Jamming plastique in my bullets; damage for TL8- explosive rounds

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by SuedodeuS

The fullerened antimatter used in Schlock Mercenary is something I've always liked the concept of. Basically, you use the electric field of the fullerene as a cage to prevent the antiproton from bumping into any normal matter.

Why don't the individual fullerenes repel each other? They've all got that extra -1 charge from the anti-protons. I suppose you could try and alternate with caged regular protons but I'd think the protons would try and steal electrons from the carbon atoms.

Anyway, macroscopic chunks of matter have to electrically neutral on a gross level.

Equating matter-antimatter annihilation with conventional explosives tends to be deceptive. If there's nothing but carbon nuclei for the antiprotons to interact with then maybe you get something besides gamma rays but I'm not certain.

See, the rule is that atoms smaller than iron release energy when fused together and absorb energy when fissioned and vice versa for atoms heavier than iron. Also you get a bigger profit or suffer a greater loss the farther you are from iron.

So hydrogen fusion has a higher yield than helium fusion and uranium fission has a higher yield than thorium fission. There's a symmetrical relationship for blowing atoms apart. You lose more energy splitting carbon than silicon or something like that.

So one antiproton annihilates one regular proton in a carbon-12 nucleus. Part of it goes to neutrinos and si effectively lost. Then part of it goes into overcoming the internal bonds of the nuclei and is also lost.

The rest of it any go into the kinetic energy of something like 2 helium nuclei and one tritium but I'm not entirely sure. Complexities of various conservation laws might demand something different.

Just me, but I'd want to be slamming my atoms into something just heavy enough to limit release of free neutrons.

[SuedodeuS]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Why don't the individual fullerenes repel each other? They've all got that extra -1 charge from the anti-protons. I suppose you could try and alternate with caged regular protons but I'd think the protons would try and steal electrons from the carbon atoms.

Anyway, macroscopic chunks of matter have to electrically neutral on a gross level.

I hadn't even considered that. I don't know much about fullerene chemistry, but maybe the fullerenes each have a functional group with a +1 charge on it? Alternatively, it might be possible to have one* of the carbons missing an electron. Might be problematic and destabilize the complex (either by making the fullerene itself unstable or by causing the anti-proton to jar "loose" and impact the sides), however.

*thanks to resonance stabilization, this would work out as each carbon atom lacking 1/60th of an electron

Equating matter-antimatter annihilation with conventional explosives tends to be deceptive. If there's nothing but carbon nuclei for the antiprotons to interact with then maybe you get something besides gamma rays but I'm not certain.

See, the rule is that atoms smaller than iron release energy when fused together and absorb energy when fissioned and vice versa for atoms heavier than iron. Also you get a bigger profit or suffer a greater loss the farther you are from iron.

So hydrogen fusion has a higher yield than helium fusion and uranium fission has a higher yield than thorium fission. There's a symmetrical relationship for blowing atoms apart. You lose more energy splitting carbon than silicon or something like that.

So one antiproton annihilates one regular proton in a carbon-12 nucleus. Part of it goes to neutrinos and si effectively lost. Then part of it goes into overcoming the internal bonds of the nuclei and is also lost.

The rest of it any go into the kinetic energy of something like 2 helium nuclei and one tritium but I'm not entirely sure. Complexities of various conservation laws might demand something different.

Just me, but I'd want to be slamming my atoms into something just heavy enough to limit release of free neutrons.

Assuming all the energy that doesn't go into forming neutrinos forms the crushing explosion, we're looking at 6dx600 or so damage. If merely 1% of the energy still remaining after neutrino formation causes the crushing explosion (the rest going toward making hard radiation, breaking up atoms, etc), we're still looking at somewhere around 6dx60 damage (and ignoring all the tox rad damage). That kind of damage is appropriate for Spaceships-scale combat (between SM+9 and SM+10 Spinal Mount laser), and we're shoving it into an assault rifle.


This assumes, of course, that fullerened antimatter is feasible on a macroscale (that is, that it's possible to negate the -1 from the anti-proton).

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by SuedodeuS

I hadn't even considered that. I don't know much about fullerene chemistry, but maybe the fullerenes each have a functional group with a +1 charge on it? Alternatively, it might be possible to have one* of the carbons missing an electron. Might be problematic and destabilize the complex (either by making the fullerene itself unstable or by causing the anti-proton to jar "loose" and impact the sides), however.

Fullerenes can have charges, but surely the simplest method is to treat your endohedral fullerene as an anion and crystalize it with some different cation to balance the charge. Alkali metal C60 salts are perfectly normal crystals after all.

This assumes, of course, that fullerened antimatter is feasible on a macroscale (that is, that it's possible to negate the -1 from the anti-proton).

The real problem with antiprotons is that at any reasonable temperatures hydrogen is quite capable of diffusing in and out fullerene cages, the vibrations leave too big an opening at times. You really need heavier anti-atoms to make this work - stable endohedral fullerenes are mostly trapping transition metals, though I'm pretty sure there are some bulk samples with small molecules now, I know people have worked on endohedral methane.

