Fraser speaks;
electronic waves depart;
a radio transmitter detects them;
the transmitter relays the waves on a beam aimed at a relay satellite in equilateral orbit around Jupiter;
the satellite recodes the waves into pulses;
the pulses become instructions to a specialized accelerator;
bombarded nuclei fluorescing with gamma rays strike isotropically pure crystals bathed in liquid helium;
each atom is oriented by electric and magnetic fields;
surging energized nuclei emit a neutrino burst;
the cone of the burst expands towards Jupiter at just under light speed;
it arrives wider than the equator;
but some neutrinos reach the Jovian surface;
a few of them enter a crystal;
the crystal's nuclei reverse the process that had emitted the beam;
the nuclei, isotopes excited to a high pitch by a radionuclide, jump back to a lower energy state, emitting quanta;
quanta bursts correspond to the pulse code of the beam;
a solid-state device, powered by the built-in radioactivity, amplifies the signal and maps it onto an alternating potential;
a piezoelecrtic sheet vibrates;
Theor hears Fraser.
5 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
This certainly seems complex, how humans might communicate with non human Jovians. But I trust the scientific knowledge and expertise of Anderson, so I'm sure this is at least technically possible. And THREE WORLDS TO CONQUER is the kind of hard SF I like!
Sean
Sean,
I published that post in haste and have now gone back to add a few details and links.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Understood! Sean
Kaor, Sean!
At least theoretically possible. Neutrinos can penetrate just about anything, so some of them should reach their target, but then their rate of interaction with the nuclei of the target crystal would be low as well. At best, the bandwidth of such a communicator would be very low, or so I should think. It's sound physics for hard sf, but the engineering looks like a challenge, to say the least.
Best Regards,
Nicholas D. Rosen
Kaor, Nicholas!
Good! Sound physics and theory. As for the engineering, we should expect and hope it would have ADVANCED enough to be practical in the EXTREME Jovian environment. I'm glad you are so knowledgeable on the science involved.
Regards! Sean
Post a Comment