EMP and ion cannons

[mask]

I'm hoping I'm not the only to notice this, but aren't the effects of electro magnetic pulses and ion cannons completely the same?

I mean, they both disable electronic systems and the only apparent difference that I've noticed is that ion cannons tend to be referred to in games, whereas EMP generators are typically referred to in military terms.

Anyone able to shed some light on this?

[Lycanthrope]

Not really. EMP is covers a large area, will short out any particularly sensitive equiptment, but will only knock out power in general for a few moments. Ion cannons only cover what gets hit, but will cause any electronic equiptment to shortcircuit, knocking out power in any area untill someone can fix it.

[Deathosaurus Wrecks]

well yes, an Electro Magnetic PULSE will fry electronics over a wide area, as it is a large, uncontrolled pulse of energy; usualy from a high altitude nuclear blast. "Fried electronics" is the operative term here. the EMP uses any piece of metal as an anttena, and completely burns out unshielded wiring. In theory, any high powered Electromagnetic/Electrostatic beam/wave/field could produce the same effects as a EMP.

Ion streams are a bit more dangerous to humans, if i understand it properly. As an Ion Beam is essentialy a particle stream (instead of an electric current), it can effect biological matter as well as electronics (see: ion drives). I've heard that heavy exposure to ion beams leads to permanant damage to a subject's DNA (ions will strike and knock ameno acids out of the way).

now, most of this i learned through my high school physics class, four years ago, so theres a few points that im fuzzy on (mostly the ion physics). but im sure a quick check through wikipedia or some other online resource will turn up some hard facts.

[Lycanthrope]

eh! you may be right. God knows. I don't think that the ions are small enough to cause a total exposure gama-ray type damage to the human body, but would probably give some nasty burns, and may well play bloody hell with the nervous system.

[Deathosaurus Wrecks]

from what i understood, the ion damage would be un-noticeable to the target. it would only be later in life would they experience health problems.

[Lycanthrope]

As I said, I wouldn't know. Maybe skin cancer. trust your teacher not me. I know the physics, but I don't know the biochemistry. I couldn't tell you how ions would effect amino acids I had an ion cannon aimed dirrectly at me.

[Tark]

since an emp is a side effect of an atomic detonation, most of the electronics in the area of effect dont exist long enough to remain disabled anyway.

[Miso Beno]

http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONLY/publicfeature/nov03/1103ebom.html

Updates on the latest development in electronic warfare ;)

[Priest4hire]

Well, ions are atoms that have had their electrons stripped off. As such they have an effective positive charge. The alpha particle is the smallest possible ion given that it's just a proton (hydrogen atom sans electron) and so I'd assume that it would be a decent gauge for the effect of ions.

Alpha particles don't penetrate far into objects with mass. So large are they that a sheet of paper will absorb them. Ions would be that large or larger, so I assume that they wouldn't penetrate very far into anything. Certainly they wouldn't be able to act like an EMP. A ship's metal hull would stop them. So then I imagine that it would be the transfer of energy onto the surface of the object that would cause damage. Perhaps the ions would strip electrons from, say, a metal hull causing it to take on a charge itself.

The impact of the ions should generate heat, and if the particles were large enough might even generate some physical force. Physical force of significant effect that is. In fact, it's that very physical force that allows a ship to be propelled by the ion drive. (Though now I can just hear someone say "What about the photon drive?" but that's a little unrelated).

The energy of the impact from ions might conceivably damage a DNA molecule that it happens to hit. But given the low penetration, that doesn't seem too likely. Certainly it would be limited to the skin, but it would have to penetrate the outer layer of dead skin first. And if it was powerful enough to do that, odds are cancer would be the last thing the recipient would be worrying about.

