(Warning: After finally completing this message, it takes over an hour to read and digest it.)
After finding this board, I immediately went to this section and read all of its messages. Yes, at the time there were 2141 messages, and it took 2.5 halfdays to get through them all. Much of that time, though, was spent loading the long, heavily-formatted tables. About three people maintained the threads, and it was interesting seeing their ideas revise as the months passed. I read all the messages for two reasons: Having my attention diverted and finely divided doesn't always let me follow the series closely enough, so there were gaps and voids in my understanding of its technology, and it was to avoid repeating an old topic. After finishing that, and looking at all the FAQs and lexicons and databases, I've managed to cull enough insights to brainstorm and relate what was not covered in those 2141 messages and several external sources. There are enough explanations to base a future technical manual on, and they'd be canon. They are meant to supplement the FAQs, databases, and even the Writer's Bible, not to contradict them. We'll see if they parallel the line of thinking in that Writer's Bible. Does anyone know if the writers, cast, or crew monitor this board?
Get more people to this thread; see if they have any problems or suggestions. Btw, I have not read or consulted The Physics of Star Trek or any similar source, so all of the below is pure, original thought. If the ideas share a resemblance to such a source, share the notes.
Making Stargate a Reality
9–13 Aug 2002
Stargate and SG-1 are very special in that their content, though fictional, is more real than any other show because it uses scientific and theoretical principles to bridge into the unknown. And they occur in the present, which is awesome for the fans who can identify with current concepts. When the original Star Trek came out, at first it was found to be too intellectual in its time as compared to other sci-fi series. The pilot was rejected and the first seasons never gained a large following. The same thing happened with Stargate, and I think the writers intended this series to be the next step in technical thought and creativity. It's unfortunate that these series, like artists, are not famous or admired enough until they're dead, and a movie or some other popularised work is made about them. This is why a circus such as Star Wars has always been popular, more popular than most Star Treks, when it has little value, and has not even been a series. People who are devoted to Star Wars are interested in science fiction for the fiction, not the science, and as such are hypocrites. The same goes for the original Star Trek, which most people are obsessed with by their frequent pointless invocations of the cast-crew such as Kirk or Scotty, which I never liked and also don't find any value in. The series has become popular and tenacious to this day because of its hypocritical popularisation and glamorization, and because its crew's antics resemble those of Friends. The series has had the shortest run of the four, yet it had the most movies! Like Star Wars, the original Star Trek was nouveau fameux, and the following series and Stargate were much better and valuable and deserving of attention. Yet these shows and their elements are hardly mentioned outside a reference to a show itself, unlike SW and TOS, except for Klingons and the Borg, yet more dumb anthropy. Given some more time SG-1 will expand its fan base. That is, if everyone can understand it.
I. The Wormhole
The problem with most, or even all, of these sci-fi series is that they take common or pop concepts or entities and reuse them without constructing them from first principles. Every wormhole I've seen looks and works just like a regular tunnel: from Stargate to Sliders to DS9 to B5 to Hyperspace. So the opening on both ends is a disc basically. But the reduced illustration of a wormhole already uses discs for openings, as a pair of two punctured and interconnected rubber sheets, in 2-space. But we're in 3-space, so each opening should be a sphere, not a disc. This would eliminate the other-face problem of the Stargate. The event horizon is a spatial inversion and tear the width of the Planck length, or 1.616e-35 m. I realise that the wormhole only has to be wide enough to admit the traveller, and even that Hyperspace shows a diagram of a strip connecting two planes. The wormhole's dimensions only need to include the object's cross-section, which would be an (N-1)-hole in an N-space. A reduced wormhole may even be economically better. But an N-hole in an N-space, this case being 3, would allow the object to enter from any angle. The passage would not be a tunnel though, but the tunnel is only the hypercylinder's cross-section. Because it's a hypercylinder, and the aperature is known, the particle stream should appear to be reflected multiple times at distances of the circumference. When the writers use local concepts to describe supernal concepts instead of using the intersection of supernal and local concepts, the viewers are going to misassume.
From the other side it's clear, which not only means the event horizon is semitransparent, but that the tear as a void maps both ends of space across its body. So if someone tried to pass through on the other side, there are two scenarios. The void would either act as a barrier, preventing someone else on the other side to stick a body part or object through the opening and for you to pass through and materialise around that object (ow), or you would still be able to pass through as long as there wasn't an object on the other side, which would itself act as a barrier. In the second scenario, of course if you rammed something hard or energetic enough through the barrier just might break and you'd have a severed object or body part going through the wormhole without you.
The episodes state that radio waves and later show that gravity can travel both directions in the wormhole, deducing that light can too. You notice that one face of the EH is clear, and the other opaque and illuminated. The latter face is described as looking into the EH. This light is not generated by the EH itself, but is actually streaming through the wormhole from the other side, even illuminating the walls of the room, along with the radio waves and other photons. (There may be matter materialising in front of the EH, though, as Hawking radiation.) One FAQ describes the matter stream as being driven by gravity. Even though Sam described the initial and final velocities as equal, there may be an acceleration and deceleration in between. A particle beam was at least once sent through against the current, impacting against the iris, which means that the current can be overcome if the particles are light or energetic enough to reach the other end, or if they're not disturbed by the stream at all, in the case of the Tollan et al. One could probably fire a weapon through the other end as people are being streamed, killing them immediately.
The wormhole, or at least the current, is one-way probably to make the show more interesting if not thoughtful. Otherwise, once the MALP or someone is sent through, hostile armies could just bypass them and storm the complex. Being one-way poses another problem. Was it explicitly said in "100 Days" that stepping through again would mean death, and that one couldn't just be rematerialised again? Maybe the buffer zone is only on outgoing? If so, that would mean that anyone could just push the team into the incoming wormhole, before it closes or even before they fully step through, to kill them. The iris in the SGC was installed so closely just to avoid a mess...
The vortex, as implied before, was not the EH itself but a disturbance within. Every time it wooshes, it should consume some of the air in the room, making everyone's eardrums pop. But because we never get to see the gateroom's ceiling, there may be enough air to prevent that.
