D977 Altimeters and gravimeters on UMMO.

-APPENDIX 1 -

 

You will surely be interested to know the principle of these altimeters, which are totally unknown to the engineers of Earth.

 

Indeed: The specialists in aeronautical engineering and the experts in Geophysics on your Planet have developed a wide range of instruments capable of determining the height at which an aircraft, a vehicle or any apparatus is located, taking as reference a conventional base or level: zero.

 

In some cases you use the so-called BAROMETRIC ALTIMETERS, whose differential measurements are based on the decrease of atmospheric pressure with height. For this purpose the instruments are fitted with different types of pressure transducers, from the classic corrugated-wall capsules with rarefied gas to the very modern SOLIONS, which not even many Spanish engineers know (Valves similar to vacuum Diodes, in which the vacuum has been replaced by an electrolyte), apart from other detectors of the capacitive type (Capacitor with a sensitive plate), Piezoelectric, mercury, variable reluctance, etc.

 

Any expert in the Physical Sciences may raise objections to this system of measuring heights when a certain degree of precision is desired.

 

That is why the Technicians of Earth have used other more effective procedures. Thus the so-called PULSE ALTIMETERS are based on the same technique as Radar. (Measuring the reflection or echo time of a series of electromagnetic pulses of centimetric or decimetric wavelength, after they strike the ground beneath the aircraft.

 

Or the FREQUENCY-MODULATED ALTIMETERS, which, after emitting a frequency-modulated carrier beam, have it reflected from the topography of the ground and returned to the aircraft's receiver, which measures the height as a function of the Frequency received at that instant. But any specialist in terrestrial electronics will raise serious objections to systems whose measurements may be falsified by certain topographical features or by the presence of radio interference. Nevertheless, the equipment designed by you has undeniable advantages, were it not for the impossibility of reducing the dimensions of those instruments, even using circuits miniaturised by the modern terrestrial technique of Molecular Electronics.

 

ALTIMETERS ON UMMO:

 

On UMMO we have always been inclined to use telemetry systems that evaluate height as a function of the value of “g” (Constant of the acceleration of Gravity).

 

As you know, the value of “g” is not really constant, since it varies as a function of the distance from the point where it is measured to the centre of the Planet considered, and in turn varies from one Star to another. Thus on the Planet UMMO its value at the “universal” reference level is 11.882 metres / second², While on the surface of Planet Earth it reaches some 9.8 m/sec² . A traveller rising in a rocket at constant speed will always observe a gradual reduction in the value of “g”, which he will experience as a loss of weight.

 

Our accelerometers or gravimeters, capable of measuring the value of “g” and therefore of level or height, are based on a technique totally unknown to the scientists of your Planet.

 

Our exploration of the technological field of Earth has monitored a series of instruments used almost always by Geophysics specialists under the name of gravimeters. Thus the classic PENDULUM Gravimeters, the SPRING BALANCE ones, the PRESSURISED GAS ones and the falling-body accelerometers. Almost all of them require conditions of stability that make them useless on board moving vehicles; otherwise errors of several gals would be caused (We use the c. g. s. unit of acceleration 1 GAL = 1 cm. /sec²) Apart from the fact that, with the exception of the geodetic gravimeters, whose reading range reaches (as with the WORDEN) (5000 milligals), the rest of the instruments are only capable of detecting small differences in the value of “g”.

 

DESCRIPTION OF THE UMMO ALTIMETER.

 

Many XEE ago (We call XEE a period of time equivalent to sixty XII or periods of rotation of the Planet (days lasting = 30.97 hours)) our technicians were obliged to design instruments capable of measuring height based on the gravitational function. The need to include such measuring instruments inside vehicles whose propulsion and control equipment was more compact with every xii required the simultaneous solution of two problems:

 

A) To reduce such instruments so that they would fit into a volume of the order of 0.6 thousandths of a cubic ENMOO (A few cubic millimetres).

 

B) To achieve precisions which, translated into terrestrial units, we could evaluate at a hundred-thousandth of a GAL.

 

We are going to describe to you one of these OXOEEOIADUU (GRAVITATIONAL FIELD METER), which, among other applications, is built into the UULUEWAA (Spheres of dimensions similar to a terrestrial walnut, capable of moving at any level, fitted with photo-phono-detector organs) The total volume of this instrument does not reach 29 cubic millimetres, and its design presents more problems of a topological kind than of any other. Almost all its elements have had to be integrated into a tiny crystal of Boron (Stable isotope of atomic weight = 11) Terrestrial specialists, although they are not at a sufficient technological level to tackle all the problems its construction would pose, may surely find inspiration for similar designs.

 

Let us look at a diagram of how it works:

 

The basic cell consists of a cylindrical enclosure () (capillary of 9 microns bore) drilled vertically in a miniaturised module of chemically pure, dehydrated crystallised BORON. The interior of the cylindrical capillary enclosure contains not a single molecule of gas, and its walls are kept strongly polarised with a negative electrostatic charge (See IMAGE three) In the upper zone, a thermostable spherical enclosure () contains an infinitesimal quantity of rarefied gas formed by ionised molecules of MERCURY THIOCYANATE (S C N)₂ Hg (with negative charges (-)) () A discriminating cell selects (() sequentially isolated molecules of THIOCYANATE, releasing them at the upper end of the capillary ().

 

Once released with zero kinetic energy, the molecule begins a process of free fall inside the capillary (Whose axis is kept vertical (Tangent to the lines of force of the gravitational Field).

 

The molecule never adheres to the walls of the capillary, owing to the strong repulsion that the electrostatic field generated by the distribution of negative charge exerts on the ionised molecule itself, also negatively charged (-).

 

In a nearby region (A spherical enclosure also hollowed out in the Boron crystal) a magnetic dipole (A “microscopic” elliptical plate made of an alloy of chromium and iron ) is made to rotate at a constant angular velocity of some 60 radians per second. The dipole is suspended () in a liquid mass that fills the cavity (diameter 0.74 mm. (lipid emulsion) A very weak rotating magnetic field is thus obtained, but sufficient to be detected by a bismuth transducer (() (Value of the field at () H = 0.00002 Oersted)

  

 

Highly symbolised diagram of an OXOEOIADUU gravimeter cell used by the Technicians of UMMO (the labels have been added following the text and the instructions of DEI 98 son of DEI 97.

 

When the ionised MERCURY THIOCYANATE molecule descends, it in turn generates a weak magnetic field, Hp, which disturbs the rotating Field generated by the dipole mentioned above. This disturbance is a function of the instantaneous velocity of the molecule under analysis at each point of its path, and in turn the instantaneous molecular velocity will depend on the value of “g” (Acceleration of Gravity) Such a disturbance is detected and evaluated even though its differential level is of the order of a trillionth of a millioersted.

 

A small XANMOO (You would call it a Computer) receives three channels of information ().

 

• Information by electrical means on the Magnetic Field detected.
• Information by optical means (Glass filament) on the speed of rotation of the dipole.
• Information by electrical means on the accelerations of the vehicle on which the OXOEEOIADUU is mounted.

 

This last information is very important for neutralising the errors due to other forces acting on the THIOCYANATE molecule , discriminating them from the GRAVITATIONAL one. The () integrating Computer supplies information on Height directly through channel ().