Hand in hand with science is science fiction. Star Trek is everywhere in our society so it is no surprise that I'm a huge fan. Star Trek uses science fiction to tell stories they could never tell in our century. They have eliminated a need for money in their 24th century society. One of the things that enables them to live without money is that they have engineered generators capable of producing prodigious amounts of energy. Enough energy for everyone.
This is the reactor in the heart of the Enterprise from Star Trek: The Next Generation. For you technophiles out there that's registry USS ENTERPRISE NCC-1701D.
How does it work?
I don't know. Its science fiction.
The principle is that powerful energy forcefields store both matter and antimatter in separate areas of the engine, then the two are carefully mixed inside the reaction chamber in a perfectly balanced 1:1 ratio. This is a molar ratio, the number of molecules of antimatter injected into the reaction chamber exactly equals the number of matter molecules. The masses and volumes of these two quantities could be very different, Star Trek never specifies what kind of matter or antimatter is used for fuel. The result is enormous amounts of energy. The energy released is defined by Einstein's energy equation: E=mc2. So, LOTS! The energy is harnessed by dilithium crystals. Is this crystals made of molecules of two lithium atoms covalently bonded together? I don't know. How is the energy harvested? I don't know.
Geordi reports that the engine runs above 99.9% efficiency and the tuning is done in the hundreds and thousands places of the decimal. With the amount of energy being so high a small change does represent a large quantity of energy. Modern automobiles run at around 20% efficiency. History's first real engine was the the Aeolipile built by Hero of Alexandria which operated at less than 1% efficiency.
