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Zeke
2006-08-29 05:29:25 pm
Time bomb set get out fast!
I'm halfway through Prime Hunters now and I love it, though not without reservation.  (The constant Guardian fights suck, as do the four copies each of Cretaphid and Slench.)  The overwhelming impression I get from the game is proof-of-concept.  Nintendo wanted to see if a Primelike game could be done on the DS, and they found that it could.  If they make another one, I'm betting they'll knock it out of the park.

However... there's one thing that just makes me wince every time I read it.  The Judicator apparently fires "supercooled plasma."

Let me put this in context.  Plasma is what you get if you heat something until it's a gas, then heat it even more (we're talking inside-a-star temperatures here) until the gas sort of goes nuts.  The whole idea of plasma is that it's outrageously hot.  "Supercooled plasma" is like "superheated ice," but even stupider.

It's funny -- the whole dark/light energy thing in Echoes was dumb too, but it never annoyed me this much.  I think the reason is that "dark energy" is at least <i>conceivable</i>, though we have no reason to think any such thing exists.  If we encountered it, we'd have to change our minds.  But we're in no danger whatsoever of encountering supercooled plasma.  We're more likely to run into a radioactive prime number or a triangle whose angles add up to Susan B. Anthony.

And I thought the Voyager episode involving "antimatter radiation" was stupid....
Thread title: 
Hitaro
2006-08-29 05:48:13 pm
At least this makes more sense than "light + dark = sound", imo.

Maybe it's trying to say that when it's "supercooleed", it becomes another form of plasma <.<
Izo
2006-08-29 05:58:28 pm
soaking through
Taken from the Wikipedia article on plasma:

"It is possible to create ultracold plasmas, by using lasers to trap and cool neutral atoms to temperatures of 1 mK lower. Another laser then ionizes the atoms by giving each of the outermost electrons just enough energy to escape the electrical attraction of its parent ion.

The key point about ultracold plasmas is that by manipulating the atoms with lasers, the kinetic energy of the liberated electrons can be controlled. Using standard pulsed lasers, the electron energy can be made to correspond to a temperature of as low as 0.1 K ­ a limit set by the frequency bandwidth of the laser pulse. The ions, however, retain the millikelvin temperatures of the neutral atoms. This type of non-equilibrium ultracold plasma evolves rapidly, and many fundamental questions about its behaviour remain unanswered. Experiments conducted so far have revealed surprising dynamics and recombination behaviour that are pushing the limits of our knowledge of plasma physics."

I'm not saying this is massively releveant or anything, but afaik plasma's not necessarily really really really hot; it's just an ionised gas.  :/
Derek
2006-08-29 07:00:11 pm
I know it sounds oxymoronic, but its actually not, as Izo demonstrated.

Plasma is defined as a state of matter in which the outer electrons no longer cling to atoms, instead floating in a collective cloud of electrons in the plasma (think atomic communism Laughing ). This is normally achieved by making gasses extremely hot, but there are other ways of doing it.

And superheated ice is also possible, you just need enough pressure :P
Zeke
2006-08-29 08:17:19 pm
Time bomb set get out fast!
...

Well.

Can I have some supercooled ketchup for this crow I'm eating, please?
Derek
2006-08-29 11:59:39 pm
Only if I can get supercooled milk to go with my Oreos!
primetime
2006-08-30 12:01:44 am
it still doesn't seem at all possible to shoot individual beams of that stuff, then have it bounce off walls, AND have it be able to somehow come out of the gun as a half. spherish sorta thing and be able to freeze anyone in range, and then disappear into nothingness.

and that is my elaboration on this topic.


people from the future are gonna look at this and laugh.
arkarian
2006-08-30 03:33:19 pm
red chamber dream
Quote from primetime:
it still doesn't seem at all possible to shoot individual beams of that stuff, then have it bounce off walls, AND have it be able to somehow come out of the gun as a half. spherish sorta thing and be able to freeze anyone in range, and then disappear into nothingness.

