On 15 Feb 2016 at 18:06, Greg Nokes wrote:

> Ok, here's my take on it. 
>
> Early Jump Drives need a gas bubble to inflate the portion of space
> time. These are refined more and more allowing for longer jumps -
> transiting "deeper" jump spaces with stranger physics. 

actually one of the reasons for suggesting the hydrogen jump bubble
(and wanting refined fuel) went like this. I was one of the folks
involved in that bit of ancient history.

It's known that the laws of physics are different in J-space. It's
also know that anything that gets too far from the ship while in jump
("crosses the edge of the bubble") disappears in a burst of nasty
radiation.

same goes for when a damaged jump grids lets J-space intrude into
part of the ship.

Well, it only takes a *small* change in one of the universal
constants (I think it's the fine structure constant) to make neutrons
impossible as well as atomic nuclei.

So if that's one of the changes between N-space and J-space, then
normal matter (including deuterium and tritium) crossing the edge of
the bubble would have *all* their neutrons undergo inverse beta
decay, relasing a positron and a neutrino.

As the positrons react with electrons, that'll give a lot of gamma
radiation and the energy release from all those protons repelling
each other will be significant as well.

So, using "refined" hydrogen (ie only H1, aka "protium") for
"padding" in the jump bubble means there won't be any nasty radiation
(and other problems that might affect the jump bubble) as it
inevitably leaks acvross the bubble boundary.

Obviously, since ships *do* survive unrefined fuel, and having people
of parts/tools drift across the boundary, the rweaction postulated
abpove isn't instantaneous, but takes a bit of time and (likely) much
of it takes place on the other side of the boundary.

Still, it provides a reasonably plausible logic, as well as giving
the ref some nice "local color" for describing what hapens if
something tangles with the boundary of the jump bubble.

--
Leonard Erickson (aka shadow)
shadow at shadowgard dot com