I need to find someone or several someones who can explain some fairly complex subjects to me in a way that I can understand. I'm writing in a fictional universe of my own creation that requires the use of dilithium-type crystals to make everything work. I need a geologist or minerologist (sic?) for some information on crystal structures and what interesting capabilities they might have. I need an astrophysicist or quantum mechanics expert to explain quantum entanglement to me, and tell me whether it is possible to extrapolate certain things from it. And I need some help on mining asteroids but I have no idea where to start looking for anything like that. Any help you could give me would be greatly appreciated. Thanks
Crystals The atoms within a crystal are neatly aligned and evenly spaced, which can affect how light passes through it. Crystals have a refractive index, which bends the path of light, and slows light down so that it's travelling less than the speed of light! Ordinary glass for example, slows light down to about 2/3 the speed of light. In some fantasy stories light can be bent/slowed so much that it becomes trapped in the crystal, and will accumulate in it over time. In reality this doesn't happen because if there's a way for light to go in there's also a way for it to leave. If the refractive index suddenly changed however, then you could imagine some light getting stuck inside the crystal, which you could liken to a memory effect. You could probably invent some science-fiction that uses crystals with this property. There's also piezoelectricity. Some crystals change shape when an electric current is passed through them, and that changing shape can produce sound, which is how sound is produced by your phone. The opposite is also true, these crystals produce an electric current when they are physically distorted, such as having sound waves incident upon them. This is how microphones work. Next, some crystals are semi-conductive. Impurities in a crystal give it different electrodynamic properties, such as producing light when voltage is put across it, which is how LEDs work. Or that incident light affects how the crystal conducts electricity, which is how digital cameras work. Finally, crystals can vibrate, and have a natural frequency at which they prefer to vibrate much like a pendulum has a natural frequency that it prefers to swing at. It is usually in the order of megahertz or gigahertz. This is used to create precision timing devices, such as in a radio tuner, the clock for a computer's CPU, or a digital watch. So crystals allow you to transmute several different things: Distortion (sound) <--> refractive index (slowing of light) <--> electricity <--> light <--> vibration frequency.
Is there any known crystal on Earth which can absorb and release electrical energy in a controlled manner (such as ZPM from Stargate)?
In a sense, yes. There is an effect called capacitance, where an electrical charge can be stored in a crystal. It is capacitance that allows crystals to vibrate, but I image that's much less energy than you want. ie, you couldn't use it as a battery. To store large amounts of energy, there would have to be a chemical change such as what happens in a chemical battery. A related point: A crystal is a low energy state for a chemical. Energy is released from a chemical as it forms a crystalline structure. Energy is absorbed by that chemical when the crystal is dissolved.
Well, since this is science fiction, I guess a fictional crystal with a high capacitance factor would be perfect. I have the fictional crystal, I just wondered whether I could say such a crystal was similar to crystal x or y but much more powerful. In my universe, the crystal is used as both a power source and a means of teleportation, but I'm thinking of creating something else for the latter and just using the crystal as a ZPM-type device.
Have you considered just making it up as you go along? Unless you have a thorough grasp of the concepts you're trying to convey, you'll have a hard time convincing the reader otherwise. The flux capacitor, for example, requires an electrical kick of 1.21 jiggawatts, combined with a velocity of 88 mph to something something something spacetime continuum. Its all seems perfectly plausible to me.
Butters, I happen to be aware that several of the people reading what I write may well have a thorough grasp of the concepts and if I just make up a load of nonsense then they are not likely to read anything else I write. If I want to make anything out of my writing it has to be as good as it can be, and that means stretching my brain cells and doing a lot of research. Less than 10% of the research is likely to end up in the stories, but what is there will make sense and it will be as accurate as it could possibly be from someone in my position.
I was merely suggesting that you write what you know, something I was told when I did creative writing. So long as your logic is internally consistent and supports the story, I wouldn't worry about the subject matter experts as they invariably find fault. Best of luck with the book though.
^Everyone is told to write what they know, but there is a limit to that. Every decent writer does research because even their own knowledge on a given subject is limited, even if they're an expert. Take Christopher L. Bennett for example. He has degrees in physics and history but he does extensive research and his books are all the richer for it. His writing is easily as good as the alphabet of greats (Asimov, Bradbury, Clarke). I don't intend to make a living as a writer though it would be nice, but I still want my stories/books to show that I know what I'm talking about. I need all the luck I can get.
Obligatory link to one of the best resources for SF authors: http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/index.php The site has apparently been slightly redesigned recently and now is harder to find things. Use the "Show Topic List" in the extreme upper right of the page to find links to topics.