death ray

Mon Aug 31, 2009 7:14 pm   

Is it possible to construct a hand held weapon
like those Star Trek toys?

We know that lasers can cut flesh, as surgical tools,
could you get enough intensity for something killer?
(with calibrations; tickle, stun, fibrillate, vaporize)

--
Rich

Mon Aug 31, 2009 7:14 pm   

In article
<2b2e93bf-4849-49fd-b9cf-3f8952e37887_at_u16g2000pru.googlegroups.com>,
RichD <r_delaney2001_at_yahoo.com> wrote:


Sure.

Oh, you mean one that works? No.

You could probably put somebody's eye out.

--
Uncle Jack: "Will, you're invisible!"
Will: "Invisible? I can't be! I can touch myself!"
--actual dialog from third season LAND OF THE LOST

Mon Aug 31, 2009 7:14 pm   

"Anim8rFSK" <ANIM8Rfsk_at_cox.net> wrote in message
news:ANIM8Rfsk-38D40E.10451331082009_at_news.dc1.easynews.com...

You don't need a death ray for that. Red Ryder BB guns have been doing that
for generations.....

Mon Aug 31, 2009 7:14 pm   

"RichD" <r_delaney2001_at_yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:2b2e93bf-4849-49fd-b9cf-3f8952e37887_at_u16g2000pru.googlegroups.com...

There is certainly a lot of energy in a shotgun shell or even
a book of matches or a single match, all of which produce
light. What you need is a way to harness that into a laser.
Do that and even a single shot from a match's worth of
energy would be calibrated to "burn", which you'd get
from a match in the ordinary way.
Defocusing the beam would bring it down to sting and tickle.
Even a magnifying glass can focus the sun's rays to damage
the skin.
Given that hydrogen fuel cells are now used to power electric
cars, conversion of chemical energy to light isn't totally
out-of-sight sci-fi.
With hydrogen fuel to produce electricity and electricity
to power a laser (as we already do with laser diodes), the
Flash Gordon hand-held raygun is a definite possibility.

Mon Aug 31, 2009 8:26 pm   

On Aug 31, 1:14 pm, RichD <r_delaney2...@yahoo.com> wrote:

Well, it depends what you're vaposing. They vaporise
electronic ciricuits so well that's why people work on optical
computers,
Pv Cell Energy, Advanced Fiber Optics Systems, Cyber Batteries,
Electronic Books,
Laser Disk Libraries, Distributed Processing Software, Desktop
Publishing, Atomic Clock Wristwatches,
Light Sticks, Holograms, Digital Terrain Mapping, GPS ,and a Variety
of other technologies.

Mon Aug 31, 2009 8:31 pm   

"RichD" <r_delaney2001_at_yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:2b2e93bf-4849-49fd-b9cf-3f8952e37887_at_u16g2000pru.googlegroups.com...

a laser shoots out focused light, which at most could be used for cutting
things and/or blowing holes in things...

however, these other weapons typically killed people while producing very
little physical damage (a burn, or a dark spot on someones' clothes...).


and, as for stun:
a laser will not "stun" someone (as in ST), and if made weaker, it could
burn, but this would be more of an "oh holy crap it burns" experience,
rather than knocking them unconscious with little other damage...


so, maybe better for this effect would be a non-laser technology.

one possibility:
highly charged ions.

these would glow, and could be directed forwards with a magnetic field;
they could also "stun" in the sense of having an electric charge, but would
probably burn a lot more than they zap.


or, another technology, actually involving lasers:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolaser

Mon Aug 31, 2009 9:07 pm   

RichD wrote:

Star Trek toys, light sabers... quick set epoxy super soakers. That
last one could change the world re urban warfare and flame throwers.
Humane, effective, persistent. Nice for prison work.


It is no great extension for a laser rangefinder to pop eyes or a
microwave phased array antenna to fry a soldier. Energy is energy.
Somewhere nearby there must be an 18-wheeler or jet engine powering
the generator.

--
Uncle Al
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/
(Toxic URL! Unsafe for children and most mammals)
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/lajos.htm#a2

Mon Aug 31, 2009 9:10 pm   

Androcles wrote:


A hamburger is substantially more energetic /_\H(combustion) than
TNT. So? Do you see Homeland Severity confiscating Carl's Six Dollar
Burgers? Tubs of Crisco?

idiot


--
Uncle Al
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/
(Toxic URL! Unsafe for children and most mammals)
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/lajos.htm#a2

Mon Aug 31, 2009 9:50 pm   

RichD wrote:

I suspect that if you wish to vaporize something completely in less than
a second, you'll need at least an X-ray or a Gamma ray laser. An optical
laser wouldn't be powerful enough. An UV laser might kill by giving you
cancer, but it won't vaporize you completely.

