That brings up an interesting physics problem. Given what we know about how warp drive works, would it punch a clean hole? Would it punch a large and not-so-clean hole? Would it be even more catastrophic than impacting at high sublight speeds? I don’t remember enough Physics 251 to say for sure.
The answer is not too hard to work out. We all know that F=MA. A vessel travelling at light speed and impacting a relatively stationary object would have the value A as infinity, thus F would also become infinity and the mass is no longer relevant to the equation on the provision it is higher than 0.
An office hole punch works by providing a large enough force on a small enough area of paper. we already know that the force is infinite, so we need to look at the distribution of force. This is dependant on how dense and how brittle the object being impacted would be.
Let's take a gun and fire at 4 objects. a sheet of normal glass, a sheet of laminated glass (car windscreen), a block of wood and a chocolate cake. The normal glass would shatter to nothing. The laminated glass would have a bullet shaped hole, but a large area nearby would be splintered. The wood would have a bullet shaped hole and a smaller area of splintering. The cake would probably not even have a bullet shaped hole as it would close around the damaged area.
Back to my original glass, should I want to make a bullet shaped hole, this would be possible with a slow tap tap tap, being extremely careful not to stress the glass. Thus ramming speed would depend heavily on the materials the object being rammed is made of and would differ every time. It would probably take a skilled pilot and a powerful computer to do the calculations needed to find the optimal speed for most damage.
This is currently a genuine problem being faced by space agencies today. How to destroy an asteroid that is on a colission course with Earth. A rocket fired at the asteroid might simply pass straight through if the density is particularly low, or may break it into large chunks if it isn't particularly brittle.
(p.s. I'm not including things like warp fields in this because they are fictional and I don't know the real world situation should a warp field be used.)
That brings up an interesting physics problem. Given what we know about how warp drive works, would it punch a clean hole?
I'm no physicist, most of what I know about high velocity impacts comes from video games and professionally the only thing I'm qualified to say about a torpedo is whether a dress will fit it or not (nothing we've got in stock) - but like @V. said the 'warp field' is a complete fiction, so if you hit something with it it does whatever the writer says it does, whether that's an anticlimactic smooth hole or an epic Holdo Ram cataclysm. I guess for the purposes of whatever that novel was it had to be the boring smooth hole, because if they could've taken out the evil moon by ramming it with Voyager they would've (the aliens were going to invade the Alpha Quadrant with a massive death army or something, it was a 'worth it' situation), and I know the novels are technically non-canon but it'd raise questions about why the ship still exists next week.
The best 'evidence' I can think of that actually made it to screen would be the Jem'Hadar ship that rammed the Odyssey - they just went in an impulse rather than warp-ramming. Maybe that suggests an impulse ram is more destructive - although you could as easily say maybe their warp drive had taken a few hits in the battle. Even with the 'smooth hole' theory the size of a Jem'Hadar ship would've taken out the entire engineering section, rather than just the front third of it, so maybe a warp field would actually, I dunno, 'deflect off' matter rather than plough through it, or at least make it more difficult to nail your target than just going in at impulse and letting Sir Isaac Newton sort it out... who knows. A lot of stuff that happens on screen is because it looked cool, like 90% of the ships in the Dominion War forgetting to turn their shields on, so the MST3K mantra applies.
The best 'evidence' I can think of that actually made it to screen would be the Jem'Hadar ship that rammed the Odyssey - they just went in an impulse rather than warp-ramming. Maybe that suggests an impulse ram is more destructive - although you could as easily say maybe their warp drive had taken a few hits in the battle. Even with the 'smooth hole' theory the size of a Jem'Hadar ship would've taken out the entire engineering section, rather than just the front third of it, so maybe a warp field would actually, I dunno, 'deflect off' matter rather than plough through it, or at least make it more difficult to nail your target than just going in at impulse and letting Sir Isaac Newton sort it out... who knows. A lot of stuff that happens on screen is because it looked cool, like 90% of the ships in the Dominion War forgetting to turn their shields on, so the MST3K mantra applies.