[Deathosaurus Wrecks]

since an emp is a side effect of an atomic detonation, most of the electronics in the area of effect dont exist long enough to remain disabled anyway.

not true. EMP is only generated from a nuclear blast when the warhead is detonated in near-orbit altitudes. ive got a link somewheres....uh...ok i guess i dont have a link for EMP (did a report on nuclear fallout survival not too long ago).

about alpha particles: i think that most Ion weaponry used 'heavy ions' which i would assume are larger particles without thier electrons. i would think that that would add to the damage that the beam would do (a larger particle would strip more electrons). i dono about penetration though, all i know is that Ion cannons from MOO2 were fucking annoying.

[Priest4hire]

Yeah, it does seem safe to assume that they would use larger ions than Hydrogen. Of course, that would reduce penetration. For radiation, penetration is based on the probability of the particle will strike an atom while passing through the object. The smaller the particle the less likely it will hit something, and thus the greater the penetration. The particle (ion) beam would have such large particles that 100% would impact the atoms at a very minimal depth.

[Lycanthrope]

Well as for the ion drive, thats the idea of a TIE fighter. TIE stands for Twin Ion Engine, not only that but Jet Propultion Laberatory is working on an Ionic Engine experiment currently. Its ideal since it uses up matter on a relatively small scale and can run off of electricity. A photon drive is also possible, though it would take a damn powerful laser. But given a fusion drive, its possible. However even a normal nuklear reaction wouldn't be sufficient to power a laser of a magnetude to move anything at the scale. However the power of light is manifest in the fact that Mercury's orbit was noticably altered by the force of the suns light. They took into account the physical solar wind but couldn't figure out what was altering the orbit the extra amount until they took into account the light itself. One major idea for interstellar travel is a sun sale, though this wouldn't work unless you had a supernova at your back.

[Priest4hire]

Heh, the solar sailor, eh? That was always a rather cool idea.

Here's an interesting, if probably unlikely, propulsion solution: The Electrodynamic Field Generator (http://www.stardrivedevice.com/) According to these guys, the EFG can generate reactionless propulsion through the manipulation of EM fields. They've then hypothesized that this drive would be able to achieve faster than light travel via the generation of a wormhole. The power of the EM field at near-lightspeed should warp space, and the generation of exotic matter due to the ship approaching the Schwarzschild radius is supposed to stabilize said wormhole.

[Lycanthrope]

Tell them to read Newton's third law. No such thing as a reactionless drive, there can't be. However, the idea of a space-time warp has always been one of my favorites (go Gene Rodinberry, man ahead of your time!). Yes, the problem comes down to one of negative energy, how to produce it, and how to contain it. The wormhole idea is less substantial, although some quantum physics supports it. If you opened a wormhole, how would you control where the other side went? However the use of Gravatix Surfing, if we are now talking about things that are so beyond our current technology that not our grandchildren will ever see them, is also a possibility. Manipulate the field of space time so that a gravity well the size of your ship is forever right in front of you, and hold on as your ship begins its eternal decent. as you approach the speed of light, your mass increases, and your gravatational attraction also increases. While its questionable whether or not you will ever reach the speed of light, it would take a while to reach high speeds using this, as gravity is the weakest of all forces, but it has the advantage of becoming more powerful even as inertia increases.

[Tark]

hey im a computer programmer, not a nuklear physicist, throw me a frickin bone here!

[VirgoSHaka]

And I thought the third law was only valid where contact forces were present.

[Lycanthrope]

If its not pushing against something physical, its pushing against space time, and through that, all of reality. Sorry Tark, before I turned into a music/RPG/history nerd, I was a physics nerd. That lasted until I learned math and physics could not be sepperated... but I don't forget useless information, apparently, and here it is.

