D'deridex Warbird

[Judy Waxhorn]

Astronomy was my major... sadly there isn't much call out side of teaching and a very few coveted observatory positions.

Singularities and black holes are a subject of fascination for me. Part of me hopes that the LHC produces microsingularites so we can study them up close. They would be so tiny and so unstable that they would pose almost no danger to the LHC or countryside.

If I get time I'll try to whip up a "romulan singularity reactor" sketch so I can explain what I mean better.

 

[AmbassadorKosh]

Astronomy was my major... sadly there isn't much call out side of teaching and a very few coveted observatory positions.

Singularities and black holes are a subject of fascination for me. Part of me hopes that the LHC produces microsingularites so we can study them up close. They would be so tiny and so unstable that they would pose almost no danger to the LHC or countryside.

If I get time I'll try to whip up a "romulan singularity reactor" sketch so I can explain what I mean better.

I know what you mean about the jobs situation, with all the tech jobs the U.S. companies exported to other countries, the tech sector here in the states is fiercely competitive aswell. Truthfully, I'm not where I thought I would be today, when I started college 15 years ago.
I'll be looking forward to that sketch, even though I'm not an astronomer or physicist, I have a fascination with all things pertaining to the way our universe works.

 

[SicOne]

In that TNG episode, didn't Picard and company look into the area where the singularity was contained in the Romulan ship and actually see the little creatures that were nesting in there and mucking up the whole thing? If that's the case, then does that mean the Romulan warbird warp core is right off their bridge? Trying to remember an episode I haven't seen in, like, twenty years...

 

[AmbassadorKosh]

In that TNG episode, didn't Picard and company look into the area where the singularity was contained in the Romulan ship and actually see the little creatures that were nesting in there and mucking up the whole thing? If that's the case, then does that mean the Romulan warbird warp core is right off their bridge? Trying to remember an episode I haven't seen in, like, twenty years...

I was thinking of the same episode, I don't remember if they were looking directly at the containment area or if it was a monitor screen. I can't remember the episode title either.

 

[Judy Waxhorn]

I thought they beamed into engineering.

 

[Deks]

Yup... they beamed into engineering.
And when they opened the compartment, they saw the creatures nesting inside the singularity).
Presumably, all of it was contained by a forcefield (which the aliens would be able to bypass given their abilities).

 

[Timo]

...To contain a source of gravitic pull, one would probably employ tractor beams or the same sort of artificial gravity that's found on the decks of the ships. The former tends to always be visible, the latter invisible, unlike forcefields which glow when strained.

OTOH, a very small black hole wouldn't have much gravitic pull, not unless it were fed with lots of free matter (say, like the one that destroyed Vulcan). Rather, if large enough to be stable, and kept in vacuum, it would mainly manifest in Hawking radiation or the like. Unless, of course, black holes have subspace properties we are not "yet" aware of because we don't have subspace technology. In Trek, black holes and other holes-in-space sometimes serve as channels between realms or locations, perhaps allowing them to "export" useful energy without losing stability.

Anyway, this is what the chamber in "Timescape" looked like.

http://tng.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/s6/6x25/timescape259.jpg

Just a flimsy hatch, and then milkiness that might be a transparent physical wall built out of superduperium or a forcefield structure of some sort.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Judy Waxhorn]

It is speculated that you could minupulate a black-hole (ie suspend in a chamber) with ultra-high-gauss magnetic fields.

Pure speculation... it is likely to remain so too... 'cause we don't seem to have any black-holes here on Earth to play with aside from the Government. *rimshot*

 

[SicOne]

Yup... they beamed into engineering.
And when they opened the compartment, they saw the creatures nesting inside the singularity).
Presumably, all of it was contained by a forcefield (which the aliens would be able to bypass given their abilities).

OK, thanks for the clarification, Deks. A little strange that they were able to look into the singularity without getting vaporized or sucked in (A Treknology gripe, Deks, not a personal slight; I know you didn't write the episode...). For some reason, I pictured the Warbird's singularity to be contained in the middle of the gap between the upper and lower hull, though.