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Post by omnipotentvoid on Feb 14, 2017 13:36:02 GMT
Apart from being impossible, as far as modern physics is concerned, does anyone have an idea of the properties that SIMs ( Strong Interaction Materials) would have? These are are a fictional material from the series Remembrance of Earth’s Past by Liu Cixin. Specifically, it appears first and is (as far as I can remember) best described in the second book, The Dark Forest.
Allegedly, some sort of field is used, that effectively extends the range at which the strong interactions is relevant (which is impossible as far as I know). The result is a material in which the individual components (it's not specified whether these are still atoms or perhaps nuclei or some sort of quark/gluon/boson/hadron or what have you plasma) in which the strong interaction binds particles together, rather than electric/magnetic attraction or chemical bonds. I've been unable to find anything on how such a material would behave (which I expected) or what kind of bonds hold the material and what properties these bonds would have. At least not anything that I can understand. Does anyone here have any ideas or sources?
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Post by newageofpower on Feb 14, 2017 19:20:06 GMT
Hmn. Neutronium, afaik, is not stable under normal conditions, but is the closest substance I can think of where the Strong Force (and the Weak Force, alas) predominates over Electromagnetism.
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Post by omnipotentvoid on Feb 14, 2017 19:42:40 GMT
Hmn. Neutronium, afaik, is not stable under normal conditions, but is the closest substance I can think of where the Strong Force (and the Weak Force, alas) predominates over Electromagnetism. I guess I missed that. Thank you very much. Are there any ideas out there to make it stable seem the natural next question. I'll get right on that. Also: I finally found the like button.
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SIM
Feb 15, 2017 19:22:15 GMT
deltav likes this
Post by omnipotentvoid on Feb 15, 2017 19:22:15 GMT
Update on my research:
Looking into neutron stars and neutronium, I've come to some interesting conclusions. The most important of which is that neutronium isn't the only, and not even the most likely, SIM like material. The most promising materials are various forms of degenerate matter and giant atomic nuclei. There's also the possibility of nuclei like particles made entirely of neutrons (like the tetraneutron), that might have some interesting properties. However, to little is known on them to even begin guessing at these properties (like, if they actually exist or not). Here are my conclusions thus far:
Degenerate matter is matter hows properties are defined by quantum effects that arise from the extreme pressures/densities that it exists at. Basically, quantum mechanics does not allow certain particles, specifically fermions, to come to close together. Thus any compressive force would be met with an opposing force. The dominating force in degenerate matter is the one creating the extreme compression required to make matter degenerate (usually gravity). If this force is removed, degenerate matter generally decays violently. As for material properties, degenerate matter behaves like a super fluid. The exact properties depend on the fermion the DM is made from (for instance EDM acts like a solid (?)), the properties of electron degenerate matter being relatively well understood, while neutron degenerate matter is less well understood (its equation of state being unknown). Other forms of DM are purely theoretical and even less well understood. The density of degenerate matter (being its most important one) is generally known or well estimated: EDM has an average density of about 10⁹kg/m³, while NDM has an average of 4*10¹⁷kg/m³.
As an armor material, DM would be highly interesting. Its huge densities make penetrating or ablating it almost impossible. A kinetic penetrator might have to displace thousands of tons of DM just to penetrate a plate a few micrometers thick. Ablation hits a similar problem as thousands of tons of material would have to be ablated to penetrate (if ablation of DM is even possible). Further more, the super fluid properties of DM mean that any damage is almost instantly repaired by flow. Micrometer thick plates/layers are impractical though, because of their huge weight. Thickness of viable layers would be around the diameter of small atomic nuclei. Such thin layers may still be extremely effective if ablation is impossible. Similarily, DM can't be shocked into plasma, so the armor must be penetrated to damage the target. Even armor this thin would still be extremely heavy, even without any gear to stabilize it, likely making it impractical. A more viable use of DM would be as an explosive. NDM decays violently according to the wikipedia article and EDM as found in white dwarfs seems to be capable of exploding violently as well. Quark degenerate matter or QCD matter may be even more powerful. These materials could have explosive energy densities beyond that of hydrogen M-AM explosives. Using them as explosives would also make containment easier, as the stabilizing equipment would contain the DM, rather than the DM containing the stabilization equipment.
It may be possible to create atomic nuclei on the scales that might make them useful as armor or projectiles. Islands of stability are believed to exist where super massive cores are stable. This and additional phenomenon, like the apparent (limited) stability displayed by tetraneutrons due to resonance, may make complexly shaped stable or metastable macroscopic nuclei feasible, if accurate manipulation of subatomic particles becomes possible. Armor made from one or more MNi would have similar properties to an atomic nuclei, being extremely dense and highly durable, however predicting (any) properties with current theories is basically impossible.
If anyone here knows how to calculate or estimate material properties from particle size and attractive force, it may be possible to add approximations of these materials into the game.
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SIM
Feb 15, 2017 19:28:16 GMT
Post by newageofpower on Feb 15, 2017 19:28:16 GMT
Islands of 'stability' mean that the halflife is sufficiently long that our scientific instrumentation can confirm the nuclei exists before it decays.
Mononuclear, monoatomic armor would be similar to neutronium in density. Non-Neutronium forms of degenerate matter has similar issues; it is extremely unstable under most conditions.
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SIM
Feb 15, 2017 20:00:35 GMT
Post by omnipotentvoid on Feb 15, 2017 20:00:35 GMT
Islands of 'stability' mean that the halflife is sufficiently long that our scientific instrumentation can confirm the nuclei exists before it decays. Mononuclear, monoatomic armor would be similar to neutronium in density. Non-Neutronium forms of degenerate matter has similar issues; it is extremely unstable under most conditions. I specifically didn't mention how hard it would be to stabilize these forms of matter. To our modern understanding of physics manipulation, containment and stabilization is essentially impossible. There are a few uncertain areas modern models that could hold the key to these problems though. The ability to easily and accurately manipulate the quantum states of large quantities of particles may make it possible to stabilize DM. At the same time, complex macroscopic arrangements of subatomic particles may be stable. The reason this isn't looked into much, is that the computational requirements are so far beyond what is possible today (or may ever be possible). This is the reason I brought up islands of stability and tetraneuetrons.
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Post by n2maniac on Feb 18, 2017 7:05:51 GMT
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SIM
Feb 21, 2017 7:53:24 GMT
Post by RiftandRend on Feb 21, 2017 7:53:24 GMT
I was under the impression that once created EDM was metastable outside a white dwarf.
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SIM
Feb 22, 2017 11:25:46 GMT
Post by omnipotentvoid on Feb 22, 2017 11:25:46 GMT
I was under the impression that once created EDM was metastable outside a white dwarf. I'm not actually sure what EDM would do. Probably depends what kind of EDM you have. The stuff in white dwarfs is EDM with a bunch of positive C and O ions stuck in it, which sort of makes it solid. Pure EDM would probably behave very differently. I'm pretty sure that pure EDM would just rip itself apart due to being a bunch of negatively charged particles stuck really close together. As for white dwarfs, I imagine that the electrons would just recombine with the positive ions, releasing a bunch of energy in the process. Not sure though, quantum mechanics starts dominating at these densities and EDM may sort of act like a single quantum object making it sort of stable.
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