A ship moving at Warp shouldn't be able to physically interact with the universe. Consider the episode "Divergence". The Enterprise enters the Columbia's warp bubble and at that point the two ships can physically interact with each other.
A ship ramming another would need to envelop it in its own warp field to do anything.
That brings up an interesting physics problem. Given what we know about how warp drive works, would it punch a clean hole?
I'm no physicist, most of what I know about high velocity impacts comes from video games and professionally the only thing I'm qualified to say about a torpedo is whether a dress will fit it or not (nothing we've got in stock) - but like @V. said the 'warp field' is a complete fiction, so if you hit something with it it does whatever the writer says it does, whether that's an anticlimactic smooth hole or an epic Holdo Ram cataclysm. I guess for the purposes of whatever that novel was it had to be the boring smooth hole, because if they could've taken out the evil moon by ramming it with Voyager they would've (the aliens were going to invade the Alpha Quadrant with a massive death army or something, it was a 'worth it' situation), and I know the novels are technically non-canon but it'd raise questions about why the ship still exists next week.
The best 'evidence' I can think of that actually made it to screen would be the Jem'Hadar ship that rammed the Odyssey - they just went in an impulse rather than warp-ramming. Maybe that suggests an impulse ram is more destructive - although you could as easily say maybe their warp drive had taken a few hits in the battle. Even with the 'smooth hole' theory the size of a Jem'Hadar ship would've taken out the entire engineering section, rather than just the front third of it, so maybe a warp field would actually, I dunno, 'deflect off' matter rather than plough through it, or at least make it more difficult to nail your target than just going in at impulse and letting Sir Isaac Newton sort it out... who knows. A lot of stuff that happens on screen is because it looked cool, like 90% of the ships in the Dominion War forgetting to turn their shields on, so the MST3K mantra applies.
The theoretical (not fictional – Einstein Rosen-bridge theories support this concept) Warp field employs use of the deflector dish (thus the name) to 'deflect' small objects that it might encounter, and detect large ones to plot a course around (not through).
There are many more problems with this theoretical propulsions system; e.g. exotic matter (anti-matter), manipulating gravimetric energy, actual navigation (the deflector would have to send and receive exotic particles of matter FTL, which causes tachyons to be disrupted and perhaps return the information before it was sent/scanned?), and the passengers would likely be crushed inside the warp bubble.
And none of this has even been posited (AFAIK) since the [again theoretical] discovery of dark energy and dark matter and what effect a warp bubble would have on them, since they comprise the majority of what makes up the entire universe.
So while the scene with the Enterprise-E moved into the Scimitar at "full impulse" was impressively cool from a special effects perspective and required for the storyline, but it's SPACE people! The Scimitar would have "bounced" off the Ent-E when it got hit. Basic physics still applies, after all.
The Defiant plowing into the Borg Cube would have been a test of this, as the Cube would obviously have been moved (maybe tumbled off-axis), or more likely the Defiant would have plowed straight through it if it encountered a weak spot in the Cube.
But of course, this is our beloved Star Trek, so we just ignore such things as physics so we can enjoy it, right?
A ship moving at Warp shouldn't be able to physically interact with the universe. Consider the episode "Divergence". The Enterprise enters the Columbia's warp bubble and at that point the two ships can physically interact with each other.
I'm hazy on some of Enterprise (I've seen it, I just maybe wasn't paying a whole lot of attention), how much detail did they go into? I mean the point of Enterprise and Columbia rubbing their junk together was to get Trip across safely - it doesn't necessarily mean that not merging their warp fields would've resulted in Enterprise passing right through Trip like it was intangible, just that it wouldn't have ended up with them having an engineer on board able to fix their problem. If the point was to ram Trip, that'd count as a success though.
