Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-34954086-20120922085545/@comment-34954086-20120923044901

Zergrinch wrote: My question centers on Zeta Beams

Wow was hoping for zeta since i'd actually been thinking about that a lot last night. In the comics, Adam Strange's zeta transportations basically projects him to Rann, the projection though only lasts for a certain amount of time before basically forcing him back to Earth. Clearly it doesnt work exactly like that in Earth 16 but i think the projection principle still applies. Basically it converts the body to energy in the form of Zeta particles (a few developments later the current Alpha, Beta and Gamma particles) projects it through space before reconstitution. Since the pattern alpha beta gamma ,the latter letters have greater penetration, one can assume Zeta are particularly penetrative.
 * 1) Zeta beams disassembles your molecules, shunt them through the zeta network to its destination, and reconstitutes it. Is the person entering the network the same person leaving it? If indeed disintegration is performed, one will argue that the original copy died, and an identical clone emerges at the destination, totally unaware that he is a clone. What do you think, from the viewpoint of physics
 * 2) The speed of light, c, is basically a universal constant. We have also seen that atmospheric disturbances such as the snowstorm interfere with the teleportation system. However, "zeta beams" are also able to traverse astronomical distances in mere seconds - much, much faster than light. How can this be?

1. The disintegration and death clone is kind of more a morality viewpoint, for a clone to have no awareness of clone itd have to be an exact replica down not only to dna but every aspect of biology, their electrical signals, synapse formation, which from Cadmus' advanced standard, we can assume that is near impossible. I'm more in the boat that "if it looks and quacks like a duck"

2: Well technically c is just a theory but to properly answer, This actually relies a little on relativity, velocity, c, is distance over time, time dilates however, giving the particles a much greater longevity. c is considerred the highest speed possible because of momentum, mass increasing causing speed to decrease for conservation of momentum to hold. Now the penetrative aspect would allow almost all frictional forces to be non existant which allows maximum energy to maintain in the particle. Now the way i believe the speed issue is overcome is really by cheating. See if they set up a Zeta Beam between to Tubes/Platforms, this near c stream would contract, meaning a shorter distance which velocity relies upon. then by sending along the beam, they would arrive at what to them (by time dilation is almost no time at all).

Now as for how snow storms would affect them, that'd more hardware related. The beams should pass right through the snow. My guess is relatively high temperatures are needed to obtain constant emission of the Zeta particles, the snow completely disrupts that.