A. Questions
A wormhole itself brings up wacky questions. Yes, a Stargate cannot dial another within the same zone. But if another dialed to the next zone was brought in a ship to this zone, would it disengage? We need them for this setup. Most Stargates are vertical, meaning that stepping through there is no difference as the forces are isotropic. But if they were turned differently, say to different positions in a potential well, they may violate energy conservation. A pair of horizontal gates set one above the other, the lower gate connecting the upper, is an example. Drop an object into the lower gate and it re-emerges right above it. Would it continue falling faster and faster as it looped, becoming a free energy source à la Bearden? I have two solutions. As the object emerges, its momentum space is regauged such that it falls with the same initial velocity at the initial position, which would mean it brakes where your hand was. A better solution is that, because light bosons pass through the gate both ways, the object would float between the gates and wouldn't accelerate at all. The constant velocity is preserved through both aperatures. The gates then would not act as a gravity shield, but a gravity balance. Then there's no perpetual motion in the show, which sucks but is understandable. It might work if the gravity couldn't pass through...
If two vortices were to run into each other, what would happen?
II. Naquada
The following treatise on naquada surely goes beyond what Seaborg ever supposed or discovered as he extended the periodic table and discovered new superheavy elements.
I've seen it spelt this way first, and it looks more official, so I'm using this. But the alternate ending -ah made me wonder if the word, as intended by the writers, was Hebrew or somehow Hebraic. A few sources link Naquada to the Egyptian village Naqada in Arabic, Nagada in English. There weren't any webpages explaining Naqada's etymology though, so could someone help with this research too? -ah, I think, denotes a feminine noun in Hebrew, and being a noun is most appropriate for a material or mineral.
Naquada (Eng.) becomes naquadah (Eng. translit.) becomes nachuwdah (nachodah?) (Eng.-Heb. translit.) becomes N-CH-D-H (Heb. translit.) becomes "nun-heth-daleth-he" (Heb.). Of course the letters in Hebrew are written backward. I searched frantically for any real word that resembled it and, astonishingly, in Strong's Concordance I found one and its declension. And being in the concordance meant that it was an ancient word, not one of many of these recent imitation Hebrew words. I found nachuwshah ("nun-heth-shin-he") n. fem. and nachuwsh adj. which mean copper or bronze, as a metal described by its ringing or hissing sound! Their root is nachash, which means divination, ringing, hissing, or snake. Then I came across a page relating the word and meaning in the Old Testament in that those metals were impure because they made a sound when struck and could corrode, unlike gold which was "noble" and pure. Thus, objects or devices crafted out of copper or bronze were thought as attractors or gateways! (my idea) into the [dark?] spirit world. The webpage was all about serpent worship, and the series is based around serpents! Nachuwshah transliterates into naquacia, naquasha, or naqucia, etc., which looks like the splitting-image variant of naquada! This section may be getting into more than what the writers had conceived or planned... Conspiracy theories may apply.
What is naquada? There are five forms hinted by the episodes: inert naquada, liquid naquada, heavy liquid naquada, weapons grade naquada, and naquadria, probably in order of density. Because of their wildly different properties, naquada may not even be a single element or compound but a common, familiar name of a group of them, like "salt". Naquada is described as a quartzite mineral, so presumably it's refined into weapons grade naquada by taking all the sand out. Naquadria, btw, would be nachuwdriah or "nun-heth-daleth-resh-he".
The Stargate uses the inert naquada, the one that doesn't react to radiation, fire, or concussions. Yet it's dense enough to couple strongly with neutrinos, at least when a voltage is applied from an external source. As a superconductor, the current will circulate in the Stargate indefinitely to open a wormhole once. The solar neutrino flux, from eight reactions, gives about 6.5e10/(cm^2 s). With an average energy each of.6 MeV, or 4.6e9 K, there is 3.9e7 GeV (6.24 mJ) flowing through each square centimetre of everything and everyone every second. Someone who has been to Gatecon and seen the gate should tell us its I/O diameters and depth. Also, someone tell how long it takes to dial the chevrons with a DHD. Both are essential to derive the energy the Stargate builds up before creating the wormhole.
Though it wasn't mentioned on the show, at least that I can find, liquid naquada is assumed to power handheld energy weapons and the DHD as contained in replacable "energy crystals". Because inert naquada can't just be heated and kept at that constant temperature until it becomes molten, liquid naquada must be an entirely different substance. It is still a metal and good conductor which rules out the right part of the periodic table. From observing periodic trends it is possible to find candidates for inert and liquid naquada. Get out your periodic tables.
A dramatic change of state is seen in the transition elements, from Groups 8 through 12 as the second pair of orbital electrons are filled, in Period 6. In each period, the spin down electrons are completing the d-block gradually shifting the elements from ferromagnetism to diamagnetism. As the periods are built, the insertion of repeated lower subshells as well as of the f-block increases the number and magnitude of oxidation states of each element and pronounces the difference in physical properties over another interval of the same groups, and eventually the nuclear charge clenches the outer orbitals more. This is known as the lanthanide contraction. Elements 76 through 80 are distinguished from their lighter family in this way. The hardest but rare metals are found in the first 5d half. The softest but heavy and stable, thus common, metals are found in the last 5d half and first 6p half to the metalloids. Osmium is the hardest known metal at 7.0 mohs, the same as quartz, is stiffer than diamond, and has the lowest vapour pressure in vacuo. Iridium is the second hardest at 6.0 mohs, the densest element, and the most resistant to corrosion. Thus osmium and iridium are much nobler, and more expensive and rare, than gold. In this interval the dramatic change we see is osmium the hardest and very brittle metal, to iridium next hardest and brittle metal, to platinum the semihard and craftable metal, to gold the very soft and very craftable metal, to mercury the liquid and miscible metal.