The theoretical (not fictional – Einstein Rosen-bridge theories support this concept) Warp field
Fair point - maybe better if I'd said that what we see happening on screen is fictional, and may or may not be accurate to the theoretical idea of a warp field depending on who was writing that week.
There was also a Voyager novel (I forget the name, it was something to do with an alien empire that was the basis for all the myths about demons)
The Invasion novels were awesome! There were actually four, spanning the then main Star Trek shows, and were even connected across. A redshirt pilot from the TNG novel ends up in the VOY one, for instance.
There are many more problems with this theoretical propulsions system; e.g. exotic matter (anti-matter),
Um... antimatter isn't exotic matter. Exotic matter is matter with negative mass and a negative energy density. Antimatter has a positive mass; it's properties such as electrical change and spin parity which are reversed from their normal matter counterparts.
Well, this funny little post went epically sideways. And is much better for it. The detailed discussion of ramming a target at impulse versus warp is very interesting.
"The truth is like a lion; you don't have to defend it. Let it loose; it will defend itself."
I’m sure her card would be a good mix of skills and stats, but man do I hate her character. I liked her on the first episode of season 2, but in her every appearance it’s just more of the same. She’s sarcastic and a jerk and makes anachronistic pop culture references she shouldn’t even know about.
As if Discovery didn’t already have enough sarcastic jerks on the cast.
I’m with you on this. I’m sure people don’t listen to ZZ Top way in the future. And she is a a jerk. Pompous too. Keeps reminding everyone she thinks they are stupid. I really liked season one but I believe season two really sank and she was the anchor that pulled that sink down fast. That and all the emotional stuff and the crying and the speeches.
To be honest, I also liked season 1 and found season 2 rather disappointing (for some of the same reasons you mention) but Jett Reno was one of a few things that I loved about it
I’m sure her card would be a good mix of skills and stats, but man do I hate her character. I liked her on the first episode of season 2, but in her every appearance it’s just more of the same. She’s sarcastic and a jerk and makes anachronistic pop culture references she shouldn’t even know about.
As if Discovery didn’t already have enough sarcastic jerks on the cast.
I’m with you on this. I’m sure people don’t listen to ZZ Top way in the future. And she is a a jerk. Pompous too. Keeps reminding everyone she thinks they are stupid. I really liked season one but I believe season two really sank and she was the anchor that pulled that sink down fast. That and all the emotional stuff and the crying and the speeches.
To be honest, I also liked season 1 and found season 2 rather disappointing (for some of the same reasons you mention) but Jett Reno was one of a few things that I loved about it
To me she's an improved version of Bones. I always found Bones to be a constant racist (against vulcans), irrational (because he was generally anti-logic), irritation whose entire dialog was often complaining about what was going to happen anyways. Just do your job and quit complaining first. Reno while very sarcastic, is constantly getting things done and does not target any person or race or mindset, but rather is equally sarcastic and insulting to EVERYONE. I love her character, and hated bones with a passion.
I’m sure her card would be a good mix of skills and stats, but man do I hate her character. I liked her on the first episode of season 2, but in her every appearance it’s just more of the same. She’s sarcastic and a jerk and makes anachronistic pop culture references she shouldn’t even know about.
As if Discovery didn’t already have enough sarcastic jerks on the cast.
I’m with you on this. I’m sure people don’t listen to ZZ Top way in the future. And she is a a jerk. Pompous too. Keeps reminding everyone she thinks they are stupid. I really liked season one but I believe season two really sank and she was the anchor that pulled that sink down fast. That and all the emotional stuff and the crying and the speeches.
To be honest, I also liked season 1 and found season 2 rather disappointing (for some of the same reasons you mention) but Jett Reno was one of a few things that I loved about it
To me she's an improved version of Bones. I always found Bones to be a constant racist (against vulcans), irrational (because he was generally anti-logic), irritation whose entire dialog was often complaining about what was going to happen anyways. Just do your job and quit complaining first. Reno while very sarcastic, is constantly getting things done and does not target any person or race or mindset, but rather is equally sarcastic and insulting to EVERYONE. I love her character, and hated bones with a passion.
