03-07-2023, 01:26 PM
(03-07-2023, 01:03 PM)ExabyteMiner256 Wrote: Wait a minute.
You said: WH radius = 1 km
And: If ship length > WH radius, then ship breaks
And: If ship length > 2 km, then ship breaks
Thing is, if it's assumed that the "WH radius" and "2 km" in the second and third lines are the same, then you get
1 km = 2 km
which is obviously false. Did you perhaps mean to say "diameter" somewhere in your post?
I didn't write as artfully as I should have and it would likely have been clearer if I had said diameter in at least one spot. To clarify:
For stylistic reason we generally speak in terms of a wormhole's radius - an 1800m WH means the Throat has a radius of 1800 meters.
If the radius of the wormhole Throat is 1km, then a ship passing thru it can be 2km long since the diameter of the Throat would be 2km.
However, if the ship were at the center of the Throat, then the zone of max tidal forces would be 1km from that center - and if any part of the ship extended more than 1km from that center (meaning if the ship were more than 2km long or had cables or other extensions extending from it's center point more than 1km from it), that portion would experience extreme tidal forces and be torn apart.
(03-07-2023, 01:03 PM)ExabyteMiner256 Wrote:
Also, I gather that a big loose collection of ships all piled loosely together would be OK, even if the pile exceeded the size limit for a normal rigid ship (as long as the individual subunits didn't. Am I correct in assuming this?
It depends on what you mean by a 'loose pile'. If you spaced individual craft out in a line entering the wormhole, then each would experience the folding effect individually. If you literally had them all in a clump then the clump would likely experience the transition as a single object and be subject to the same size limits as a single ship. I suspect that there is some minimum distance that ships would have to maintain between each other to be sure to experience the transition as an individual vessel. Perhaps a distance equal to or greater than the minimum size of the Throat itself.
A weirder effect is that (IIRC) two ships entering a wormhole mouth from opposite sides (from the 'top' and 'bottom' say) can transit through it and exit out the other mouth (out of the opposite sides) without ever actually encountering each other.
Hope this helps,
Todd
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