New science division: Particle physics

[Cogwerks]

I know it's awfully :spergin: of me, but would there ever be a fully functioning version of the Lava Moon's Geothermal engine Cogs?

Probably not.

[YJHGHTFH]

The engine should totally be able to fuck up and transpose your particles so you too can be a scary ghost skeleton dude

[CatBalls]

I am a physicist who has wired and worked with real particle accelerators, if you want to get totally :spergin: about it. I am serious.

[CatBalls]

I am a physicist who has wired and worked with real particle accelerators, if you want to get totally :spergin: about it. I am serious.

I should note that I am not experienced with LASER-based wakefield acceleration or fusion experiments, which seems to be what this is modeled after, but I have done a fair amount of reading on high energy LASER production for use in acceleration experiments.

[Tteckk]

I am a physicist who has wired and worked with real particle accelerators, if you want to get totally :spergin: about it. I am serious.

I should note that I am not experienced with LASER-based wakefield acceleration or fusion experiments, which seems to be what this is modeled after, but I have done a fair amount of reading on high energy LASER production for use in acceleration experiments.

If I Placed a banana directly in front of the laser during mid experimentation. Would it turn into a god particle?
This is purely for a theory I have of a clown deity.

[CatBalls]

I am a physicist who has wired and worked with real particle accelerators, if you want to get totally :spergin: about it. I am serious.

I should note that I am not experienced with LASER-based wakefield acceleration or fusion experiments, which seems to be what this is modeled after, but I have done a fair amount of reading on high energy LASER production for use in acceleration experiments.

If I Placed a banana directly in front of the laser during mid experimentation. Would it turn into a god particle?
This is purely for a theory I have of a clown deity.

Any high energy pulses would be under very low vacuum so the banana would just explode and gunk up your equipment before you did anything. However: You could use a target made of something like aluminum fluoride and fire protons at it. Neutrons would come out through the back, and water (most of a banana) is a very good neutron absorber.

What I think would be fun with mostly existing stuff: Use a paint/water mixture in some kind of tank for a "rhodium dye" mixture. Use various crystals as an amplification medium, and have them break down over time depending on how much power is put through them, and burn up if you don't change them out. Make it so you have to match certain crystals to certain dye mixtures, but you can still create power at lower levels if you don't get it quite right (so it remains fun). Allow arrays of mirrors send the laser through multiple crystals (really you'd use the same one or two and a diffraction grating but that's hard to model in game) to increase power. Run the generator off a steam turbine, like a nuclear power plant. With the map that's been mocked up in this thread, you could have one emitter be the pumping laser and one be the pulsed beam source.

[CatBalls]

An amusing way to model radiation from the beam would be to make it so you can see your bones as you walk around in the chamber with the beam on. Also, you go blind and sunglasses/welding helmets don't help.

[CatBalls]

So I apparently haven't installed any real CAD software on my new laptop. Here's a garbage sketchup of how the chamber could look- this is still a scifi interpretation of it but it sort of has to be for a 2D spaceman game.



Things that could affect the power output would include:
1. Chamber not being vented to space (needs vacuum or it interacts with air)
2. Composition of crystals, chemicals in dye tanks, target materials, and matching them together
3. If you can calculate beam path length (number of squares the beam travels across) in the code, you could make it so the beam undergoes constructive or destructive interference. Notice the path lengths are different by design- you'd need to wrench down your mirrors to get the path lengths the exact same or set the emitter frequency based on a common denominator for the two lengths! Shorter periods could make for less energetic reactions.

You could also make the pumping beam have a sink instead of a reflector or even just terminate in the dye tank- this would mean for complex geometries people would have to use mirrors to send the pumping beam around the chamber avoiding the main beam mirrors.