Gunnery Sergeant Hartman: Here you are all equally worthless. {Full Metal Jacket}
"The truth is like a lion; you don't have to defend it. Let it loose; it will defend itself."
I’m sure her card would be a good mix of skills and stats, but man do I hate her character. I liked her on the first episode of season 2, but in her every appearance it’s just more of the same. She’s sarcastic and a jerk and makes anachronistic pop culture references she shouldn’t even know about.
As if Discovery didn’t already have enough sarcastic jerks on the cast.
I’m with you on this. I’m sure people don’t listen to ZZ Top way in the future. And she is a a jerk. Pompous too. Keeps reminding everyone she thinks they are stupid. I really liked season one but I believe season two really sank and she was the anchor that pulled that sink down fast. That and all the emotional stuff and the crying and the speeches.
To be honest, I also liked season 1 and found season 2 rather disappointing (for some of the same reasons you mention) but Jett Reno was one of a few things that I loved about it
To me she's an improved version of Bones. I always found Bones to be a constant racist (against vulcans), irrational (because he was generally anti-logic), irritation whose entire dialog was often complaining about what was going to happen anyways. Just do your job and quit complaining first. Reno while very sarcastic, is constantly getting things done and does not target any person or race or mindset, but rather is equally sarcastic and insulting to EVERYONE. I love her character, and hated bones with a passion.
Gunnery Sergeant Hartwell: Here you are all equally worthless. {Full Metal Jacket}
Its Hartman, but great quote
Founding ADM - PoF family of fleets (POF, POF2 & POF3) - Dear TP: Non sequitur. Your facts are uncoordinated.
I’m sure her card would be a good mix of skills and stats, but man do I hate her character. I liked her on the first episode of season 2, but in her every appearance it’s just more of the same. She’s sarcastic and a jerk and makes anachronistic pop culture references she shouldn’t even know about.
As if Discovery didn’t already have enough sarcastic jerks on the cast.
I’m with you on this. I’m sure people don’t listen to ZZ Top way in the future. And she is a a jerk. Pompous too. Keeps reminding everyone she thinks they are stupid. I really liked season one but I believe season two really sank and she was the anchor that pulled that sink down fast. That and all the emotional stuff and the crying and the speeches.
To be honest, I also liked season 1 and found season 2 rather disappointing (for some of the same reasons you mention) but Jett Reno was one of a few things that I loved about it
To me she's an improved version of Bones. I always found Bones to be a constant racist (against vulcans), irrational (because he was generally anti-logic), irritation whose entire dialog was often complaining about what was going to happen anyways. Just do your job and quit complaining first. Reno while very sarcastic, is constantly getting things done and does not target any person or race or mindset, but rather is equally sarcastic and insulting to EVERYONE. I love her character, and hated bones with a passion.
Gunnery Sergeant Hartwell: Here you are all equally worthless. {Full Metal Jacket}
Its Hartman, but great quote
I typed Hartman, I thought!!!!! I watch that movie at least once a month. I'll fix!!!!
Also, Jett is the 5* next week for Ranked.
"The truth is like a lion; you don't have to defend it. Let it loose; it will defend itself."
Comments
I love this community.
I'm no physicist, most of what I know about high velocity impacts comes from video games and professionally the only thing I'm qualified to say about a torpedo is whether a dress will fit it or not (nothing we've got in stock) - but like @V. said the 'warp field' is a complete fiction, so if you hit something with it it does whatever the writer says it does, whether that's an anticlimactic smooth hole or an epic Holdo Ram cataclysm. I guess for the purposes of whatever that novel was it had to be the boring smooth hole, because if they could've taken out the evil moon by ramming it with Voyager they would've (the aliens were going to invade the Alpha Quadrant with a massive death army or something, it was a 'worth it' situation), and I know the novels are technically non-canon but it'd raise questions about why the ship still exists next week.