[SuedodeuS]

Originally Posted by malloyd

Fullerenes can have charges, but surely the simplest method is to treat your endohedral fullerene as an anion and crystalize it with some different cation to balance the charge. Alkali metal C60 salts are perfectly normal crystals after all.

That cuts down on how much antimatter you can shove into a given mass of material, but is probably simpler and more stable than putting a charge (or charged group) on the fullerene itself.

Originally Posted by malloyd

The real problem with antiprotons is that at any reasonable temperatures hydrogen is quite capable of diffusing in and out fullerene cages, the vibrations leave too big an opening at times. You really need heavier anti-atoms to make this work - stable endohedral fullerenes are mostly trapping transition metals, though I'm pretty sure there are some bulk samples with small molecules now, I know people have worked on endohedral methane.

Well, damn. So the cage isn't tight enough for antiprotons, then? One issue is that you can't rely on the electron shells of antimatter for keeping it restrained like you can normal matter - the antielectrons want to interact with the electrons! Rather than needing size, you'll probably need a sufficiently-negative charge that the atom doesn't move around. What level are we looking at? Would anti-neon, completely stripped of its outer shell (thus -8 charge), be reliably held? Would such an ion even be stable, or would the antiprotons basically tear it apart?

[Ubiquitous]

Alright, A) thanks for all the replies, B) sorry for not really inputting anything since; been busy.

Originally Posted by Jerron

That would be minimum of 0, maximum of 4, your math is showing.

Well, here's how I figured it; every successful attack does 1 damage, right? Including, I'd assume, even the most pathetic explosive round.

So. Bullet hits, count as 1 damage to vitals with the explosive follow-up; absolute minimum of 3 damage, save natural DR and assuming it penetrated outside DR, because you multiply that one by the x3 the Vitals gives you. Any problems with that logic?

Also, by HE I was thinking of APHEX rounds, for the (2) divisor, not the (0.5). If that ever came up before, sorry I didn't mention it until now.

EDIT:

Originally Posted by HANS

And just to forestall any confusion: you can't use any of these examples in small arms SAPHE/APHEX ammo. Not TNT, not C4, not CL20. Typical small arms explosive ammo fillers are mercury fulminate, lead azide, and RDX or PETN compounds.

Cheers

HANS

Awww.

Hey, RDX is listed but I don't recall seeing lead azide in HT, is it there?

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Ubiquitous

Well, here's how I figured it; every successful attack does 1 damage, right? Including, I'd assume, even the most pathetic explosive round.

Every non-crushing attack, I believe you'll find.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Ubiquitous

Well, here's how I figured it; every successful attack does 1 damage, right?

Yes, but that's not the same as "every attack that hits".

You are entirely able to roll 0 damage on any attack EXCEPT a plain crushing attack - not that piercing is not included, only crushing.

I believe you can roll 0 on a crushing explosion, rather than a straight crushing, but I'm not 100% sure about that.

I would say so, anyways, from personal experience; I've also learned, from the same personal experience, that you can set off the caps from a cap gun by chewing on them. I didn't even bruise my mouth, although my lips were numb for about 15 minutes. I've done worse damage to myself with molten cheese in Italian food. No tooth damage, nuffin. Point of my upper canine came down hard on the top of the cap round, point of my lower canine came up firmly underneath, pressure, boom, and cue me looking kind of startled.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Ubiquitous

Hey, RDX is listed but I don't recall seeing lead azide in HT, is it there?

No idea as my copy is at home, but REF is a real world number, so it should be theoretically available somewhere. That said, I can't find any information on how REF is determined - it seems to have nothing to do with detonation velocity, for example.

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

Lead azide is highly sensitive and usually handled and stored under water in insulated rubber containers. It will explode after a fall of around 150 mm (6 in) or in the presence of a static discharge of 7 millijoules. Its detonation velocity is around 5.18 km/s (17,500 ft/s).

Everything I'm reading on the web suggests that lead azide isn't actually a good choice - it might detonate prematurely upon firing the bullet, from the looks of things. Since that means "in the barrel"...

[lwcamp]

Originally Posted by SuedodeuS

The fullerened antimatter used in Schlock Mercenary is something I've always liked the concept of. Basically, you use the electric field of the fullerene as a cage to prevent the antiproton from bumping into any normal matter.

Earnshaw's theorem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earnshaw%27s_theorem guarantees that this cannot be the explanation. In brief, it is impossible to trap a charge with any static collection of charges and the fields they produce. The field lines always leak out somewhere, and the charges will squirt out along those directions.

You can trap things with electrons around them inside fullerines because of the Pauli repulsion between the electrons of the thing being trapped and the electrons of the fullerines. There is no Pauli repulsion between anti-protons and electrons (or positrons and electrons, for that matter).

All this leaves me highly doubtful that antiprotons could be stored in fullerine (beyond a few picoseconds, anyway). You would need to show that there is a natural electrical response to a changing field in the interior that leads to negative feedback.

Luke

[Ulzgoroth]

It's far out in a number of respects, but it seems as if a magnetized piece of antimatter might possibly be contained in a shell of superconductor.