Jerry, I was reading through my copy of NSpace to see if there were any
details about the Alderson Force, and the answer is "no." The Langston Field
abosrds energy on approximately a fourth order relationship to the amount of
energy coming in, but that's not the Alderson drive. All is says is that the
Fifth Force is generated by thermonuclear reactions. If you want to work out
which stars are connected, I'd say you have to based it
on "how much thermonuclear activity is there in this star"--which
I guess you'd determine by mass and temperature? Nyrath or other astrometric
experts, this would be a good place to chime in.
NOTE: SPOILERS FOR GRIPPING HAND AND MOTE IN GOD'S EYE
Hi Chris,
Thanks for doing the extra looking. I'm not personally looking for it;
somebody came out of the blue and asked if I knew anything about it (he found
references to it in the GZG Archives, surprise, surprise.
(8-) )
Does any of the Pournelle/Niven books given any PSB on how or why
two stars would be connected through an Alderson point?
I remember in Gripping Hand how the nova or collapse (don't quite
remember that detail (8-) ) of a star caused a new point to appear
in the Motie system, for example. That implies change in gravity, which
implies Mass (which follows your reasoning of Mass though less of
temperature.) Can somebody who actually has the
books handy take a look and tell me if I'm out to lunch? (8-)
JGH
> Laserlight wrote:
> Hi Chris,
> Does any of the Pournelle/Niven books given any PSB on how or why
It was the collapse of the nebula into a star--once thermonuclear
reaction
started, a tram line formed. It's purely nuke, not mass--I was just
thinking the mass of the star would influence how much nuclear activity there
would be, thus how strong a tram line. It is stated that nuclear weapons
detonations can affect the Alderson point.
> At 12:08 AM 9/5/00 -0400, Jerry wrote:
Okay, from various points in The Gripping Hand:
Talking about the periodic jump point to New Utah, p.49: "When [the neutron
star] dips close to the major sun, solar wind and meteors rain down through
that godawful gravity field. It flares. The Jump points depend on
electromagnetic output. You get a Jump point link that lasts maybe two years."
(And must be hard as hell to find, since that output has to be
variable.... --Aaron)
Kevin's lecture on Alderson points to Merser on board Sinbad, p.114: "Ships
travel along Alderson tramlines. Tramlines form between stars, along lines of
equipotential flux....[I]t means they don't form between all pairs of stars.
Not all the tramlines are useful, because if the flux densities aren't high
enough, they won't carry anything big enough to have a drive aboard. "The Mote
sits out there with the Coal Sack on one side and the big red supergiant
Murcheson's Eye on the other. The Eye is big and bright. So bright that the
only useful tramline from the Mote is not only to the Eye, it terminates
inside the supergiant."
Kevin, on thermonuclear fluxes, during the emergency Commission meeting,
p.161: "[F]inding an Alderson point was one of the trickiest things we could
do. It's never easy, and it's impossible during heavy sunspot activity or
during a battle, because Alderson events are very responsive to thermonuclear
fluxes."
...and since I'm now past where they've jumped into the Mote, I think that's
about it. I may have missed a quote or two, but nothing major (I
think ^_^ ). Just to note, the page numbers are for the hardbound
edition. Interestingly enough, it's always Kevin doing the explaining.
Hope this helps....
> ...and since I'm now past where they've jumped into the Mote, I think
Kevin was the navigator, so it makes sense that he'd be doing the explaining.
In "He Fell Into a Dark Hole", Pournelle says that thermonuclear flux causes
the tramline, but you fall out of the continuum space back into normal space
due to gravity effects.
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They proved this to be the case by jumping from one star and not ending up
at their destination because there was a black hole in the way. No
thermonuclear activity but plenty of gravity. I don't recall how close they
were when they fell out--aside from "too close for comfort". In Mote,
it's specified that merchant ships to Sol usually don't get closer than
Neptune, which of course implies that the Alderson points are fairly far out.
> On Thu, Sep 07, 2000 at 01:05:08PM -0400, Chris DeBoe wrote:
They also said it's occasionally quicker to make multiple jumps through other
systems rather than maneuvering through realspace to get to another Alderson
Point. That reinforces the "they're way out there" point.