It doesn't seem at all possible to produce and fire superheated plasma fired by an Arm Cannon either. :P

Quote from primetime:
people from the future are gonna look at this and laugh.

No, they won't. It's a video game.
primetime
2006-08-30 10:57:24 pm
Quote from Arkarian:
Quote from primetime:
people from the future are gonna look at this and laugh.

No, they won't. It's a video game.

it was a joke.
Tremere98
2006-09-02 12:57:08 am
Quote from Zeke:
It's funny -- the whole dark/light energy thing in Echoes was dumb too, but it never annoyed me this much.  I think the reason is that "dark energy" is at least <i>conceivable</i>, though we have no reason to think any such thing exists.  If we encountered it, we'd have to change our minds.


Got another "oh crap" moment for ya here, man...
Yoshi348
2006-09-02 01:02:05 am
PAGE BREAKER
Ready and willing.
Matter != energy, as far as I know. Of course, in a world of quantum physics, atoms could be made of tiny Pikachu for all I know. Still, although I know you can make matter into energy, I'm not sure if you'd get dark energy from dark matter.
Zeke
2006-09-02 05:16:01 am
Time bomb set get out fast!
Quote from Tremere98:
Got another "oh crap" moment for ya here, man...


Dark matter's not so bad for one simple reason: "dark" is just a metaphor there.  It has nothing to do with good and evil; nobody's claiming that dark matter would be vulnerable to light energy and vice versa.  It's just unusually hard to detect.

Anyway, I've come to terms with the supercooled plasma thing.  I don't think my original comments are really invalidated -- game designers are no more likely to have known about this experimental physics concept than I was.  I still think they were basically throwing words together without really considering their meanings.  How do I know?  Because I just remembered the other thing in Prime Hunters that I facepalmed over: the Shock Coil fires a "blast of high-density neutrinos."

Let's look at that one, shall we?  First of all, it makes no sense unless we read it as "high-density blast of neutrinos," because all neutrinos are identical; you might as well talk about high-density apostrophes.  But no matter how "dense" your blast of neutrinos is, it's not going to drain anyone's HP.  Neutrinos have so little mass they have a 50% chance of passing through a solid light-year of lead unaffected.  In fact, until recently we thought they had no mass at all.  This isn't some obscure fact of science -- it's the one and only thing neutrinos are famous for.

I know it's just a game.  Star Trek is just a show and it bugs me when people overanalyze it.  But there's a reason Star Trek talks about "chronitons" and such -- real science words have actual meanings.  If we can laugh at "mechanical life vein," I think we can laugh at this.
Derek
2006-09-02 09:42:50 am
Quote from Yoshi348:
Matter != energy,

Actually it does.  :P

E=MC^2, in numbers, one Kilogram of mass is equivalnet to about 21.5 megatons of energy. However Dark Matter and Dark Energy (which are both mysterious cosmic phenomena) are not the same. Dark Energy makes up an estimated 70% of the universe, Dark Matter 25%, and everything else the remaining, 5%. (All information from Wikipedia)

Quote:
all neutrinos are identical

Should I tell you that there are three different types of neutrinos, with different masses? (Each corresponding to one of the three electron-like particles) All are still extremely light, the heaviest is (estimated) to be only 30 times heavier than an electron (which itself has fairly neglibile mass), the lightest is less than one millionth that. Regardless, you're right that a beam of neatrinos doesn't make much since considering its ultra light weight and nearly absolute non-reactivity.
Yoshi348
2006-09-02 12:36:04 pm
PAGE BREAKER
Ready and willing.
Quote from Derek:
Quote from Yoshi348:
Matter != energy,

Actually it does.  :P

E=MC^2, in numbers, one Kilogram of mass is equivalnet to about 21.5 megatons of energy. However Dark Matter and Dark Energy (which are both mysterious cosmic phenomena) are not the same.


That's what I said, roundabouts.

