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Author Topic: Real weapons-grade lasers on the horizon  (Read 14748 times)

Offline vedrit

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Real weapons-grade lasers on the horizon
« on: May 31, 2009, 05:39:05 am »
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090530/ts_alt_afp/usitresearchmilitarylaser_20090530082418

I just saw this on Yahoo, and being the geek I am, had to look into it.

this is what I had to say:

Oh. My. FRICKEN. Heck.

Offline Destructavator

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Re: Real weapons-grade lasers on the horizon
« Reply #1 on: May 31, 2009, 05:51:01 am »
Yeah, I saw that today too.  I was actually going to mention it in a post myself, but you beat me to it.   ;)

...Burns hot as a star, but the device is as big as a house (for now).

It's just like a company that is trying to eventually build a real, actual light-saber (like in Star Wars) that can really cut things as depicted in the movies.  It's actually plasma - not a laser - in that contraption though, and right now it is as big as a house as well - long ways to go before it fits in a portable handle.
« Last Edit: May 31, 2009, 05:53:48 am by Destructavator »

ChunLing

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Re: Real weapons-grade lasers on the horizon
« Reply #2 on: May 31, 2009, 06:04:02 am »
Now all you have to do is to lure the aliens into the center of a giant array of lasers.  Heck, you won't even need the DT pellet, aliens got radioactive blood or something, right?  Or is that just Spiderman?

They need to be more precise about terminology, I think.  The goal isn't to produce more energy than went in, but to recover more usable energy than you put in.  The NIF is actually not the best set-up for that.  Because it's pulsed at high energy rather than steady state, the heat energy ends up being difficult to collect and concentrate so as to run a turbine or whatever.  But whatever, if you can get return energy out of DD/DT fusion, efficiency isn't that big a deal.

I'm actually kinda surprised, though.  I thought they had this thing running years ago.

Those plasma cutters aren't as big as my house, and I don't live in a mansion (not a hut, either, but it's not a big house).  Or are you talking about something else?

Offline vedrit

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Re: Real weapons-grade lasers on the horizon
« Reply #3 on: May 31, 2009, 06:26:23 am »
To my understanding, this thing isnt using plasma. It may turn things INTO plasma, but, what was it, 137 laser beams, focused into 1?
Perhaps, in game, it could be a base defense. Powers the base AND shoots down UFOs.

And light-sabers are, as far as our understanding of physics goes, impossible. Light in that intensity doesnt simply stop, neither does plasma, not without there being something there to stop it.

As for size, that can be fixed by researching different stages of miniturization, or something. Who knows? Maybe not hand-held NIFs, but maybe ship-mounted

Offline Destructavator

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Re: Real weapons-grade lasers on the horizon
« Reply #4 on: May 31, 2009, 07:18:57 am »
Sorry, I was talking about two different things, one after the other, and didn't make that clear - First I was commenting on the laser, then I mentioned and compared the laser to a different subject, a real company that has a giant house-sized machine that generates a steady (not a pulse) plasma blade the length and approximate size of a light-saber blade as depicted in the Star Wars movies.  My final comment was that the second device - not the laser from Vedrit's initial post - doesn't fit into a portable handle but is as big as a house, and yes it really has been built and does exist except as I said it's as big as a house (not portable).

The two contraptions - the military laser and the plasma blade "light-saber" - are not built by the same organization, the first is from the government and the second from a private company.

ChunLing

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Re: Real weapons-grade lasers on the horizon
« Reply #5 on: May 31, 2009, 08:32:23 am »
What do they use it for?  Or is it really just a "prototype light-saber"?

Offline Destructavator

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Re: Real weapons-grade lasers on the horizon
« Reply #6 on: May 31, 2009, 08:35:15 am »
What do they use it for?  Or is it really just a "prototype light-saber"?

As far as I know the company wants to eventually one day compact it into a portable handle to make something like a light-saber, I don't know all the details and I don't have a link, sorry.

odie

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Re: Real weapons-grade lasers on the horizon
« Reply #7 on: June 01, 2009, 09:48:59 am »
Hehhee.....

In case those of us who have no idea how to visualize the 'device'.... its here:
https://lasers.llnl.gov/programs/nif/about.php

And yes, its UBER big, and is more like multiple lasers combined into a single beam. :D

Offline Darkpriest667

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Re: Real weapons-grade lasers on the horizon
« Reply #8 on: June 18, 2009, 08:04:17 pm »
and rail guns are a lot more effective and cheaper folks... DOD has been working on weaponized lasers for 25 years and hasnt really moved up any stages... .... the key is weaponizing it for personal or even light vehicle use... And folks... that is a long way off... the power requirements are ridiculous and well.... We couldnt exactly get many volunteers to carry a mini nuclear power plant on their back...

Offline vedrit

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Re: Real weapons-grade lasers on the horizon
« Reply #9 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.

odie

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Re: Real weapons-grade lasers on the horizon
« Reply #10 on: June 23, 2009, 07:20:21 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.

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

Offline Hertzila

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Re: Real weapons-grade lasers on the horizon
« Reply #11 on: June 24, 2009, 01:02:44 am »
But a laser than can produce more energy than it uses.
Isn't that impossible? Or do I understand it the wrong way?

Offline vedrit

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Re: Real weapons-grade lasers on the horizon
« Reply #12 on: June 24, 2009, 03:22:16 am »
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

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Re: Real weapons-grade lasers on the horizon
« Reply #13 on: June 24, 2009, 06:55:41 am »
Isn't that impossible? Or do I understand it the wrong way?

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

Offline romanovzky

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Re: Real weapons-grade lasers on the horizon
« Reply #14 on: June 28, 2009, 11:53:51 pm »
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.