Atlas' tachyon-receiver

[Strange Wings]

In the ep 'The Anti-Ptoton Gun' Atlas mentions his use of a 'tachyon-receiver' which makes his crystal castle travelling faster than light.
Does someone here know what tachyons are?
Can this tachyon-receiver be compared with sort of a 'warp drive unit' as it is being used in the Star Trek series?
I'm wondering what kind of inertia dampening this device would require...

B)

Thanks in advance for any teachings.

[fafner]

A tachyon is a hypothetical particle that travels faster than light. For any question, ask the Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachyon
However, if you want my advice, an object using tachyons would require to be made of such particles

As stated in the Wikipedia article, the strangest properties of tachyons is that their mass is not a positive number, but a pure imaginary value. A direct consequence is that the more the particle holds energy, the slower it travels. However the particle will never be slower than light. That is the exact opposite of "usual" particles

[Strange Wings]

I see. Thanks for the explanation and the links.

Originally posted by fafner@Aug 14 2005, 01:49 PM
However, if you want my advice, an object using tachyons would require to be made of such particles 

So that would mean that there's actually no chance at all to use those particles for gaining over-light speed (set the case they would exist ).

I'd always figured out that Atlas' tachyon-receiver' would work exactly the same way as a warp drive, however, a warp core is using antimatter for gaining speed over light.
Is antimatter related to tachyon in any sense ? Anyway, while antimatter does exist for real, tachyon seems to be merely an invention of science fiction stories.

Whatsoever, I find the imagination of Atlas' castle reaching ludicrous speed to be very entertaining none the less.

[DrFrag]

I've always thought the Crystal Castle was pretty awesome. The whole thing is made of Neo Techteron, which supposedly can't be made artificially but Atlas finds a way to grow the crystals. It can't even be scratched by Astro's lasers or fists (and that's saying a lot).
He can move it anywhere on earth or in space with magnetic fields, a system of transportation that no one else came close to inventing.
Inside, he can move around it with a teleport system, another new technology. Plus he can make view screens display on the walls with a wave of his hand.
He destroys Walpur Guiss and his entire castle with a single energy blast from the Crystal Castle. He has a tachyon receiver to transmit footage live from Jupiter, as well as being able to send the entire Castle into some kind of hyperspace.
And in his last appearance, Atlas turns the Castle a shimmering white and it moves at incredible speed towards the alien mothership. Then it turns black and seems to engulf the entire fleet. It might even be a black hole.

How awesome is that? It's 25 years old and it still rivals technologies in modern anime. B)

Here's a raytrace I made a few years ago:

[Strange Wings]

B) Wow, looks pretty neat!

So the tachyon receiver has two functions: moving the crystal and delivering video data via hyperspace.

I too like the crystal castle. It has a very cool design, no comparison to any Enterprise-spaceships of the world.
However, it isn't completely indestructible. We know about the scene shown in The Rainbow Comet where Astro's smashing through the pillar in the middle of the castle (which apparently is serving as a energy-unit). Therefore, the only way to destroy the castle would be from the insde-out.
Also, in the ep The Crystal Of The Desert Atlas tells us about the disadvantage of travelling by magnetic fields which, so he said, heats up the interior. To prevent the crystal from drying out he needs great amounts of water for cooling it down. But why taking the water from the desert instead of taking it from the ocean ? Is Neo Techteron irritable against salt?

Originally posted by DrFrag@Aug 15 2005, 02:20 AM
Inside, he can move around it with a teleport system, another new technology.

This always reminds me on ST's beaming transporters. Even the sound is similar.

Plus he can make view screens display on the walls with a wave of his hand.

Can he be called over 'unlisted walls' too? I think Atlas would like to have his private sphere here and then.

Livian: "Atlas, we're approaching Jupiter and..... what are you doing anyway?"
Atlas: "I told you never to call me on this wall, dammit!"

And in his last appearance, Atlas turns the Castle a shimmering white and it moves at incredible speed towards the alien mothership. Then it turns black and seems to engulf the entire fleet. It might even be a black hole.

That's gotta be the most touchable scene of the whole 80's series. Shivers up and down the spine are guaranteed when watching him disappearing like that.
I guess we'll never know whether Atlas had survived this trip. I hope he did.

[fafner]

Originally posted by Strange Wings+Aug 14 2005, 04:44 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Strange Wings @ Aug 14 2005, 04:44 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>So that would mean that there's actually no chance at all to use those particles for gaining over-light speed (set the case they would exist ).[/b]

In my opinion, it would be like using photons to reach speed of light. To my knowledge, no one has ever done that, even in science-fiction

Is antimatter related to tachyon in any sense ?

No. I bet anti-tachyons might exist, provided tachyons exist of course

Anyway, while antimatter [i]does exist for real, tachyon seems to be merely an invention of science fiction stories.

Tachyons are not an invention of science-fiction, rather a possible solution to an equation in quantum mechanics (now in string theory) that gave some ideas to science-fiction writers.
Sorry for the mathophobes here, but I think some maths are useful to understand what are tachyons. Let's consider this equation:

Code: Select all

(x*x+1)(x-1)=0

It is verified if and only if both (x*x+1) and (x-1) are 0.
If we solve in the real numbers set, then (x*x+1) has no solution, therefore the only possible value for x is 1.
However in mathematics there is the set of complex numbers, some of them having the odd property to have as a square a negative real number. Therefore the previous equation (x*x+1=0) has 2 solutions in the set of complex numbers: i and -i.
If we go back to our tachyons, we can consider they are the 2 additional solutions in non-real numbers. At the time when the complex numbers were hypothetized, it looked like an artifice to have a solution where there was none. But complex numbers proved to work very well, and are applied successfully in oscillating electrical circuits, as well as in quantum mechanics. So if tachyons are hypothetical particles, that's because they do have a solution in some quantum equation, but could never been observed so far, either because the amount of energy needed to have them appear in an experiment is too high for now, because they may not interact with "ordinary" matter, or because they simply do not exist.
<!--QuoteBegin--DrFrag[/i]@Aug 14 2005, 06:20 PM
He has a tachyon receiver to transmit footage live from Jupiter, as well as being able to send the entire Castle into some kind of hyperspace.[/quote]
Well, tachyons might be useless to travel faster than light, but they could be used to transmit information faster than light, provided they interact with our matter And provided they do not break causality as we know it

[DrFrag]

Originally posted by Strange Wings@Aug 15 2005, 05:36 AM
To prevent the crystal from drying out he needs great amounts of water for cooling it down. But why taking the water from the desert instead of taking it from the ocean ? Is Neo Techteron irritable against salt?

I think it was for drinking water for his human slaves.