You were probably taught that gold was the most malleable and soft element, but this is not true. What could be more applicable than a liquid? Mercury is the most malleable and soft element. The problem with textbooks, charts, and other semicommon sources is, like the sci-fi stories, they copy off another including the inaccuracies and errors. Most periodic tables do not explain the periodic trends expressed in each element. Because they're based on STP, only mercury and bromine are listed as liquids of the entire table, misleading the common reader into thinking that chemical properties are for the most part chaotic or unpredictable, and that these two elements are magically exceptional, preventing one from learning the causes of these properties. If the table could be extended to states near room temperature, which Chemicool does, more order can be expressed and understood. For example, the softest metals are on the left edge, the alkalis. Each of these metals can be cut with a knife, but their softness comes with the most reactiveness which is why they're not found in their elemental state. The atomic radii are greatest in Group 1, and increase the further down the group to cæsium and francium, which correspond to electropositivity. This causes the heavier alkalis to become softer until these last two metals which are basically a mushy semisolid that melt only a few degrees above room temperature. That means that cæsium and francium are even softer than gold, because elemental softness comes down to nearness to liquidness. The transition interval, however, is more discrete than the alkalis, because the difference of state between gold and mercury is more pronounced.
A. Solid Naquada
From the description of solid naquada, it is most similar to osmium or iridium. So I propose that refined naquada is hassium or meitnerium, Element 108 or 109. The extra period will pronounce the state changes across Group [8,12] or even (8,12) and continue to shrink the radii in inverse proportion to density through the second f-block, as the actinide contraction. The discovered isotopes of this pair have half-lives in the fractions of a second, and the doubly magic numbers in the island of stability to the right don't help much as the nuclear strains nevertheless are too high and the half-life extends only to 30 s for 114. So obviously the superheavy elements in use by the more-advanced races are prepared differently. The preparation was not by technology because naquada is a naturally-occuring mineral which doesn't spontaneously explode or decay. So these races are not advanced in materials strictly by development, but by privilege. The past multiple-generation supernovæ or even hypernovæ near the planets where naquada is found provided their abundance in heavy elements. The energy also must have altered the electroweak medium in these regions in order to retard radioactive decay of the heavy and superheavy elements. That, and/or the Ancients knew how to custom-alter the medium at an interplanetary scale.before or during these explosions that ejected the needed materials into the systems. Stablising these elements opens up a huge section of the periodic table not previously available for fabrication. Physical properties are mostly dependent on the electron orbital and valence filling, and if the nucleus were made stable by some modification or substitution no one would notice except for the mass and weight. The nucleus of any atom could be removed entirely, and retain its orbital filling, if a sufficiently strong and crafted localised field were injected into the centre—a synthetic nucleus. This can be done for cellular nuclei in biotech, so an advanced species should know how to do the analogue in... picotech. Any substance mentioned in Stargate or Star Trek which should be too unstable to use has actually undergone NM: nuclear modification.
So I'll denote the refined, solid naquada as consisting of elemental variants, Hs' or Mt' both about 265 g/mol. One remembers from the movie that the naquada gate with the metamorphosed sand could be lifted by several people with ropes without snapping, but that a simple brick of naquada without the sand had to be lifted by two Jaffa. Though there is no guarantee that the heavier the element the denser it is, as in the case of the densest element iridium the heavier elements thereafter only become less dense by bulk again, the naquada brick was obviously too heavy for one Jaffa to carry. Presumably it was at least 50 kg. Its dimensions I'm guestimating at 14x7x5 cm^3, which makes its density 102 g/cm^3 which is far higher than any element, whereas iridium is about 22.65. Because superheavy elements alone cannot couple well with neutrinos, the augmented (reduced?) electroweak field was used to attract and absorb neutrinos, probably by simulating electron captures, causing a dramatic increase in nuclear mass and bulk density. Like the brass or naquasha bells which rang at an audible tone to attract or influence spirits, the naquada material's nucleus rings at a particular frequency to attract the spirits which are likened as the neutrinos! Is it not more than a coincidence that these two words both referred to metals, but in the same language and function? Or did the writers or founders of the village forsee that? It doesn't seem much like fiction anymore. Because the gate requires an externally-applied voltage, and the energy depends on the wormhole distance, an internal electroweak field explains how electricity could modulate the nucleus and its neutrino cross-section. Don't expect the field to be 100% efficient, so not all of the neutrinos flowing through the gate will be available to create the wormhole.
Even so, to create the smallest black hole enough mass or energy needs to be gathered in a volume such that the event horizon is larger than the singularity, which is the Planck length in width. Using that as the Schwarzschild radius, the energy comes to 1.567e28 eV. To see if that much energy is absorbed from the neutrino sea, I'll use a preliminary calculation with example unknowns: Dialing from the DHD takes eight seconds, one per press. The Stargate's radii are around 3.5 and 2.5 m, so its cross-sectional area is 1.9e5 cm^2. Multiply all of them together with the flux and mean energy to get 6e23 eV. It would seem that the neutrinos are not enough to establish a wormhole. But the Schwarzschild radius is based on the gravitational constant G = 6.673e-11 which only works if gravity propagates in three dimensions. G turns out not to be a constant and it inflates when r < 1 mm because n > 2 on r^n. A NYT article announced the construction of the Large Hadron Collider in 2006 which is to simulate the conditions of cosmic rays. Cosmic rays average 300 MeV and have been as energetic as 10^20 eV. The LHC beam is only 7.0 TeV, but with the extra dimensions for gravity in M-theory or whatever they've used, this is enough energy to create a Planck BH. They estimated that a hundred Planck BHs a second were created in our atmosphere by cosmic rays. 7e12 eV is in the electroweak range for a particle, where it becomes possible to isolate partons or preons (quark constituents) which directly couple to the Higgs field. The catatrophisms that formed the conditions for stable naquada redistributed the Higgs field through subspace, allowing a smaller but specific energy to couple to gravity quintillion times of normal. Forming naquada into a closed figure allowed the electroweak-Higgs field to be focused and to prevent the preon singularity from being dispersed into Hawking radiation.
