs.UUCP (Jeanette Zobjeck) (11/27/84)
In order to fire thru the deflectors one of two conditions must exist: 1) The deflector sheilds are one way force fields, kind of an electronic (gravitic) half-silvered mirror. 2) As with the spin-dizzy of Cities In Flight New York in flight the field is not on constantly so that firing thru it means only that your beam must be synced with the times when the deflector shield/ spin-dizzy field is not active. It would be assumed also that were the deflectors turned on constantly the enterprise might find itself blined by its own protective devices and become a large shiny sphere in the heavens. jeanette L. Zobjeck wlcrjs!zubbie
msj@gitpyr.UUCP (Mike St. Johns) (11/28/84)
In article <> zubbie@wlcrjs.UUCP (Jeanette Zobjeck) writes: >Since the phasor beem is limited in its speed of propogation to the speed >of light one can only assume that as with any weapon fired from a moving >point at another moving point one would aim for a place where the target >would be when the beam arrived at that point. >jeanette zobjeck >wclrjs!zubbie > The phasor beam is a warp based device. (It power source is the warp engines and the dilithium crystals) It propogates at a multiple of light speed. The photon torpedoes are also a warp device. The reason that we can see either when they fire is that the view screens convert the multi-lightspeed view into something we can handle. (It has to, we couldn't see the stars otherwise, they would red shift right out of existence when the ship passed warp 1.) Mike -- Mike St. Johns Georgia Insitute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332 ...!{akgua,allegra,amd,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo,ut-ngp}!gatech!gitpyr!msj
rene@tove.UUCP (Rene Steiner) (11/28/84)
> > > A friend of mine and I were talking about this the other day. > Since everyone is in agreement that anything over warp 1 is faster than > the speed of light, how was the Enterprise ever able to battle other ships > at warp speeds? Or did they always engage other ships at sub light speeds? > I've always been really impressed with the dogfights that go on. One of my favorite instances is in "Journey to Babel" (I think), where the enterprise can't go into warp speed because of some sabatage down by some character pretending to be an andorian or something. ANYway, the alien ship is attacking at warp 10 (it's a suicide ship and uses all it's power for speed and weapons). Kirk's lines go something like this: "Hold on... watch it... " (the ship approaches) "Here she comes ... alright, NOW! PIVOT! FIRE!!!!" Come on! One ship going at sublight, the other at warp 10 (by the formula recently discussed, that's 1000 times the speed of light!) - yet the slower one waits for the other ship and pivots as it passes? I don't think it's possible for two warp speed ships to fight (well, maybe if they were going exactly the same speed); the speed differential is just too great. Refering to the discussion about "Wink of an Eye" ... I've always been amused by the fact that light CRAWLS for them. They're not THAT fast, or are they speeded up to warp speed? How do they see? Also, I noticed that the time flow was wrong. The sped-up people would do something, with some non-sped-up person standing around, then it would switch to the slow action (which should have been DAYS for the fast people, yet the action picked up where it left off), then back and that person was STILL STANDING THERE!!!! Later, (but not enough later) that person might be gone. I think continuity had problems with this one. One last real gripe (I mean, all ST episodes had problems - it was great anyway): I flipped through the comic book on STIII. When Kirk beams down to the genesis planet to find his son dead, first Saavik falls into his arms saying something like "I'm so glad you're here", and Kirk replies "It's ok now" and holds her for a moment. GAHHH! I thought it was bad enough that Saavik was so non-active in the movie (you could argue that she felt taking care of young Spock was more important than going after the Klingons rather than sending a non-military inexperienced scientist - I don't buy it, but you COULD argue that), but here!!!!! And to think I was actually tempted to buy it! BAHHH! - rene -- rene@tove My opinions are my own, and no one can take them away from me!!!
raiche@dartvax.UUCP (George A. Raiche) (12/01/84)
> In order to fire thru the deflectors one of two conditions must exist: > > 1) The deflector sheilds are one way force fields, kind of an > electronic (gravitic) half-silvered mirror. > *************************** This might be a good time for a "Phasers vs Deflectors and Interstellar Multidimensional Warfare" review article. Unfortunately this is finals time at Dartmouth. Maybe in a few days... But I couldn't let this pass. A one-way mirror is only one-way if you're on the dark side of the mirror. Picture a one-way mirror separating witnesses from suspects on any police show. Recall that the witness is always sitting in the dark, while the crooks are well-lighted. Now if suddenly the lights in the crook's room went out and the lights in the witness' room came on, the witness would fimd him/herself staring at his/her own reflection in that mirror, while the crook would be memorizing the stoolie's face. Now imagine that instead of a crook, it's a Klingon battle cruiser. He'd be firing at you (sitting behind the one-way mirror) but his photons are just bouncing off your mirror. (But what happens to the momentum of the photons?) Then with a smile on your face you'd lift your zillion-watt phaser to your shoulder, aim at the Klingon through the mirror, and fire. Ten nanoseconds later, you'd wish you hadn't done that. George Raiche Dept. of Chemistry Dartmouth "I believe that is the recommended amount, Captain."
zubbie@wlcrjs.UUCP (Jeanette Zobjeck) (12/08/84)
True the phasor is based on warp technology but the propogation rate is still limited by the speed of light. In one episode (can't rember the name but its where Jim gets sped up by a group of people who live at a time rate faster than ours) we see that the phasor beam travels at a mere crawl compared to the energy weapon used by the heavies. Since all thru the episode the conversations of the people who are living faster still can be detected (as the sound of an insect) by normal people we have a definite statement that the speed of light is not violated. jeanette zobjeck ihnp4!wlcrjs!zubbie ....but Jim, they called the Enterprise a "GARBAGE SCOW"
jin@hplabs.UUCP (Tai Jin) (12/11/84)
> True the phasor is based on warp technology but the propogation rate is > still limited by the speed of light. > In one episode (can't rember the name but its where Jim gets sped up > by a group of people who live at a time rate faster than ours) we see that > the phasor beam travels at a mere crawl compared to the energy weapon used > by the heavies. Since all thru the episode the conversations of the people > who are living faster still can be detected (as the sound of an insect) > by normal people we have a definite statement that the speed of light > is not violated. > jeanette zobjeck > ihnp4!wlcrjs!zubbie > ....but Jim, they called the Enterprise a "GARBAGE SCOW" *but that would make ship to ship phasers useless. there's obviously an inconsistency.