UFO:Alien Invasion
General => Discussion => Topic started by: vedrit on May 31, 2009, 05:39:05 am
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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
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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.
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What do they use it for? Or is it really just a "prototype light-saber"?
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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.
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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
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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...
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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.
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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
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But a laser than can produce more energy than it uses.
Isn't that impossible? Or do I understand it the wrong way?
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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
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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 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_amplifier).
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
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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/ (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.
(http://web.mit.edu/jinseok/www/notes/notes_20031217/notes_20031217.files/image002.jpg)
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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I'm not a science major, to be honest a good deal of what you've said is way over my head, but regarding your last point:
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.
...The game takes place 80 some years in the future, do you think much of this will change by then?
BTW, I think its great you're joining us in these discussions, as the game aims more for "hard" science-fiction (more realistic) and tries to avoid the "soft" (fantasy-ish) type of sci-fi.
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I'm not a science major, to be honest a good deal of what you've said is way over my head, but regarding your last point:
...The game takes place 80 some years in the future, do you think much of this will change by then?
BTW, I think its great you're joining us in these discussions, as the game aims more for "hard" science-fiction (more realistic) and tries to avoid the "soft" (fantasy-ish) type of sci-fi.
Actually Destructavator,
Going by how Nuclear bombs x2 were used on japan in WW2, to today's use of nuclear fission (safer too), that took us a solid 50 60 years.
If we were to consider exponentially going into a particular field such as tachyon / laser, we might be able to reach its commercial usage in say 30-40 years (considering we have MUCH faster computers and better research abilities).
Hence, to compound that by another 40 years (80 years from now), i thnk its possible to achieve laser grade weapons in the size of your norm DF cartridges, possibly even furthering it in just a couple of wks (out of desperation and world-wide focus of resources on just that development).
How plausible does that sound to us? If so, we have already established our 'reasoning and logic' for going the 'laser WAY". :D
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Nuclear fusion might be a reality at ITER. It will be the first commercial scale reactor in operation (still with experimental purposes but with the aim of doing it commercially doable). But ITER will only be operational at 2018 (big machine, cutting edge technology, all new...) so we will be waiting a little to see how it comes out.
With this it's evident that if for us it is a near future reality, for ultra high tech aliens it most be a reality.
About the cold fusion, there are some theoretical problems that nobody could prove wrong (and there's not enough experimental data to prove wrong) that sustain the impossibility for chain reactions at cold fusion. Without a chain reaction fusion you can't produce energy, if this theoretical conclusion is in fact true then you can't produce energy by cold fusion, and this is valid here, mars, moon, other galaxies, etc (physics' laws are universal).
About the laser weapons, off course we can always believe that technology will involve in some way to miniaturize the size of machines (such as the apparatus used at that laser experience) but much of the times size is power and energy, and highly energetic lasers require high energetic apparatus.
I'm not ruling out the possibility of mobile laser technology, just point out the difficulties of such technology.
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Nuclear fusion might be a reality at ITER. It will be the first commercial scale reactor in operation (still with experimental purposes but with the aim of doing it commercially doable). But ITER will only be operational at 2018 (big machine, cutting edge technology, all new...) so we will be waiting a little to see how it comes out.
With this it's evident that if for us it is a near future reality, for ultra high tech aliens it most be a reality.
About the cold fusion, there are some theoretical problems that nobody could prove wrong (and there's not enough experimental data to prove wrong) that sustain the impossibility for chain reactions at cold fusion. Without a chain reaction fusion you can't produce energy, if this theoretical conclusion is in fact true then you can't produce energy by cold fusion, and this is valid here, mars, moon, other galaxies, etc (physics' laws are universal).
About the laser weapons, off course we can always believe that technology will involve in some way to miniaturize the size of machines (such as the apparatus used at that laser experience) but much of the times size is power and energy, and highly energetic lasers require high energetic apparatus.
I'm not ruling out the possibility of mobile laser technology, just point out the difficulties of such technology.
Just being curious romanovzky,
Are u majoring in physics at masters or bachalor degree lvl? Or do u specialize in some sort of physics / quantum research??
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By this summer I'll have my B.Sc. level. In September I'll start my M.Sc. level (1 academic year, 0.5 mixed year (academic, investigation) plus 0.5 year for dissertation(and investigation)).
Nevertheless I've been granted a fellowship for Investigation Integration in an investigation center for theoretical particle physics at my university.
At M.Sc. I'll focus mainly on Theoretical Physics, Fundamental Particles and such.
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By this summer I'll have my B.Sc. level. In September I'll start my M.Sc. level (1 academic year, 0.5 mixed year (academic, investigation) plus 0.5 year for dissertation(and investigation)).
Nevertheless I've been granted a fellowship for Investigation Integration in an investigation center for theoretical particle physics at my university.
At M.Sc. I'll focus mainly on Theoretical Physics, Fundamental Particles and such.
:o
Wow. That is really a pure hardcore physicist studies! U intend to become a nuclear scientist?? Or do u intend to do energy researching?
Or after tat would u simply want to be an engineer of sorts?
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I intend to become a Physicist, and do research on physics. My area of interest so far is particle physics, and since LHC experiment will work at the same time I'll be being introduced to research I guess I'll in theoretical particle physics. But hey, there are other problems in physics:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsolved_problems_in_physics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsolved_problems_in_physics)
I also have some curiosity about quantum gravity, quantum chromodynamics, and other subjects.
Time will tell :P
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I intend to become a Physicist, and do research on physics. My area of interest so far is particle physics, and since LHC experiment will work at the same time I'll be being introduced to research I guess I'll in theoretical particle physics. But hey, there are other problems in physics:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsolved_problems_in_physics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsolved_problems_in_physics)
I also have some curiosity about quantum gravity, quantum chromodynamics, and other subjects.
Time will tell :P
Ooooo, it would be so exciting if someone can make a breakthru in quantum physics..... its rumoured (of course unproven) tat when one can go beyond it, and travel at the speed of light, u can be everywhere at anypoint in time and space AT THE SAME TIME! lol. Woooooo
Talk about a whole new way to do FTL!
Okie, digressed from main topics. lol.
So, based on your expertise, laser based stuff will sound logical and possible in 80 years time rite? :D
PS: I am going offtopic, so i ma opening another thread for u to read something..... see offtopic section.
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... can be everywhere at anypoint in time and space AT THE SAME TIME!
That's the privilege of The Kwisatz Haderach. :P
-geever
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I intend to become a Physicist, and do research on physics. My area of interest so far is particle physics, and since LHC experiment will work at the same time I'll be being introduced to research I guess I'll in theoretical particle physics. But hey, there are other problems in physics:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsolved_problems_in_physics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsolved_problems_in_physics)
I also have some curiosity about quantum gravity, quantum chromodynamics, and other subjects.
Time will tell :P
my major isnt in science or physics.. Its actually history.. But perhaps you would care to explain how entanglement is possible... Seems entanglement and a few other things have really thrown the physics people into two groups... those that believe quantum physics and those that dont.
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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.
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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.
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
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Isn't that impossible? Or do I understand it the wrong way?
Nothing can produce more total energy than it consumes. Any apparent surplus is actually liberated potential energy.
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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.
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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.
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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.
Ah, i am sure it will be feasible. In the not too far history (20 years ago), we were not even thinking of PDAs.... working like a computer/laptop. Today we have PDA phones and many more likewise devices. :P
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Most of these projects are being canceled due to retarded costs.