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Nu to Nz

Nuage, Nuagism

Tolerant pop-esotericist religion and memeticity-complex dating back to the atomic age of Old Earth, based on principles of love and fellowship with all beings, meditation, alignment with nature and cosmic forces, and uncritical spirituality

M.Alan Kazlev

Nuclear Damper

Also Nuclear reaction enhancer/inhibitor. Nuclear dampers are picotech devices - actually picomachines that infest a volume of nuclear matter or an ongoing nuclear reaction.

The picobots direct the motion of the subatomic particles within the matter, thereby either inhibiting the reaction or enhancing it to occur faster. At the extreme it is possible to prevent or snuff a fission or fusion reaction or trigger fission or fusion in any nuclear or even non-nuclear material. Picobots are used to raise the potential barrier of the contents, and preventing nuclear decay. Damper boxes are used to store collapsing rounds, allowing materials with short usable half-lives to be used as ammunition.

Although simple in basic function, the technology of constructing and operating the picobots is fiendishly difficult, and requires a hyperturing expert system. The main problem with nuclear dampers is the entropic cost of organizing such immense numbers of particles to behave in a more coherent manner. Usually masses of cold "sacrificial matter" are used that are transformed in the process to more entropic forms.

For this reason, Nuclear Dampers are expensive, and are only found in technologically advanced worlds, in military use, emergency services, or on long-distance spacecraft, engineering, and environmental clean up teams. In this latter use Damper picobots are perfectly suited to eliminate radioactive contamination from an area. The picobot swarm floods the contamination and forces the radioactive particles to shed radiation until they are inert.

Todd Drashner.

Nuclear Engineering

The application of mechanical engineering techniques to the design, construction, and operation of nuclear technology

Includes measuring radiation, using nuclear materials in industrial and medical applications, instruments, nuclear fuels, nuclear reactors, plasma theory, lasers, and magnetic containment technology, picotech applications and devices for particle manipulation, heat utilization and management, radiation shielding, nuclear physics, nuclear dampers, and particle and nuclear weapons and power plants. Also important are safety issues such as dealing with radioactive materials, knowledge of the effects of radiation on biont and vec health, and protocols for handling emergencies; ship design and fusion, fusion pulse, amat, and GUT-drive rocket exhaust and safe distance; and the environmental impact of radioactive contaminants.

nuclear fission

The process whereby the nucleus of an unstable (radioactive) heavy element spontaneously splits into two smaller nuclei, releasing energy and charged particles.

nuclear fusion

atomic reaction in which atomic nuclei combine together to make a larger nucleus.

The resultant nucleus is smaller in mass than the sum of the ones that made it; the difference in mass is converted into energy by the equation E=mc². Suns are powered by nuclear fusion, mostly converting hydrogen into helium. In this process, 4 hydrogen nuclei combine to form a single helium nucleus; about 0.3% of the original mass is converted into energy.

Nuclear fusion is an important power source on many worlds, especially newly developed ones, and in large military vehicles. Although sometimes used in interplanetary ships it is usually supplanted by amat (for ships). Some settled worlds is renewable energy sources like wind or solar energy in favour of nuclear fusion.

Nuclear Physics

The study of the physical processes at the scale of the atomic nucleus.

Concerns itself with the structure and behavior of the atomic nucleus according quantum mechanics and particle physics; with practical applications in the working of nuclear reactors, radioactive fission, and fusion burning in the interior of stars.

A power plant that uses controlled atomic fission or fusion to generate energy.

nuclear reaction

A self-perpetuating chain reaction involving the production of heavy nuclei from the fusion of lighter ones, or lighter nuclei from the fission of heavier ones.

nucleon

generic term for protons and neutrons, which make up the atomic nucleus.

nucleosynthesis

the production of new elements that occurs naturally in stars via nuclear reactions, and in supernova explosions. Nucleosynthesis is also an important part of picotechnology and alchemics

Nucleosynthetic_Era

The era following the Leptonic Era, between 1 second and 1,000 seconds after the Big Bang, in which light elements (helium and deuterium) are synthesized during the hot early phases of the hot big bang.

nucleus, atomic

The central part of an atom, made up of protons and neutrons, and containing nearly all of the atomic mass

nucleus, cellular

nucleus, comet

frozen core of a comet, in the comet head, and containing almost the entire cometary mass

nucleus, galactic

The central region of a galaxy; the galactic core.

Nuisweden

autonomous large demapoly near the outer part of the Inner Sphere, some Negentropist and Terran Federation affiliation. Site of alpine forests and the prestigious Sondheim Academy where Stig Ranes studied

Nuihab

Phoebus Sector, MPA system - was visited in 4815 by the Diogenes, the first MPA Museum Ship.

Nuke Tattoo

Patch absorbing hard radiation on the skin, used for providing person with energy for er own or enhancements. Fed by periodically attached device protecting the rest of the skin.

Usually in the form of coloured tattoo, and used by those, who later are denied services on the basis of Mutual Fraud Prevention Agreement between companies.

Jerzy Dyczkowski

Null Box, The

A grav nullifier clarketech artifact of unknown origin discovered on Zeta Corianis IV

A small object, about 2 cm on a side but massing at least 8 trillion kilograms (the density off neutronium) but stable outside the 100-billion g field of a neutron star core, and displaying no external pico- or femto-tech stabilizing. One would expect it to generate a huge gravity field, very close to a black hole singularity, but there is no evidence of this.

The Null Box It has three clarketech properties:

1) It is a solid not made of particles (at least, not as far as femtotech can tell, down to the planck minimum length).
2) It has a fraction of the gravitic field one would expect from such a dense material, and
3) It is stable - doesn't need the external gravitational field, can't cut it, chip it, pit it, chemically interact with it, etc.

The inertia of 8 to 10 trillion kilos of whatever-it-is is what makes it hard to move - that, and the fact that it tends to sink into most matter that's pushing against it.

Null Line

The path of a light ray or other massless object across space-time. Space-time distances measured along a null line are zero.

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