To recap this subsection, solid naquada requires a few steps from its conversion from a mineral into an active Stargate. The Stargate retains the naturally formed quartzite compound, in the form MxNy(SiO2)z, where Mx is either Hs' or Mt' and the rest of the formula is quartz. Hs or Mt has only been modified to have a stable nucleus; no nucleus alone is able to absorb neutrinos efficiently enough to create a wormhole. The semidamaged regions of space and subspace have changed the electroweak and gravity constants in certain matter so that applying a nominal electrical current to a closed mass of naquada increases the neutrino collison cross-section. The neutrinos are completely refracted by the electroweak field into a standing wave about the nuclei—a nuclear halo—as the gate is dialing. The heavier nuclei have electric fields strong enough to render the inner orbitals relativistic, increasing in mass and sinking toward the nuclei, where the 1s electrons' velocity is given by v/c ~/= Z/137. Thus the highest possible element is 137, near the end of the 5g block. Here the atom sets up a temporary electric black hole condition until one or two (K) electron captures reduce the atomic number again. But the heavier, neutron-deficient nuclei are more likely to induce ECs. When the electron is about to tunnel into the nucleus, the neutrino collision cross-section explodes and somehow the neutrino must be recovered by the above method, leaving an energy-deficient neutron that spits out the electron again. With the nuclear halos, the naquada element is converted into the heavy, excited state Hs'* or Mt'* until the Higgs sea partons (bad joke) or preons spontaneously manifest in the gate cavity as the event horizon. These subquantum particles remain as long as current is supplied, whereafter the naquada returns to its Hs' or Mt' self. Weapons grade naquada bypasses this procedure, as having the sand removed the element is dense enough to reach critical mass whenever an alternating current, probably, opposing the nuclear electroweak field is applied to loosen the neutrons and a particles that have been wanting to escape.
B. Liquid Naquada
I planned this subsection to be much shorter, but it turned out not to be.
Liquid naquada has rarely been mentioned, but it is associated with energy, particle beam, or any type of lasing weapon. This use sharply contrasts from the inert naquada above, so it must be an entirely different element. Beside the obvious two elemental liquids, at least five spots on the periodic table are the next naquada candidate. The low ionisation potential required for electric weapons, engines, batteries, etc. are best suited by alkali and alkaline salts. Our cells even run on two alkalis. Lithium hydride batteries are used in watches and laptops because of their energy density. Sam once designed a homebrew naquada weapon with "lithium hydrite[sic]". I'm not sure if that's the same. Have you tried throwing a watch battery into a fire? Has anyone ever done it with a charged laptop battery? I'd like to hear about it, maybe even see a videotape. Group 1 batteries are better than Group 2. Being on the left edge of the table, the elements are the most electropositive. Alkali is translated from al-qily (Arab.) meaning ashes, and qily comes from qala meaning "to fry or roast". The noun is the end product and the verb is the effect. The al-qily are the figurative extremists of the elements, and its other translation should be a hint that the elements are perfect for power sources in sci-fi series.
The alkalis and alkalines, if isolated, must be coated with mineral oil to avoid contacting air or moisture, lest they tarnish or ignite. For air, this is the reason that alkali and alkaline salts are used in fireworks; the ignition electrolyses the compound and the free metal oxidises and releases a bunch of powerful energy. Tossing a fair lump of the element into a body of water is worse (for anarchists and pyromaniacs, read: better) because not only is water denser than air, after the element oxidises (or is that hydroxidises?), the resulting energy is used to ignite the hydrogen in the water. The explosion would look like a tiny nuclear or antimatter bomb went off. (Hydrofluoric acid or fluorine gas would be worse.) Burning a magnesium ribbon and watching it is like staring into the sun. The more electropositive elements should be brighter and hotter, and anyone who tries to test them by dropping them (Tossing and running might work.) into a pool would be too blinded to notice the incinerating slag flying toward them. :evil: This is just speculation, of course. Exploding bullets could be made out of alkalis encased in mineral oil and plastic, which would especially be effective in the summertime. Is my treatise getting out of hand? If these metals were not so expensive, rare, or difficult to produce, everything could be run from them. When they're through, simply recharge them with solar power—from rechargeable batteries to rechargeable bombs. How about CsH for both? CsH btw, like Os, is stiffer than diamond. If that salt were plentiful, it'd be great for a penetration-fragmentation-spontaneous combustion bullet, don't ya think?
As mentioned before, the metals get softer the further down one goes. Cæsium and francium are liquid a few degrees above room temperature (25°C, 77°F), the latter even closer. So the best candidate for a liquid power source is francium. But francium only lasts as long as 22 minutes, and there is only an ounce of it on Earth at any time. This is where the EW privilege comes in again. Having a stable nucleus allows the alien races to use its chemical properties, and having a rich mineral record allows them to revel. Every source says that francium has no chemical uses, but they say so only because they believe so. Taming the nucleus is a determined and well-understood goal and accomplishment, but they can't stop there or forget that taming the nucleon is even more important. I've heard that they're working on changing (nudging?) half-lives, so that's good. This is what WebElements says about cæsium's use: "The metal can be used in ion propulsion systems. Although not usable in the earth's atmosphere, 1 kg of caesium in outer space could propel a vehicle 140 times as far as the burning of the same amount of any known liquid or solid. It is more efficient than rubidium." So imagine what they could do if francium were freed up.
Francium, frankly speaking, is a ******* of an element. (How many of these element names with double entendres are there? There are other appropriate words, in this subject, starting with Fr.) It, lying at the back corner of the table, is the most chemically and nuclearly unstable element of the first 103 elements. It has 33 isotopes, most of which decay before you can read about them, and some before you can form a thought. If you got enough of the stabler isotopes in one place and try to touch it, it'll probably burn your hand internally a little while after eating it. This element, along with the other preoccupations I mentioned earlier, is one of many that deserve more attention from the world. Rather than ignoring it, see it for the [unused ~ unusable] power that it is, and turn lemons into lemonade. (You can run electricity off lemons, if you were too stupid to get that.) With some NM, francium' would make a good liquid naquada cell. See the versatility that this element has: http://chemlab.pc.maricopa.edu/periodic/Fr.html . The "energy crystal" preferably uses middle to heavy Fr'-[214,232]. By being able to modify the EW field, different ejecta can be chosen for your person, place, or thing. Phasers, disruptors, zats, zarcs, staffs, etc. are made possible, as particle lamps. The person who discovers the common door to EW would be doing what Maxwell did for EM. By controlling the EW field, one can choose the decay channel for Fr'-[214,232]'s products and reduce the half-lives to seconds when not making them stable.
