Path: ccsf.homeunix.org!ccsf.homeunix.org!news1.wakwak.com!nf1.xephion.ne.jp!onion.ish.org!onodera-news!newsfeed.media.kyoto-u.ac.jp!headwall.stanford.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!postnews1.google.com!not-for-mail From: phobos2@hotmail.com (phobos) Newsgroups: japan.anime.evangelion Subject: Re: Possiblity of Eva Date: 17 Jan 2003 17:30:43 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Lines: 61 Message-ID: References: <9YSdnbjOLZxyMpajXTWcoQ@comcast.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 81.77.11.142 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 1042853444 8763 127.0.0.1 (18 Jan 2003 01:30:44 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 18 Jan 2003 01:30:44 GMT Xref: ccsf.homeunix.org japan.anime.evangelion:3610 "I Hate Spam" wrote in message news:<9YSdnbjOLZxyMpajXTWcoQ@comcast.com>... > "DigitalX" wrote in message > news:k8NO9.172300$Qr.4289706@news3.calgary.shaw.ca... > > is it theoreticly possible to create an Evangelion? > > What aspect? I suppose we could build a giant robot today using Segway > type stabilization technology. As for the A-10 link, maybe another 20 years > if ethicists even allowed such a thing to be built. We'll probably have direct mind links long before we can build giant robots. As I see it, the problem with building an Eva is really one of weight. Taking a humanoid form and scaling it up to skyscraper size just doesn't work - the volume, and hence the weight, goes as the cube of the scaling factor, while the cross-sectional area of the legs, and hence the weight it can support, goes as the square. So if I propose a giant human who is twice our size in all three dimensions, he'll have eight times the weight and only four times the leg thickness. Such men have existed, but Robert Wadlow (the tallest giant on record outside legend) was plagued all his life by trouble with his legs and feet, and I don't think he was even twice the height of an average man. OK, we could still build it with current materials. Steel, aluminium, carbon derivatives... But don't go expecting it to move or anything. When you take a step you're putting yourself on _one_ leg, doubling the stress. Also, you cause stresses throughout your body, as various parts of you are accelerated. The spine is flexible and S-shaped simply to act as a shock absorber - else the jolts inflicted simply by walking would run straight up to the skull and start harming the brain. Eva will shake itself apart unless its component parts are sufficiently flexible - but AFAIK the only materials that meet the criteria for supporting the weight tend to be rather stiff. A man the size of a skyscraper needs bones of steel and muscles of concrete. Not to mention the fact that getting an Eva to walk would require enormous power, both in the energy supply and in the motors operating the joints. Both can be had, but the kind of motor setup you'll need to have at Eva's knee and thigh will be large and bulky, and I thought we'd just filled that area with solid concrete just to keep the thing from collapsing. This is where it helps to be human-sized - meat muscles can provide all the power necessary to propel such a small animal, and the pressure on the legs isn't so very great that anything stronger than muscle around a column of bone is needed. We won't be building Evas until we have some much, MUCH lighter and stronger materials. Perhaps the ultimate carbon derivatives - diamond and buckytubes - would be helpful in this project, but until then Eva is quite beyond our engineering ability. Even with such materials, it would be a waste of effort from any serious military perspective. Without an AT field available, Eva is a tremendously expensive and extremely large target, moving slowly compared to (e.g) a jet fighter carrying guided missiles. I'd be inclined to target the legs: kneecap Eva with depleted uranium! The budget would be far better spent on old-fashioned tanks, planes and ships (and probably spacecraft - with Eva materials, spaceflight will be cheap and easy, and hence strategically important.) This assumes of course that no angels turn up at any point and need kicking. All these structural issues didn't pose a problem for NERV, though. They didn't build the Evas, they just plated them and wired into their brains. Has anyone got a captive angel handy we can begin experimenting on?