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matter/energy conversion

            Though the Federation has at its disposal great big machines which can produce far more energy than any hypothetical matter energy conversion device, there is a strong desire to perfect this technology as it could potentially allow for small, clean power plants which can still generate formidable amounts of power from non dangerous materials (that is not antimatter).

            It has been known for many centuries that matter and energy are exchangeable, both just being a manifestation of energy, but even a small amount of mass can produce colossal amounts of energy, this has been utilized to create antimatter/matter powerplants, but hopefully technology will eventually allow us to convert matter into energy directly, or indeed vice versa. This technology is currently under much research, below are some of the experimental designs which are being used.

 

Solaris torus:

 

            The federation has been long using technologies to bend space, the resulting machines generate our artificial gravity, power and propel our ships, and even provide us with weapons, but this technology will play an important roles in any upcoming matter energy conversion device.

            The solaris torus concept is quite simple, the heart of its design uses something that we are familiar with in many everyday situations, polarized gravity. Artificial gravity generating nets on ships create a gravitational field in one direction only, this is useful, as if they generated gravity omni-directionally crew located a floor below may be stuck to the ceiling because of the attraction from gravity generation units a floor above. The solaris torus is simply a machine which can extend this machines original function, though rather than generating a small directional field which extends only some metres directly up from the device, the machines in a solaris device bend this into a circle.

            At the heart of this machine this ‘closed circle’ of gravity effectively provides for the equivalent of an infinite drop in a gravitational environment, any matter introduced into this loop will be continuously accelerated, and eventually converted into energy from collisions with other particles. Though this simple core idea seems easy enough to build, there comes associated with the design many other things to construct, firstly a shielding region of curved space, effectively like an artificial event horizon that stops most of the energy from escaping, but can be controlled to release the internal energy in a desired way (generally microwave radiation). On top of this shielding effect this region must also accept the introduction of matter (‘fuel’), and of course with the colossal amounts of energy being generated internally provide additional safety shielding in event of unplanned energy release.

            Most modern experimental machines are using a torus of DCM which provides for the generation of the circular gravitational field, though it is also coated with a thin layer of neutronium (The real stuff, not the massless variety), to provide an impact surface for matter energy conversion, and as a shield for the DCM. Proper fully massive neutronium has to be used however as the kinetic energy from collision need to absorbed otherwise the torus may be knocked from its allowed shield position.

            It is hoped in time a successfully, long running machine can be generated on these experimental designs, and hopefully a good degree of miniaturization that will allow its use in applications that are at this moment too small to comfortably allow power generation by fusion of from matter/antimatter.

 
 

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