- #1
Pennarin
- 11
- 0
First post, guys :) Hello all. My only degree is in Earth Sciences, and my physics and astronomy knowledge base is mostly from the pages of Scientific American...and since I'm like a first grader when math time comes...I haven't been able to expand that base by understanding the various expressions and formulas myself.
...that said, these questions are aimed at writing a science-fiction story, so please be light on the proof and heavy on the explaining part ;)
And I hope I'm in the right sub-forum!
Q1: Could you structure the semi-free quarks of the quark-gluon plasma into, for lack of a better word, a solid material (i.e. like a crystalline material)? Here I'm thinking there could be a parallel with how I imagine neutrons stack inside a neutron star. Is there a structure to neutron stacking? Would the quark-gluon plasma be limited to being just that, a plasma-like state? Do materials like neutron matter (is it still called neutronium?) have tensile strengths? Were they - incredibly - shaped into useful forms, like butresses, could they support weight? Resist torsion and pull?
Q2: If the inside of a particularly massive neutron star was dense quark matter, would the only thing preventing the total conversion of the star's mass into quark matter be the fact the pressure on the star material dimishes with the distance from its center? (This is probably quite dumb as questions go. I imagine the answer is a resounding yes.)
...that said, these questions are aimed at writing a science-fiction story, so please be light on the proof and heavy on the explaining part ;)
And I hope I'm in the right sub-forum!
Q1: Could you structure the semi-free quarks of the quark-gluon plasma into, for lack of a better word, a solid material (i.e. like a crystalline material)? Here I'm thinking there could be a parallel with how I imagine neutrons stack inside a neutron star. Is there a structure to neutron stacking? Would the quark-gluon plasma be limited to being just that, a plasma-like state? Do materials like neutron matter (is it still called neutronium?) have tensile strengths? Were they - incredibly - shaped into useful forms, like butresses, could they support weight? Resist torsion and pull?
Q2: If the inside of a particularly massive neutron star was dense quark matter, would the only thing preventing the total conversion of the star's mass into quark matter be the fact the pressure on the star material dimishes with the distance from its center? (This is probably quite dumb as questions go. I imagine the answer is a resounding yes.)