(continued in next message)
After finding this board, I immediately went to this section and read all of its messages. Yes, at the time there were 2141 messages, and it took 2.5 halfdays to get through them all. Much of that time, though, was spent loading the long, heavily-formatted tables. About three people maintained the threads, and it was interesting seeing their ideas revise as the months passed. I read all the messages for two reasons: Having my attention diverted and finely divided doesn't always let me follow the series closely enough, so there were gaps and voids in my understanding of its technology, and it was to avoid repeating an old topic. After finishing that, and looking at all the FAQs and lexicons and databases, I've managed to cull enough insights to brainstorm and relate what was not covered in those 2141 messages and several external sources. There are enough explanations to base a future technical manual on, and they'd be canon. They are meant to supplement the FAQs, databases, and even the Writer's Bible, not to contradict them. We'll see if they parallel the line of thinking in that Writer's Bible. Does anyone know if the writers, cast, or crew monitor this board?
Get more people to this thread; see if they have any problems or suggestions. Btw, I have not read or consulted The Physics of Star Trek or any similar source, so all of the below is pure, original thought. If the ideas share a resemblance to such a source, share the notes.
Making Stargate a Reality
9–13 Aug 2002
Stargate and SG-1 are very special in that their content, though fictional, is more real than any other show because it uses scientific and theoretical principles to bridge into the unknown. And they occur in the present, which is awesome for the fans who can identify with current concepts. When the original Star Trek came out, at first it was found to be too intellectual in its time as compared to other sci-fi series. The pilot was rejected and the first seasons never gained a large following. The same thing happened with Stargate, and I think the writers intended this series to be the next step in technical thought and creativity. It's unfortunate that these series, like artists, are not famous or admired enough until they're dead, and a movie or some other popularised work is made about them. This is why a circus such as Star Wars has always been popular, more popular than most Star Treks, when it has little value, and has not even been a series. People who are devoted to Star Wars are interested in science fiction for the fiction, not the science, and as such are hypocrites. The same goes for the original Star Trek, which most people are obsessed with by their frequent pointless invocations of the cast-crew such as Kirk or Scotty, which I never liked and also don't find any value in. The series has become popular and tenacious to this day because of its hypocritical popularisation and glamorization, and because its crew's antics resemble those of Friends. The series has had the shortest run of the four, yet it had the most movies! Like Star Wars, the original Star Trek was nouveau fameux, and the following series and Stargate were much better and valuable and deserving of attention. Yet these shows and their elements are hardly mentioned outside a reference to a show itself, unlike SW and TOS, except for Klingons and the Borg, yet more dumb anthropy. Given some more time SG-1 will expand its fan base. That is, if everyone can understand it.
I. The Wormhole
The problem with most, or even all, of these sci-fi series is that they take common or pop concepts or entities and reuse them without constructing them from first principles. Every wormhole I've seen looks and works just like a regular tunnel: from Stargate to Sliders to DS9 to B5 to Hyperspace. So the opening on both ends is a disc basically. But the reduced illustration of a wormhole already uses discs for openings, as a pair of two punctured and interconnected rubber sheets, in 2-space. But we're in 3-space, so each opening should be a sphere, not a disc. This would eliminate the other-face problem of the Stargate. The event horizon is a spatial inversion and tear the width of the Planck length, or 1.616e-35 m. I realise that the wormhole only has to be wide enough to admit the traveller, and even that Hyperspace shows a diagram of a strip connecting two planes. The wormhole's dimensions only need to include the object's cross-section, which would be an (N-1)-hole in an N-space. A reduced wormhole may even be economically better. But an N-hole in an N-space, this case being 3, would allow the object to enter from any angle. The passage would not be a tunnel though, but the tunnel is only the hypercylinder's cross-section. Because it's a hypercylinder, and the aperature is known, the particle stream should appear to be reflected multiple times at distances of the circumference. When the writers use local concepts to describe supernal concepts instead of using the intersection of supernal and local concepts, the viewers are going to misassume.
From the other side it's clear, which not only means the event horizon is semitransparent, but that the tear as a void maps both ends of space across its body. So if someone tried to pass through on the other side, there are two scenarios. The void would either act as a barrier, preventing someone else on the other side to stick a body part or object through the opening and for you to pass through and materialise around that object (ow), or you would still be able to pass through as long as there wasn't an object on the other side, which would itself act as a barrier. In the second scenario, of course if you rammed something hard or energetic enough through the barrier just might break and you'd have a severed object or body part going through the wormhole without you.
The episodes state that radio waves and later show that gravity can travel both directions in the wormhole, deducing that light can too. You notice that one face of the EH is clear, and the other opaque and illuminated. The latter face is described as looking into the EH. This light is not generated by the EH itself, but is actually streaming through the wormhole from the other side, even illuminating the walls of the room, along with the radio waves and other photons. (There may be matter materialising in front of the EH, though, as Hawking radiation.) One FAQ describes the matter stream as being driven by gravity. Even though Sam described the initial and final velocities as equal, there may be an acceleration and deceleration in between. A particle beam was at least once sent through against the current, impacting against the iris, which means that the current can be overcome if the particles are light or energetic enough to reach the other end, or if they're not disturbed by the stream at all, in the case of the Tollan et al. One could probably fire a weapon through the other end as people are being streamed, killing them immediately.
The wormhole, or at least the current, is one-way probably to make the show more interesting if not thoughtful. Otherwise, once the MALP or someone is sent through, hostile armies could just bypass them and storm the complex. Being one-way poses another problem. Was it explicitly said in "100 Days" that stepping through again would mean death, and that one couldn't just be rematerialised again? Maybe the buffer zone is only on outgoing? If so, that would mean that anyone could just push the team into the incoming wormhole, before it closes or even before they fully step through, to kill them. The iris in the SGC was installed so closely just to avoid a mess...
The vortex, as implied before, was not the EH itself but a disturbance within. Every time it wooshes, it should consume some of the air in the room, making everyone's eardrums pop. But because we never get to see the gateroom's ceiling, there may be enough air to prevent that.
