General > Discussion
Real weapons-grade lasers on the horizon
odie:
--- Quote from: vedrit on June 23, 2009, 06:21:39 am ---Heh. Why do you think we arent saying "Real weapons-grade rail guns"? lol
I think the biggest thing between us and weaponizing rail guns is miniturization. We dont have small enough motors that can create rail-gun speeds for light-vehicles or personel, or batteries small enough to hold enough of a charge for even a few shots. But a laser than can produce more energy than it uses. Thats much more likely to be used in 2084, based off of human development rather than adapting alien tech.
--- End quote ---
Nods nods. Yupz. Rmbr, its almost 80 years later. The last 80 years, we cannot even imagine cell phones and GPRS like its used today. In future, u never know if 500hp motors come in sizes fitting in ur palms. :D
Hertzila:
--- Quote from: vedrit on June 23, 2009, 06:21:39 am ---But a laser than can produce more energy than it uses.
--- End quote ---
Isn't that impossible? Or do I understand it the wrong way?
vedrit:
I dont know of any law that states that. I do, however, know a law that supports it. The Law of energy conservation, which states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed.
Let me explain how I understand electric circuits to work. In my example, we will use a battery. The battery creates in inbalance of electrons, which are a form of energy. The positive end (Which is actually negatively charged) has been packed with extra electrons, whereas the negative end (Which is positively charged) has a deficeit of electrons. By putting the battery in the circuit, you allow a path for electrons to travel to balance out the ends.
In things like nuclear powerplants, during the splitting of the atoms, the electrons fly off, and are captured, by means I dont know of, and provides the charge. The heat, which is also another form of energy, Im sure is collected and used to boil water to push turbines.
Long story short, yes, it is possible to generate a stronger current than what is being used to create it
odie:
--- Quote from: Hertzila on June 24, 2009, 01:02:44 am ---Isn't that impossible? Or do I understand it the wrong way?
--- End quote ---
Yes, it is possible.
There is something called energy amplification. You can read the really simplified and layman of this on Here.
Energy is not possible to be created or destroy, but u can convert and converge energy by introducing a process which gather unfocused energy, causing a greater output than input.
Yupz. If anyone wanna take this discussion further, i have more links. :D
romanovzky:
The concepts are not wrong, but the explanation is quite simple.
Nuclear atoms are made of particles, called the protons and neutrons, which of each are connected to one another by an interaction: strong nuclear force.
Physics trivia: There are 4 known and fundamental interactions in nature: gravity, electromagnetic, strong nuclear and electro weak (or nuclear weak). At human scale we have only the empiric knowledge of electromagnetic (keeps electrons around the nuclei, keeps molecules near each other, etc) and the gravitical (keeps us with our feet on the ground); the other 2 interact only on quantum level.
When one manage to put protons and neutrons together, they will glue to each other forming a nuclei. The energy of that binding is enormous (that's way it's called strong nuclear interaction).
Now, there are to processes for us to retrieve energy from nuclear processes: for elements lighter than Iron (Fe) when you glue protons and neutrons it's released energy, since the overall binding energy (per neutron/proton) increases; on the other hand, for elements heavier than Iron (Fe) you most HAD energy to bind extra protons and/or neutrons so you can't extract energy since the energy binding decreases, BUT if you break a heavy nuclei apart you will retrieve energy from the binding energy difference.
The first process is called nuclear fusion, it's the process in which the stars do their energy and it has been impossible to reproduce on earth in a controlled manner with a good output (energy gain >1), but it might happen at http://www.iter.org/.
The second process is called nuclear fission, and it's the normal nuclear processes which we already use at nuclear power plants and stuff (like bombs, although the H-Bomb is a fusion bomb, never released yet...).
The heavy elements appear in nature due to supernova, i.e., the stars don't produce heavier elements since it is not energetically positive, but when a star collapses there is an huge amount of energy that get's all the star's material at high energies and pressures and the heavier elements appear.
The article quoted in this thread talks about the hypotheses of doing nuclear fusion at "cold" temperatures through laser pressure (ITER that I've linked will try to do "hot" fusion), but cold fusion is already being considered not doable for energy production by scientists and that's not a really option right now.
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