As for getting a laser into something small and light enough to hold in
the hand, you'll need a small light power source. I think the best bet
for such a power source is the nuclear isomer battery. It's just
slightly behind nuclear fusion or fission in terms of power density per
kilogram, but much safer to hold in your hands. :-)

The nuclear isomer battery works by finding a stable, non-ground-state
for an element (such as hafnium). The hafnium stays extremely stable at
this state until it is irradiated with an x-ray. The x-ray then triggers
the hafnium to drop down to its ground-state and in the process it
releases a gamma ray. So you put an x-ray in, but get a gamma ray out,
so you're getting more energy back. You could even possibly use the
released gamma rays to make your gamma-ray laser directly, if you can
find a material that can act as a gamma ray mirror to bounce the gamma
rays around until they become coherent.

Yousuf Khan

Mon Aug 31, 2009 10:07 pm   

Yousuf Khan wrote:

Last time I heard this much bullshit, I was in a church. And that was a
*long* time ago.


Martin

Mon Aug 31, 2009 11:33 pm   

In article <4A9C3C32.33912472_at_hate.spam.net>,
Uncle Al <UncleAl0_at_hate.spam.net> wrote:


How about potato chips? They burn nicely and have been killing people
for years. Great for arsonists. I have not tried smuggling them onto
airliners, but I think I could.

Bill

--
Private Profit; Public Poop! Avoid collateral windfall!

Tue Sep 01, 2009 1:20 am   

On Aug 31, 1:14 pm, RichD <r_delaney2...@yahoo.com> wrote:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PHaSR
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolaser

Tom Davidson
Richmond, VA

Tue Sep 01, 2009 2:34 am   

Salmon Egg wrote:

The finest case of arson of which I know involve dousing the target
with... liquid oxygen. Let the cops detect something amiss afterwar!
OTOH, don't get hammered and talk about it.

--
Uncle Al
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/
(Toxic URL! Unsafe for children and most mammals)
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/lajos.htm#a2

Tue Sep 01, 2009 4:09 am   

On Aug 31, 1:14 pm, RichD <r_delaney2...@yahoo.com> wrote:

Hey Rich, why are you acting so dumb? This is a physics group so do
some physics!
Look at it this way: How much energy would it take to do the things
you suggest at a reasonable distance?

It should be obvious that "tickle" is pretty easy. One of those kid's
"vortex ring guns" can do that! No energy source at all but hand or
spring power! "stun" or "harm" takes more. On the net a guy built a
vortex "cannon" that used a liquid/vapor fuel like a potato gun (which
also can "stun"). He used it on "houses" made of straw, sticks, and
bricks just like the three little pigs. Yeah, it blew the first two
down! If you want more harm, them maybe a chemical laser could get
enough energy in a portable "gun" [probably rifle sized] to blind
people. However we now step into the "fiction" side.

Do this quick calculation and answer your own question.
1. What is the volume of the average human body?
2. assume for the purposes of this study that bodies are made up 100%
of water.
3. Calculate how much energy it takes to vaporize (boil) that much
water.

4. About now you should be seeing that even with chemical energy
(which is pretty concentrated) it's going to take a LOT of fuel to
vaporize a person at a distance, even if the energy is transmitted
with no losses, with some small hand-held "phazer" and that fuel
doesn't have a chance of fitting in the weapon unless cold fusion or
"free energy" can actually be made to work.

Now that little bit of thinking wasn't so painful, was it?

Tue Sep 01, 2009 4:42 am   

Fleetie wrote:

There was a bit of a discussion about nuclear isomer energy storage a
few months back.

http://groups.google.com/group/sci.physics/browse_frm/thread/33d3c92eaa915e99/5536af8af12e61cf?q=nuclear+isomer#5536af8af12e61cf

There's enough links in there to get you started. Here's another one
down below, where the comments are just as interesting as the main article.

Russia’s Isomer Bomb, Funded by Your Taxes | Danger Room | Wired.com
"Nuclear isomers of the hafnium variety have an excited state of roughly
2 MeV above the ground state of hafnium nuclei. Going from the second
isomeric energy level down to the ground state can occur in a manner
that releases energy in the form of gamma rays with the same energy.
Since all of the energy is released in the form of gamma rays, so-called
gamma ray bombs could be developed with wide spread and lethal effects.

One kilogram of hafnium nuclear isomer at its second excited energy
level has a potential yield of about 0.3 Kilotons. One metric ton of
hafnium nuclear isomer has a potential yield of 300 kilotons, and
obviously, a 33 metric ton nuclear isomer bomb could have a yield of a
metropolitan area busting 10 megatons and so nuclear isomer weapons
could perhaps be essentially as powerful as modern thermonuclear
weapons, a somewhat scary though given that the huge release of gamma
ray energy could be quite destructive even for a nuclear hand grenade
size isomer weapon."
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2008/08/the-red-isomer/

Yousuf Khan