Quote from Yoshi348:
Still, although I know you can make matter into energy, I'm not sure if you'd get dark energy from dark matter.
Derek
2006-09-02 08:56:24 pm
I guess so, but my point was that mass actually is energy, for example, a proton weights 938 MeV, but is made of 3 particles that weight only 1.5-8 MeV each, the vast majority of the Proton's mass comes from the binding energy of those three particles. As one continues to combine particles, you can gain (and lose) mass in other bonds, such as nuclear and chemical bonds, although the gains and losses are far less (neglible for chemical bonds, but still there).


Ok, maybe I'm just getting a bit too eager about the subatomic physics discussion  :P (/me <3 subatomic physics)
nate
2006-09-02 09:30:08 pm
it's ok ... we could use it.
LDreamNinja
2006-09-02 11:16:26 pm
I made the same mistake about plasma. I think it was mainly because Zeke was the first person to explain it in a way i understood (I forgot what topic). Another mistake: look at the weapon descriptions in the manual. The Judicator description is kinda a mismatch and it could really be stupid this time unless im wrong. [quote=”the manual text”] The Judicator shoots energy that has been super-cooled to temperatures approaching absolute zero.[/quote] As far as I know, you cant freeze energy, and  cold is a lack of energy. Even if shooting neutrinos was going to hurt someone, shooting almost nothing wouldn’t.
Zeke
2006-09-02 11:23:28 pm
Time bomb set get out fast!
Quote from Derek:
Should I tell you that there are three different types of neutrinos, with different masses?


Technicalities.  It was in the back of my mind somewhere that there were different kinds of neutrino (electron, muon, and tau neutrinos, if anyone's curious).  However, within each class of neutrino, they're all identical, just as all protons are identical.  That's the point I meant to make.

A friend of mine contributes "The actual apostrophes may not be dense, but the people who use (or don't use) them certainly are."
Derek
2006-09-02 11:27:37 pm
Quote from LDreamNinja:
[quote=”the manual text”] The Judicator shoots energy that has been super-cooled to temperatures approaching absolute zero.

As far as I know, you cant freeze energy, and  cold is a lack of energy. Even if shooting neutrinos was going to hurt someone, shooting almost nothing wouldn’t.[/quote]
Thats definately an error, you're right that you can't cool energy, although I'm pretty sure the cannonical definition would still be "super-cooled plasma", since thats what the game says.

Quote:
A friend of mine contributes "The actual apostrophes may not be dense, but the people who use (or don't use) them certainly are."

Thats good laugh new
arkarian
2006-09-02 11:36:56 pm
red chamber dream
Quote from Derek:
[...]cold is a lack of energy

No, cold is the lack of heat. Heat != energy.
Yoshi348
2006-09-03 12:12:38 am
PAGE BREAKER
Ready and willing.
Heat is a type of energy. I'm not sure if it's the only energy or not. Or perhaps all energy is equivalent.
Zeke
2006-09-03 12:16:32 am
Time bomb set get out fast!
There are other kinds -- electrical energy, potential energy, kinetic energy, and so forth.  (They all ultimately degrade to heat, though.)  On the other hand, there isn't any such thing as "generic" energy.  It has to be in one form or another.  To describe something as "pure energy" is meaningless.
Yoshi348
2006-09-03 12:18:04 am
PAGE BREAKER
Ready and willing.
Quote from Zeke:
To describe something as "pure energy" is meaningless.


Oh, I bet THAT one is tons of fun when the technobabble comes on.
Zeke
2006-09-03 01:02:00 am
Time bomb set get out fast!
Derek
2006-09-03 09:30:45 am
There is no such thing as "generic energy", but you can have energy without matter. For example, Electro-magnetism carries energy at high speeds without matter (in this case the transfer particle is a photon instead of a particle with mass).

Heat is the energy of the movement of the molecules, the faster they move, the hotter it the substance is. If they were to stop moving completely, it would be absolute zero.