A. Questions
A wormhole itself brings up wacky questions. Yes, a Stargate cannot dial another within the same zone. But if another dialed to the next zone was brought in a ship to this zone, would it disengage? We need them for this setup. Most Stargates are vertical, meaning that stepping through there is no difference as the forces are isotropic. But if they were turned differently, say to different positions in a potential well, they may violate energy conservation. A pair of horizontal gates set one above the other, the lower gate connecting the upper, is an example. Drop an object into the lower gate and it re-emerges right above it. Would it continue falling faster and faster as it looped, becoming a free energy source à la Bearden? I have two solutions. As the object emerges, its momentum space is regauged such that it falls with the same initial velocity at the initial position, which would mean it brakes where your hand was. A better solution is that, because light bosons pass through the gate both ways, the object would float between the gates and wouldn't accelerate at all. The constant velocity is preserved through both aperatures. The gates then would not act as a gravity shield, but a gravity balance. Then there's no perpetual motion in the show, which sucks but is understandable. It might work if the gravity couldn't pass through...
If two vortices were to run into each other, what would happen?
II. Naquada
The following treatise on naquada surely goes beyond what Seaborg ever supposed or discovered as he extended the periodic table and discovered new superheavy elements.
I've seen it spelt this way first, and it looks more official, so I'm using this. But the alternate ending -ah made me wonder if the word, as intended by the writers, was Hebrew or somehow Hebraic. A few sources link Naquada to the Egyptian village Naqada in Arabic, Nagada in English. There weren't any webpages explaining Naqada's etymology though, so could someone help with this research too? -ah, I think, denotes a feminine noun in Hebrew, and being a noun is most appropriate for a material or mineral.
Naquada (Eng.) becomes naquadah (Eng. translit.) becomes nachuwdah (nachodah?) (Eng.-Heb. translit.) becomes N-CH-D-H (Heb. translit.) becomes "nun-heth-daleth-he" (Heb.). Of course the letters in Hebrew are written backward. I searched frantically for any real word that resembled it and, astonishingly, in Strong's Concordance I found one and its declension. And being in the concordance meant that it was an ancient word, not one of many of these recent imitation Hebrew words. I found nachuwshah ("nun-heth-shin-he") n. fem. and nachuwsh adj. which mean copper or bronze, as a metal described by its ringing or hissing sound! Their root is nachash, which means divination, ringing, hissing, or snake. Then I came across a page relating the word and meaning in the Old Testament in that those metals were impure because they made a sound when struck and could corrode, unlike gold which was "noble" and pure. Thus, objects or devices crafted out of copper or bronze were thought as attractors or gateways! (my idea) into the [dark?] spirit world. The webpage was all about serpent worship, and the series is based around serpents! Nachuwshah transliterates into naquacia, naquasha, or naqucia, etc., which looks like the splitting-image variant of naquada! This section may be getting into more than what the writers had conceived or planned... Conspiracy theories may apply.
What is naquada? There are five forms hinted by the episodes: inert naquada, liquid naquada, heavy liquid naquada, weapons grade naquada, and naquadria, probably in order of density. Because of their wildly different properties, naquada may not even be a single element or compound but a common, familiar name of a group of them, like "salt". Naquada is described as a quartzite mineral, so presumably it's refined into weapons grade naquada by taking all the sand out. Naquadria, btw, would be nachuwdriah or "nun-heth-daleth-resh-he".
The Stargate uses the inert naquada, the one that doesn't react to radiation, fire, or concussions. Yet it's dense enough to couple strongly with neutrinos, at least when a voltage is applied from an external source. As a superconductor, the current will circulate in the Stargate indefinitely to open a wormhole once. The solar neutrino flux, from eight reactions, gives about 6.5e10/(cm^2 s). With an average energy each of.6 MeV, or 4.6e9 K, there is 3.9e7 GeV (6.24 mJ) flowing through each square centimetre of everything and everyone every second. Someone who has been to Gatecon and seen the gate should tell us its I/O diameters and depth. Also, someone tell how long it takes to dial the chevrons with a DHD. Both are essential to derive the energy the Stargate builds up before creating the wormhole.
Though it wasn't mentioned on the show, at least that I can find, liquid naquada is assumed to power handheld energy weapons and the DHD as contained in replacable "energy crystals". Because inert naquada can't just be heated and kept at that constant temperature until it becomes molten, liquid naquada must be an entirely different substance. It is still a metal and good conductor which rules out the right part of the periodic table. From observing periodic trends it is possible to find candidates for inert and liquid naquada. Get out your periodic tables.
A dramatic change of state is seen in the transition elements, from Groups 8 through 12 as the second pair of orbital electrons are filled, in Period 6. In each period, the spin down electrons are completing the d-block gradually shifting the elements from ferromagnetism to diamagnetism. As the periods are built, the insertion of repeated lower subshells as well as of the f-block increases the number and magnitude of oxidation states of each element and pronounces the difference in physical properties over another interval of the same groups, and eventually the nuclear charge clenches the outer orbitals more. This is known as the lanthanide contraction. Elements 76 through 80 are distinguished from their lighter family in this way. The hardest but rare metals are found in the first 5d half. The softest but heavy and stable, thus common, metals are found in the last 5d half and first 6p half to the metalloids. Osmium is the hardest known metal at 7.0 mohs, the same as quartz, is stiffer than diamond, and has the lowest vapour pressure in vacuo. Iridium is the second hardest at 6.0 mohs, the densest element, and the most resistant to corrosion. Thus osmium and iridium are much nobler, and more expensive and rare, than gold. In this interval the dramatic change we see is osmium the hardest and very brittle metal, to iridium next hardest and brittle metal, to platinum the semihard and craftable metal, to gold the very soft and very craftable metal, to mercury the liquid and miscible metal.