[CatBalls]

For your reaction in the middle you could have a "lab table"- just some tables along the beam path. Set beakers or items on the table to do SCIENCE

My interpretation, based on chemicals in the game, would be the following beakers all in a line to create deuterium:
1. Plasma (Ionized gases to create protons- proton beam after this step)
2. Lithium or mercury (neutron producing target- neutrons after this step)
3. Fluorosulfuric Acid (in place of Hydrofluoric acid) and aluminum (slows the neutrons so they will be deposited in a target SUCH AS FLESH)
4. Hydrogen. Replace hydrogen with other things for additional neutron-based

Once you have deuterium, take everything else out and hit it with multiple beams for FUSION! Maybe require something silly like sticking wires in the beaker.

If you want to make heavy water, place regular water in your neutron beam. This could be fun used together with uranium.

Note: I realized I was inaccurate about AlFl3 being used as a neutron source. It has been many years since I have made AlFl3 targets through the high tech process of covering a beaker of hydrofluoric acid with a piece of aluminum foil. The AlFl3 targets are actually a moderator- they would slow the neutrons such that the neutrons will be deposited into a target.

[Cogwerks]

CatBalls, do you go on IRC ever? I'm out and about right now, but I'd love to chat with you about this stuff more. Or keep on postin' in here, just wanted to let you know I skimmed and that info looks great and I'll be able to pay more attention to it in a few days.

[McDogles]

Fucking nerds...
Though I do like this idea, as it would give scientists something to do other than make meth in chemistry.

[Captain_Bravo]

For your reaction in the middle you could have a "lab table"- just some tables along the beam path. Set beakers or items on the table to do SCIENCE

Only if we can climb on to the table and do ATOMIC POWERBOMBS on lab assistants.

[CatBalls]

CatBalls, do you go on IRC ever? I'm out and about right now, but I'd love to chat with you about this stuff more. Or keep on postin' in here, just wanted to let you know I skimmed and that info looks great and I'll be able to pay more attention to it in a few days.

I don't use IRC much, haven't been on the SS13 one at all. I could go on if there's a specific time that works well for you, I'm usually only around from 18:00 to 21:00 GMT -6 on weekdays.

Another thought I had would be that you could use grills placed over the ends of conveyor belts to build charge like a Van de Graaff generator. Electrostatic accelerators powered by van de graaff generators can be used for ion implantation in silicon- the process used to make semiconductors, if that gives you any ideas.

[Kovirii]

Another thought I had would be that you could use grills placed over the ends of conveyor belts to build charge like a Van de Graaff generator. Electrostatic accelerators powered by van de graaff generators can be used for ion implantation in silicon- the process used to make semiconductors, if that gives you any ideas.

Evacuating or filling the beamlines with gas must require a working pump, right?

What about a button to purge the accelerator and direct the energy off into space?

Stick a chunk of metal in the magnetic trap, then modify it with an alpha or neutron radiation beam into a radioisotope. Get that into someone's body, and it'll slowly release the radiation into their system so they have a tiny amount for a long time, and it can be tracked in some way perhaps? That's something they do in real life.

I like the idea of injecting someone with a radioisotope, and maybe you could even make the metal into a bullet itself, or at least coat a bullet in it.

Here are some pictures:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_de_Graaff_generator
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cockcroft-Walton_generator
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx_generator

[CatBalls]

Another thought I had would be that you could use grills placed over the ends of conveyor belts to build charge like a Van de Graaff generator. Electrostatic accelerators powered by van de graaff generators can be used for ion implantation in silicon- the process used to make semiconductors, if that gives you any ideas.

Evacuating or filling the beamlines with gas must require a working pump, right?

What about a button to purge the accelerator and direct the energy off into space?

Yes, a real accelerator would typically use multiple pumps- a roughing pump to get most of the gas out then a turbo pump to get to the real low vacuum levels.

If you are responding specifically about electrostatic accelerators for ion implantation, the button would just need to be a short circuit between the ends of the charging circuit. Unless you are maybe talking about purging the injection chamber? It's possible and even common to run sub-MeV accelerators without shielding gas, so I guess you could just have a feed tube and a purge tube. Sealed systems under insulating gas typically have a high pressure tank somewhere inside since not much is really needed to generate ions. Think fist-size tank.

Any charged beam can be directed with a sufficiently strong magnetic field, though we are talking like 10T to get about a 20 degree bend over a few feet for a half MeV beam.