General > Discussion
Real weapons-grade lasers on the horizon
romanovzky:
I'll aim my explanations of off topic stuff for the off topic thread (entanglement included if asked there).
About lasers, there are some real promising technological breakthroughs being developed, at many branches.
So I can't role out the possibility of mobile highly energetic lasers, but I'll be skeptic for now. Producing high amounts of energy requires big machines, and I don't know, for now, any real doable technology for a mobile usage by now. But things change very fast sometimes, and we must be aware of it's going on.
The main idea is, portable lasers of that energy scale need energy production for that scale. And the former is way very difficult.
odie:
--- Quote from: romanovzky on June 30, 2009, 04:05:13 pm ---I'll aim my explanations of off topic stuff for the off topic thread (entanglement included if asked there).
About lasers, there are some real promising technological breakthroughs being developed, at many branches.
So I can't role out the possibility of mobile highly energetic lasers, but I'll be skeptic for now. Producing high amounts of energy requires big machines, and I don't know, for now, any real doable technology for a mobile usage by now. But things change very fast sometimes, and we must be aware of it's going on.
The main idea is, portable lasers of that energy scale need energy production for that scale. And the former is way very difficult.
--- End quote ---
Ooooo, May i remind all of us that the ancient computer (bak in 1960s and 1970s) are so big it takes a couple of rooms to store?
And fast forward just <50 years, aint computers so small we can put into our pockets now? :D
A Few Good Mutons:
--- 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 ---
Nothing can produce more total energy than it consumes. Any apparent surplus is actually liberated potential energy.
Hertzila:
Which is why I asked that. And after reading the article again I understood that they are basically inventing the reactor power plant thingy we already have.
About the lasers, why have I always understood that it's not the energy consumption itself that is the problem with laser weapons (sure the batteries would be huge but we could make them) but the energy that comes out of the laser as wasted thermal energy. And it's the cooling system (and its size) that really prevents the use of laser weaponry.
shevegen:
I actually wonder if that is even feasible. Sometimes research is just impossible because current knowledge hardly allows to progress.
A laser sounds cool, but today as a real laser ray dealing damage from a mounted plane for example?
Sounds like distant future tech, seriously.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version