You were probably taught that gold was the most malleable and soft element, but this is not true. What could be more applicable than a liquid? Mercury is the most malleable and soft element. The problem with textbooks, charts, and other semicommon sources is, like the sci-fi stories, they copy off another including the inaccuracies and errors. Most periodic tables do not explain the periodic trends expressed in each element. Because they're based on STP, only mercury and bromine are listed as liquids of the entire table, misleading the common reader into thinking that chemical properties are for the most part chaotic or unpredictable, and that these two elements are magically exceptional, preventing one from learning the causes of these properties. If the table could be extended to states near room temperature, which Chemicool does, more order can be expressed and understood. For example, the softest metals are on the left edge, the alkalis. Each of these metals can be cut with a knife, but their softness comes with the most reactiveness which is why they're not found in their elemental state. The atomic radii are greatest in Group 1, and increase the further down the group to cæsium and francium, which correspond to electropositivity. This causes the heavier alkalis to become softer until these last two metals which are basically a mushy semisolid that melt only a few degrees above room temperature. That means that cæsium and francium are even softer than gold, because elemental softness comes down to nearness to liquidness. The transition interval, however, is more discrete than the alkalis, because the difference of state between gold and mercury is more pronounced.
A. Solid Naquada
From the description of solid naquada, it is most similar to osmium or iridium. So I propose that refined naquada is hassium or meitnerium, Element 108 or 109. The extra period will pronounce the state changes across Group [8,12] or even (8,12) and continue to shrink the radii in inverse proportion to density through the second f-block, as the actinide contraction. The discovered isotopes of this pair have half-lives in the fractions of a second, and the doubly magic numbers in the island of stability to the right don't help much as the nuclear strains nevertheless are too high and the half-life extends only to 30 s for 114. So obviously the superheavy elements in use by the more-advanced races are prepared differently. The preparation was not by technology because naquada is a naturally-occuring mineral which doesn't spontaneously explode or decay. So these races are not advanced in materials strictly by development, but by privilege. The past multiple-generation supernovæ or even hypernovæ near the planets where naquada is found provided their abundance in heavy elements. The energy also must have altered the electroweak medium in these regions in order to retard radioactive decay of the heavy and superheavy elements. That, and/or the Ancients knew how to custom-alter the medium at an interplanetary scale.before or during these explosions that ejected the needed materials into the systems. Stablising these elements opens up a huge section of the periodic table not previously available for fabrication. Physical properties are mostly dependent on the electron orbital and valence filling, and if the nucleus were made stable by some modification or substitution no one would notice except for the mass and weight. The nucleus of any atom could be removed entirely, and retain its orbital filling, if a sufficiently strong and crafted localised field were injected into the centre—a synthetic nucleus. This can be done for cellular nuclei in biotech, so an advanced species should know how to do the analogue in... picotech. Any substance mentioned in Stargate or Star Trek which should be too unstable to use has actually undergone NM: nuclear modification.
So I'll denote the refined, solid naquada as consisting of elemental variants, Hs' or Mt' both about 265 g/mol. One remembers from the movie that the naquada gate with the metamorphosed sand could be lifted by several people with ropes without snapping, but that a simple brick of naquada without the sand had to be lifted by two Jaffa. Though there is no guarantee that the heavier the element the denser it is, as in the case of the densest element iridium the heavier elements thereafter only become less dense by bulk again, the naquada brick was obviously too heavy for one Jaffa to carry. Presumably it was at least 50 kg. Its dimensions I'm guestimating at 14x7x5 cm^3, which makes its density 102 g/cm^3 which is far higher than any element, whereas iridium is about 22.65. Because superheavy elements alone cannot couple well with neutrinos, the augmented (reduced?) electroweak field was used to attract and absorb neutrinos, probably by simulating electron captures, causing a dramatic increase in nuclear mass and bulk density. Like the brass or naquasha bells which rang at an audible tone to attract or influence spirits, the naquada material's nucleus rings at a particular frequency to attract the spirits which are likened as the neutrinos! Is it not more than a coincidence that these two words both referred to metals, but in the same language and function? Or did the writers or founders of the village forsee that? It doesn't seem much like fiction anymore. Because the gate requires an externally-applied voltage, and the energy depends on the wormhole distance, an internal electroweak field explains how electricity could modulate the nucleus and its neutrino cross-section. Don't expect the field to be 100% efficient, so not all of the neutrinos flowing through the gate will be available to create the wormhole.
Even so, to create the smallest black hole enough mass or energy needs to be gathered in a volume such that the event horizon is larger than the singularity, which is the Planck length in width. Using that as the Schwarzschild radius, the energy comes to 1.567e28 eV. To see if that much energy is absorbed from the neutrino sea, I'll use a preliminary calculation with example unknowns: Dialing from the DHD takes eight seconds, one per press. The Stargate's radii are around 3.5 and 2.5 m, so its cross-sectional area is 1.9e5 cm^2. Multiply all of them together with the flux and mean energy to get 6e23 eV. It would seem that the neutrinos are not enough to establish a wormhole. But the Schwarzschild radius is based on the gravitational constant G = 6.673e-11 which only works if gravity propagates in three dimensions. G turns out not to be a constant and it inflates when r < 1 mm because n > 2 on r^n. A NYT article announced the construction of the Large Hadron Collider in 2006 which is to simulate the conditions of cosmic rays. Cosmic rays average 300 MeV and have been as energetic as 10^20 eV. The LHC beam is only 7.0 TeV, but with the extra dimensions for gravity in M-theory or whatever they've used, this is enough energy to create a Planck BH. They estimated that a hundred Planck BHs a second were created in our atmosphere by cosmic rays. 7e12 eV is in the electroweak range for a particle, where it becomes possible to isolate partons or preons (quark constituents) which directly couple to the Higgs field. The catatrophisms that formed the conditions for stable naquada redistributed the Higgs field through subspace, allowing a smaller but specific energy to couple to gravity quintillion times of normal. Forming naquada into a closed figure allowed the electroweak-Higgs field to be focused and to prevent the preon singularity from being dispersed into Hawking radiation.