[Priest4hire]

How the StarDrive Field Generator works: To produce electrically-developed thrust, a StarDrive vessel's power system uses electrostatic induction and thermionic emission principles to create an ultra-high potential difference across the hull and to initiate a huge rotor current that shunts electron charge to the hull's peripheral emitter ring ? until the ship is completely enclosed in an impenetrable bubble of electric arc.
In doing so, the electrons comprising this electric Field envelope current are accelerated to very nearly the speed of light, and because of the hull's radial symmetry the Field envelope is split into two hemitoroidal electron current streams (as shown above) which are mutually opposed as they strike the positive central collector sections of the hull. As mathematically verified in the Patent, with sufficient current density the relativistic mass of these two currents can provide impulse thrust of nearly 2 'gee' simply from a controlled variable imbalance in the continuous physical force of their impact with the central collectors!
[It must be pointed out that this type of propulsion is the NASA Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Program's very definition of a 'diametric drive', which functions by "creating an asymmetric field of force around itself without expelling reaction mass" and whose top speed would be limited only by relativity. Wikipedia adds this: "It is unknown whether it is even physically possible to create such a field." As you can see, it now surely is . . .]
In other words - if these two external Field currents were of equal magnitude, no net force would be developed. However, if the "lower" current stream is much stronger than the "upper", the vessel will be propelled away from the stronger current - in the "upward" direction. And since there is no 'backward' exhaust produced, this type of thrust is truly reactionless in nature. [The collectors are sectored for directional control, which is achieved by varying the proportional current conducted by various sectors.]
Since the electric acceleration achieved by Field current electrons is purely a function of the applied Field voltage, and must remain subjectively constant despite any increase in the velocity of the vessel itself, the thrust produced will rise 'in phase' with vessel velocity - increasing asymptotically with speed and yielding a constant level of vessel acceleration despite the relativistic rise in its apparent mass.
Thus, a StarDrive Field Generator vessel would theoretically be capable of traveling faster-than-light "locally" - from the subjective point of view of any onboard instrumentation or crew - by asymptotically approaching the speed of light to within an arbitrarily small increment until certain relativistic conditions arise which allow the formation of a local Kerr metric space warp {pdf} (as discussed further below).

I'm feeling lazy tonight, so I figured I'd let the site speak for itself regarding what makes this thing reactionless. I agree though, it must push against something in order to accelerate.

[Lycanthrope]

Well... its a little odd. And I find it suspicious that the ship is "logically" been shaped into a flying sauser. If I had the energy to check their patent, I would. The first part is rather mumbo-jumbo-ish. phrases like "ultra-high potential difference" are always suspect in my oppinion. My final doubt is that, with all of my current knowledge of trivia, etc, that I haven't heard of this before today, and as my dad subscribes to Scientific American, I'd have been sure to have heard of it. However, I make no claims to be a electrodynamics expert. I have one or two technical problems, which might be solved easily enough, though it would shoot their claim to reactionlessness to pieces. one major one is they claim that the excess heat can be used for "comertial power generation," for which purpose the distribution of the heat to a central source would require superconducters we do not have, as would most of their technology as I can see it. However most of their concepts are sound enough, and the Kerr Warp is the same thing as Grav-Surfing (the technical term), and is a well respected, if as of yet impossible, means to subjectively travel faster than the speed of light.

[Priest4hire]

Hehe. You forgot to mention that they are trying to sell a book out of this. Yeah, it's pretty suspicious. The patent looks real, though it's just for the dynamo, and not the propulsion or anything like that. And even if they are accurate, the technology to actually build a craft from this is pretty far off.

Still, it makes good Sci-Fi fodder. I'm not about to buy the book, but I get a kick out of it. Who knows, perhaps I'll write a story sometime with that method of faster than light travel in it.

And the concept of the propulsion is interesting. Even if it couldn't go FTL, it might be a good way to get around the solar system. If it could work that is. ;)

As an odd note, that's basically how the warp engines from Star Trek are supposed to work. At least, according to the Next Generation Technical Manual.

[Lycanthrope]

Yeah. As I said, gene rodinberry was way ahead of his time. Most major scientific technologies start in Sci-Fi waay before they get acknowledged by the general scientific community as possible.