Antimatter Containment

[Timo]

..."mixed cold" (whatever that means)

Since it's our metaphorically well-endowed Chief Engineer using the expression, I'd say the correct answer is "it can mean anything and everything, but is verrra unlikely to refer to temperature".

Really, Scotty is probably arguing that the mixing will not go well unless he has had some time to warm up.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[blssdwlf]

..."mixed cold" (whatever that means)

Since it's our metaphorically well-endowed Chief Engineer using the expression, I'd say the correct answer is "it can mean anything and everything, but is verrra unlikely to refer to temperature".

Really, Scotty is probably arguing that the mixing will not go well unless he has had some time to warm up.

Except when they do the controlled implosion they explicitly refer to the temperature of the antimatter.

Spock: Fuel temperature
Scott: Level
..
Spock: Raise antimatter eight and forty degrees.

 

[TIN_MAN]

I take it pretty much strait forward. "cold" refers to "cold plasma" in a more or less gaseous form, and "hot" refers "hot plasma" in an ionized form? This makes sense, as our scientists are already making progress in containing and storing anti-matter in a molecular form in a sort of stasis which is considered the ideal way to store the stuff, and it stands to reason that trek tech has perfected this technology.

But when it comes to manipulating anti-matter and "feeding" into the system in a controlled, steady rate, an electromagnetically active "hot plasma" would be prefered as this would allow precise control over the whole procedure? This might also explain away the reference in "That Which Survives" where Losira says something about the anti-matter taking longer to explode, once the magnetic field fails. Presumably because, in such a case the A/M would not even reach the intermix chamber?

 

[C.E. Evans]

Re: Anti-Matter Containment

The TNG Tech Manual says there's an inner lining of some magical substance (ala dilithium) within each antimatter pod that produces a magnetic containment field. It might be a case that even if the ship loses all power, the pods won't rupture unless they are physically damaged (say during a battle) and the pods' containment fields starts to decay. If you're lucky, you might have time to eject the pods, if not...

Hey, don't they have room temp. superconductors in Trek's time?

And isn't it true that once you set up an electric current in a superconductor - say, a superconducting ring or coil - doesn't it pretty much go on forever?

And doesn't an electric current circulating through a conducting
coil of wire, produce an magnetic field.

So...if you wrapped the anti-matter pods with superconducting rings or looped coils...wouldn't you pretty much have something that would generate a magnetic field with little need for more electricity to be applied.

Of course, in the real word - the coil would lose power eventually, as no conductor is perfect - electricity would *leak* out do to quantum effects, subtle imperfections, etc...and wouldn't any "work" the magnetic field did cause a subtle loss of energy? ('Work', such as repelling and bending the path of the charged anti-matter particles?)

But if you had room-temp or even high-temp superconducting coils wrapped around the storage pods or whatever, you would have a pretty low-maintenance way of storing anti-matter in a self-sustaining magnetic field that would work for a while, at least, with little or *almost* no power? (And if you did other tricks such as super-cooling the antimatter and compressing it *somehow* to it stayed cold, like someone suggested earlier...)

Just a thought.

Kinda goes back to my idea that the pods won't rupture unless they're physically damaged.