To recap this subsection, solid naquada requires a few steps from its conversion from a mineral into an active Stargate. The Stargate retains the naturally formed quartzite compound, in the form MxNy(SiO2)z, where Mx is either Hs' or Mt' and the rest of the formula is quartz. Hs or Mt has only been modified to have a stable nucleus; no nucleus alone is able to absorb neutrinos efficiently enough to create a wormhole. The semidamaged regions of space and subspace have changed the electroweak and gravity constants in certain matter so that applying a nominal electrical current to a closed mass of naquada increases the neutrino collison cross-section. The neutrinos are completely refracted by the electroweak field into a standing wave about the nuclei—a nuclear halo—as the gate is dialing. The heavier nuclei have electric fields strong enough to render the inner orbitals relativistic, increasing in mass and sinking toward the nuclei, where the 1s electrons' velocity is given by v/c ~/= Z/137. Thus the highest possible element is 137, near the end of the 5g block. Here the atom sets up a temporary electric black hole condition until one or two (K) electron captures reduce the atomic number again. But the heavier, neutron-deficient nuclei are more likely to induce ECs. When the electron is about to tunnel into the nucleus, the neutrino collision cross-section explodes and somehow the neutrino must be recovered by the above method, leaving an energy-deficient neutron that spits out the electron again. With the nuclear halos, the naquada element is converted into the heavy, excited state Hs'* or Mt'* until the Higgs sea partons (bad joke) or preons spontaneously manifest in the gate cavity as the event horizon. These subquantum particles remain as long as current is supplied, whereafter the naquada returns to its Hs' or Mt' self. Weapons grade naquada bypasses this procedure, as having the sand removed the element is dense enough to reach critical mass whenever an alternating current, probably, opposing the nuclear electroweak field is applied to loosen the neutrons and a particles that have been wanting to escape.
B. Liquid Naquada
I planned this subsection to be much shorter, but it turned out not to be.
Liquid naquada has rarely been mentioned, but it is associated with energy, particle beam, or any type of lasing weapon. This use sharply contrasts from the inert naquada above, so it must be an entirely different element. Beside the obvious two elemental liquids, at least five spots on the periodic table are the next naquada candidate. The low ionisation potential required for electric weapons, engines, batteries, etc. are best suited by alkali and alkaline salts. Our cells even run on two alkalis. Lithium hydride batteries are used in watches and laptops because of their energy density. Sam once designed a homebrew naquada weapon with "lithium hydrite[sic]". I'm not sure if that's the same. Have you tried throwing a watch battery into a fire? Has anyone ever done it with a charged laptop battery? I'd like to hear about it, maybe even see a videotape. Group 1 batteries are better than Group 2. Being on the left edge of the table, the elements are the most electropositive. Alkali is translated from al-qily (Arab.) meaning ashes, and qily comes from qala meaning "to fry or roast". The noun is the end product and the verb is the effect. The al-qily are the figurative extremists of the elements, and its other translation should be a hint that the elements are perfect for power sources in sci-fi series.
The alkalis and alkalines, if isolated, must be coated with mineral oil to avoid contacting air or moisture, lest they tarnish or ignite. For air, this is the reason that alkali and alkaline salts are used in fireworks; the ignition electrolyses the compound and the free metal oxidises and releases a bunch of powerful energy. Tossing a fair lump of the element into a body of water is worse (for anarchists and pyromaniacs, read: better) because not only is water denser than air, after the element oxidises (or is that hydroxidises?), the resulting energy is used to ignite the hydrogen in the water. The explosion would look like a tiny nuclear or antimatter bomb went off. (Hydrofluoric acid or fluorine gas would be worse.) Burning a magnesium ribbon and watching it is like staring into the sun. The more electropositive elements should be brighter and hotter, and anyone who tries to test them by dropping them (Tossing and running might work.) into a pool would be too blinded to notice the incinerating slag flying toward them. :evil: This is just speculation, of course. Exploding bullets could be made out of alkalis encased in mineral oil and plastic, which would especially be effective in the summertime. Is my treatise getting out of hand? If these metals were not so expensive, rare, or difficult to produce, everything could be run from them. When they're through, simply recharge them with solar power—from rechargeable batteries to rechargeable bombs. How about CsH for both? CsH btw, like Os, is stiffer than diamond. If that salt were plentiful, it'd be great for a penetration-fragmentation-spontaneous combustion bullet, don't ya think?
As mentioned before, the metals get softer the further down one goes. Cæsium and francium are liquid a few degrees above room temperature (25°C, 77°F), the latter even closer. So the best candidate for a liquid power source is francium. But francium only lasts as long as 22 minutes, and there is only an ounce of it on Earth at any time. This is where the EW privilege comes in again. Having a stable nucleus allows the alien races to use its chemical properties, and having a rich mineral record allows them to revel. Every source says that francium has no chemical uses, but they say so only because they believe so. Taming the nucleus is a determined and well-understood goal and accomplishment, but they can't stop there or forget that taming the nucleon is even more important. I've heard that they're working on changing (nudging?) half-lives, so that's good. This is what WebElements says about cæsium's use: "The metal can be used in ion propulsion systems. Although not usable in the earth's atmosphere, 1 kg of caesium in outer space could propel a vehicle 140 times as far as the burning of the same amount of any known liquid or solid. It is more efficient than rubidium." So imagine what they could do if francium were freed up.
Francium, frankly speaking, is a ******* of an element. (How many of these element names with double entendres are there? There are other appropriate words, in this subject, starting with Fr.) It, lying at the back corner of the table, is the most chemically and nuclearly unstable element of the first 103 elements. It has 33 isotopes, most of which decay before you can read about them, and some before you can form a thought. If you got enough of the stabler isotopes in one place and try to touch it, it'll probably burn your hand internally a little while after eating it. This element, along with the other preoccupations I mentioned earlier, is one of many that deserve more attention from the world. Rather than ignoring it, see it for the [unused ~ unusable] power that it is, and turn lemons into lemonade. (You can run electricity off lemons, if you were too stupid to get that.) With some NM, francium' would make a good liquid naquada cell. See the versatility that this element has: http://chemlab.pc.maricopa.edu/periodic/Fr.html . The "energy crystal" preferably uses middle to heavy Fr'-[214,232]. By being able to modify the EW field, different ejecta can be chosen for your person, place, or thing. Phasers, disruptors, zats, zarcs, staffs, etc. are made possible, as particle lamps. The person who discovers the common door to EW would be doing what Maxwell did for EM. By controlling the EW field, one can choose the decay channel for Fr'-[214,232]'s products and reduce the half-lives to seconds when not making them stable.
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