Back from LA with Honorverse move news

LarryWill729 wrote:I am going to hate myself for this....BUT...

For the real science and math types who have been throwing around all these exponents and numbers....A Question.

All of the numbers you have been using are based on Earth tech fission bombs, which have a fission "Trigger" to start the Hydrogen Fusion which increases the power of the explosion, correct?

The Honorverse uses gravity pinch to achieve a Fusion reaction without fission. Therefore......What?

The Boss said so is what I say.

It doesn't matter. RFC talks in terms of total energy output, not the mass of the device required to produce it. The actual amount of hydrogen required to produce a multi-megaton energy release is remarkably small - the issue is almost always how much of the original hydrogen gets converted into helium, and how much is simply blown away by the explosion.

Or so I remember.

JohnRoth wrote:It doesn't matter. RFC talks in terms of total energy output, not the mass of the device required to produce it. The actual amount of hydrogen required to produce a multi-megaton energy release is remarkably small - the issue is almost always how much of the original hydrogen gets converted into helium, and how much is simply blown away by the explosion.

Or so I remember.

A megaton of energy (4.2e15 J) requires converting 47 g of matter. Since hydrogen fusion is about 0.7% efficient, you need to fuse ~7 kg. Plus, as you say, all the rest of the hydrogen that's just blown away.

Bill Woods wrote:

JohnRoth wrote:It doesn't matter. RFC talks in terms of total energy output, not the mass of the device required to produce it. The actual amount of hydrogen required to produce a multi-megaton energy release is remarkably small - the issue is almost always how much of the original hydrogen gets converted into helium, and how much is simply blown away by the explosion.

Or so I remember.

A megaton of energy (4.2e15 J) requires converting 47 g of matter. Since hydrogen fusion is about 0.7% efficient, you need to fuse ~7 kg. Plus, as you say, all the rest of the hydrogen that's just blown away.

Does that efficiency change significantly if you use a gravity lens to very briefly confine it?

No, it's a number dependent on how much mass you 'loose' between having 4 hydrogen atoms (4 protons, 1 in each nucleus) and helium (2 protons and 2 neutrons in the nucleus). The rest is converted to energy re. Einsteins E=mc^2

waddles for desert wrote:

Bill Woods wrote:

A megaton of energy (4.2e15 J) requires converting 47 g of matter. Since hydrogen fusion is about 0.7% efficient, you need to fuse ~7 kg. Plus, as you say, all the rest of the hydrogen that's just blown away.

Does that efficiency change significantly if you use a gravity lens to very briefly confine it?

They should do the Movie in full CGI. Finding a Honor actress is too though and all the prolong society awkwardness... I just don´t know :/

Fanboys are important, there would´t be a Movie without them in the first place. Dismissing some details is ok, just keep true to the books essence.

Bill Woods wrote:

JohnRoth wrote:It doesn't matter. RFC talks in terms of total energy output, not the mass of the device required to produce it. The actual amount of hydrogen required to produce a multi-megaton energy release is remarkably small - the issue is almost always how much of the original hydrogen gets converted into helium, and how much is simply blown away by the explosion.

Or so I remember.

A megaton of energy (4.2e15 J) requires converting 47 g of matter. Since hydrogen fusion is about 0.7% efficient, you need to fuse ~7 kg. Plus, as you say, all the rest of the hydrogen that's just blown away.

This is presuming that Honorverse tech is up to the challenge of fusing normal Hydrogen into Helium at a high enough reaction rate to make a bomb out of it. Modern nuclear weapons use DD and DT reactions because the fusion reaction cross sections are orders of magnitude higher. Since manufacturing Tritium is somewhat difficult and it has a relatively short half life, it is used only in the fusion trigger. The rest of the Tritium to fuel the bomb is produced by internal fission of Lithium isotopes. They kill two birds with one stone by fabricating the main explosive assembly out of Li-D which is a crystalline solid at room temperature and about three times denser than liquid Deuterium which would be an obvious pain in the ass to keep refrigerated. The fusion trigger is Li-T which I imagine Honorverse tech might do without.

Li-D doesn't have quite the same fusion energy density as Deuterium. Think in terms of about 10 Kg per megaton of yield as the theoretical maximum. However; because the fusion reaction rate is proportional to the density of Deuterium and Tritium squared, the reaction rate will decrease dramatically as Deuterium and Tritium are converted into Helium.

Our notional 10 MT to 15 MT fusion bomb is going to have may be ten percent fuel conversion efficiency so think in terms of 100Kg to 200 Kg of Li-D. This is a spherical volume of about 200 to 400 Liters or about one meter in diameter. This fits quite reasonably into the two meter diameter missile body Weber describes.

NeverendingWar wrote:They should do the Movie in full CGI. Finding a Honor actress is too though and all the prolong society awkwardness... I just don´t know :/

Considering that Evergreen Films' current production is the CGI Walking With Dinosaurs 3D, this really may not be a bad idea. Does this studio have any experience at making live-action films? And what's the projected budget going to be? Doesn't need to be extravagant, look what the current movie Elysium did with $90 million; from reviews the visual effects (from Weta) are execellent.

I have this feeling that the movie is going to be some real low-budget no-name cheapie that gets dumped into the January-Feburary period, the traditional "garbage dumpster" for Hollywood.

gamarus wrote:No, it's a number dependent on how much mass you 'loose' between having 4 hydrogen atoms (4 protons, 1 in each nucleus) and helium (2 protons and 2 neutrons in the nucleus). The rest is converted to energy re. Einsteins E=mc^2

waddles for desert wrote:

Does that efficiency change significantly if you use a gravity lens to very briefly confine it?

The 0.7% is for the hydrogen which fuses. But, does all of the hydrogen in a contemporary weapon fuse? And, if not, would gravity lensing increase the proportion that does?

61Cygni wrote:

NeverendingWar wrote:They should do the Movie in full CGI. Finding a Honor actress is too though and all the prolong society awkwardness... I just don´t know :/

Considering that Evergreen Films' current production is the CGI Walking With Dinosaurs 3D, this really may not be a bad idea. Does this studio have any experience at making live-action films? And what's the projected budget going to be? Doesn't need to be extravagant, look what the current movie Elysium did with $90 million; from reviews the visual effects (from Weta) are execellent.

I have this feeling that the movie is going to be some real low-budget no-name cheapie that gets dumped into the January-Feburary period, the traditional "garbage dumpster" for Hollywood.

It may be many things, but “low-budget, no-name cheapie gets dumped into the January-February period, the traditional ‘garbage dumpster’ for Hollywood” it won’t be. The movie may or may not be a success; if it isn’t, it won’t be because it wasn’t properly budgeted for and didn’t use the best talent — behind and in front of the camera — available. Obviously, there are a whole lot of unknowns in any cinematic project, and even those which start out with high hopes and a significant budget don’t always succeed. One need only look at the numbers of big-budget, big-name pictures that bomb at the box office to be aware of that. The people involved with this particular project were aware of the need to go out and get the expertise they didn’t already have (which they have done, so far, quite well, in my opinion), however, and they are allocating a significant production budget. In short, they have no interest in producing an under-funded bomb, and I’m not sure exactly why you have the feeling that it will be one.

I have faith that you and evergreen will put out your best bet...besides it can't be worse than Wing Commander.