The best 'evidence' I can think of that actually made it to screen would be the Jem'Hadar ship that rammed the Odyssey - they just went in an impulse rather than warp-ramming. Maybe that suggests an impulse ram is more destructive - although you could as easily say maybe their warp drive had taken a few hits in the battle. Even with the 'smooth hole' theory the size of a Jem'Hadar ship would've taken out the entire engineering section, rather than just the front third of it, so maybe a warp field would actually, I dunno, 'deflect off' matter rather than plough through it, or at least make it more difficult to nail your target than just going in at impulse and letting Sir Isaac Newton sort it out... who knows. A lot of stuff that happens on screen is because it looked cool, like 90% of the ships in the Dominion War forgetting to turn their shields on, so the MST3K mantra applies.
A ship moving at Warp shouldn't be able to physically interact with the universe. Consider the episode "Divergence". The Enterprise enters the Columbia's warp bubble and at that point the two ships can physically interact with each other.
A ship ramming another would need to envelop it in its own warp field to do anything.
The theoretical (not fictional – Einstein Rosen-bridge theories support this concept) Warp field employs use of the deflector dish (thus the name) to 'deflect' small objects that it might encounter, and detect large ones to plot a course around (not through).
There are many more problems with this theoretical propulsions system; e.g. exotic matter (anti-matter), manipulating gravimetric energy, actual navigation (the deflector would have to send and receive exotic particles of matter FTL, which causes tachyons to be disrupted and perhaps return the information before it was sent/scanned?), and the passengers would likely be crushed inside the warp bubble.
And none of this has even been posited (AFAIK) since the [again theoretical] discovery of dark energy and dark matter and what effect a warp bubble would have on them, since they comprise the majority of what makes up the entire universe.
So while the scene with the Enterprise-E moved into the Scimitar at "full impulse" was impressively cool from a special effects perspective and required for the storyline, but it's SPACE people! The Scimitar would have "bounced" off the Ent-E when it got hit. Basic physics still applies, after all.
The Defiant plowing into the Borg Cube would have been a test of this, as the Cube would obviously have been moved (maybe tumbled off-axis), or more likely the Defiant would have plowed straight through it if it encountered a weak spot in the Cube.
But of course, this is our beloved Star Trek, so we just ignore such things as physics so we can enjoy it, right?
Fair point - maybe better if I'd said that what we see happening on screen is fictional, and may or may not be accurate to the theoretical idea of a warp field depending on who was writing that week.
The Invasion novels were awesome! There were actually four, spanning the then main Star Trek shows, and were even connected across. A redshirt pilot from the TNG novel ends up in the VOY one, for instance.
Um... antimatter isn't exotic matter. Exotic matter is matter with negative mass and a negative energy density. Antimatter has a positive mass; it's properties such as electrical change and spin parity which are reversed from their normal matter counterparts.
Cue confused Star Wars fans everywhere...
I like how shows like Firefly {and Serenity movie} got it right. In space no one can hear you 'splode.
To be honest, I also liked season 1 and found season 2 rather disappointing (for some of the same reasons you mention) but Jett Reno was one of a few things that I loved about it
To me she's an improved version of Bones. I always found Bones to be a constant racist (against vulcans), irrational (because he was generally anti-logic), irritation whose entire dialog was often complaining about what was going to happen anyways. Just do your job and quit complaining first. Reno while very sarcastic, is constantly getting things done and does not target any person or race or mindset, but rather is equally sarcastic and insulting to EVERYONE. I love her character, and hated bones with a passion.
This is why I love Star Trek fans!
Gunnery Sergeant Hartman: Here you are all equally worthless. {Full Metal Jacket}
Its Hartman, but great quote
I typed Hartman, I thought!!!!! I watch that movie at least once a month. I'll fix!!!!
Also, Jett is the 5* next week for Ranked.