Forum:Tiberium

This is very important. According to Wikipedia: "... The significance of the heavy particles within Tiberium's crystal lattice is that they are the key to the matter transmutation process - Tiberium's most interesting property. Because of the high mass and energy of these particles, when Tiberium comes into contact with other matter, the particles at the boundaries of its lattice randomly collide with the nuclei of the target matter, smashing it to pieces (in the case of smaller nuclei), or incrementally knocking protons or neutrons off (in the case of heavier nuclei). Somehow, the Tiberium is able to capture a fraction of the protons and/or neutrons that are ejected during this collision process and incorporate them into its own structure, thus growing. Whenever a muon or tauon collides with an atomic nucleus, fission occurs, which results in the random production of alpha, beta and gamma radiation, as well as other forms of electromagnetic radiation (such as infrared). During the transmutation process, nuclei that Tiberium has come into contact with may be changed into nuclei with different (usually fewer) numbers of protons or neutrons. The result is a complete elemental transformation."-The C&C Science Bible (EALA)

As a Caltech Student, I know that this is absolutely crazy, for several reasons, which are listed below:

1. If atomic nucleii were smashed to pieces, that would imply that the protons and neutrons were freed completely. If this is done to elements of greater than iron atomic weight, it implies that an extreme amount of energy is released. If so, Tiberium is the most phenomenal energy containment device in existance. Who cares about plasma or rockets? Tiberium makes even nuclear weaponry look obselete. Only Tiberium could absorb Tiberium rounds. And one may forget about harvesting Tiberium, as the energies presumably released would destroy the refinery - and the base it is attached to.

2. The particles supposedly have high mass and energy, but whomever wrote this is thinking in the wrong terms. It is true that high energy particles might collide and bounce off the target nucleii, but nucleii are never smashed. What happens in a particle accelerator incident is that targets are bombarded with high energy particles, which causes radioactive decay.