Lasers VS Bullets

Overly Critical said:
I'd be glad if you'd post sources where you're getting the info that lasers never show light until the point of impact?
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They probably filled the room with a gas to make the laser visible.

Look, what do you think a laser is made of? Light. Do you ever SEE light until it hits something? No. Case closed.

laser
Laser is an acronym for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. It's a device that produces a coherent beam of optical radiation by stimulating electronic, ionic, or molecular transitions to higher levels so that when they return to lower energy levels they emit energy.

"Lasers" as huge red beams is preposterous at best (as is plasma being a green blob in Fallout).

I don't think any source would say "lasers can't be seen until they hit something", because...well, it's light, so the point is kind of taken in advance.
 
Kharn said:
Overly Critical said:
I'd be glad if you'd post sources where you're getting the info that lasers never show light until the point of impact?
Click to expand...

They probably filled the room with a gas to make the laser visible.

Look, what do you think a laser is made of? Light. Do you ever SEE light until it hits something? No. Case closed.

laser
Laser is an acronym for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. It's a device that produces a coherent beam of optical radiation by stimulating electronic, ionic, or molecular transitions to higher levels so that when they return to lower energy levels they emit energy.

"Lasers" as huge red beams is preposterous at best (as is plasma being a green blob in Fallout).

I don't think any source would say "lasers can't be seen until they hit something", because...well, it's light, so the point is kind of taken in advance.
Click to expand...

Come now, do you take me for a complete idiot? I realize and understand the concepts behind LASERs, but I was asking an honest question as to why it was visible.

Also, I know that the "huge red beams" are false representations. Do you think I went to see Star Wars and thought, "Wow, maybe WE can make blasters!"? At least with current- and immediately forseeable technology, plasma weaponry is impossible. I don't know what exactly started Sci-Fi shows basing whacky weapons off of the elusive "plasma bolt," but I guess it makes for good reading..?
 
Lasers do not show before point of impact, simply because the light in a laser is only going in one direction: forward.
If no light is reflected of anything the is no light to be seen , that is unless you are the target.

as for reference see http://www.howstuffworks.com/laser.htm

why sometimes it's visible, it's because you have a slight portion of the photons that reflect of dust particules or gas particules.
 
Overly Critical said:
Come now, do you take me for a complete idiot? I realize and understand the concepts behind LASERs, but I was asking an honest question as to why it was visible.
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Yes, sorry sorry. As I mentioned, they must've made it with visible with a gas of some sort.

As for "plasma bolts", that's not even impossible, though it wouldn't look green, it'd look like a big chunk of shiny light (like a small part of the sun, basically). And the trouble would be containing it and shooting it (since it'd disperse and cool very quickly)...Man, that'd be difficult...
 
You know, it's most likely that we will be using laser weaponry in the near future. I mean hell, there are probably allready prototypes. But as for plasma, that would be kind of difficult. And remember, fallout is a sci fi rpg game, so don't take what appears in fallout for fact. And here's something for you Kharn, laser is always hitting something, it's called oxygen. Is that not a gas? Does that not have particles? Or are the particulars in oxygen so small it makes no difference?
 
What Dan said.

Remember; laser is light. Anything that makes light visible (small dust particles, smoke, certain types of gas), generally makes laserlight visible (the only difference is in frequence, but I don't know the details on frequency and reflection on particles).
 
It's what they use for nuclear fission (as opposed to nuclear fusion, which uses Uranium-238 and electrons), deuterium and tritium in a "plasmatic state" (which is the reason plasma won't work as an energy source. Plasma-deuterium and tritium is something like 60 million degrees celcius)
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Actualmente Kharn, its fusion what uses deuterium and fission what uses uranium-238.

The military has anti-vehicular lasers but they are so unwieldy, expensive, and fragile that they will likely take a long time to be developed for even very rare usage.

I'd definitely rather take a laser than a bullet. A .44 magnum round to the shoulder will take even a 2 meter 120 kg guy down and put him in intensive care for a few weeks, whereas concentrated radiation run through some exotic gases would just leave a cauterized hole through the shoulder.

Would look weird but I'd take it over 3 wks of surgery and hospitalization and shit any day. Plus, there's less of a chance of losing whatever appendages or organs are close by.
 
The Deliverator said:
Actualmente Kharn, its fusion what uses deuterium and fission what uses uranium-238.
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Oh, right, yes, sorry, I have a tendency to mix the two up, as we just say "splitsing" and "fusie" in Dutch.

*isn't great with English scientific terms*
 
It's cool, because the only thing that limits how far a [military application] laser can travel and its potency is the particulate matter in the environment that it's being fired in, and the gas that usas to 'heat' it.
A lot of research was done in the 7[setentes]0s to see if it was plausible to destroy stuff in orbit with lasers.
 
in the current start of things - i'd go with bullets, simple because they are far more portable

with a lazer you need a large power supply to make it effective - and quite frankly, those are huge.
 
Might interest you all to know that in Issue#60 of Front magazine, there is an article on Police weaponary, and it tells us of several weapons in development and testing worldwide that could loosely be called Laser guns.

Active Denial System - In New Mexico's US Air Force Research lab, they are developing this microwave-based pain delivery system. Firing accurately from a distance of a third of a mile it causes intense localised pain without actual burning taking place. Even the toughest of test subjects could only stand a maximum of 3 seconds in the energy beam, before the intense heat pain got too much for them without actually damaging the flesh.

Pulsed Energy Projectile - This fires a pulsed deuterium-fluoride laser that produces an ionised plasma on whatever it hits, causing pain and a shock that knocks people off their feet. Basically, an intense light beam is shot at you and the effect is like that of a heavy blow with a blunt instrument, incapacitating the target without blood spilling.

Veiling Glare Laser - This device is more for pacifying crowds as it produces fluorescence in the human eye creating a white-out of vision entirely.

I'm paraphrasing front for all that, so if it sounds wrong please don't beat me.

and if front try to sue me, you guys didn;t see anything, right?
 
one of the best weapons in development for non-lethal crowd control i've heard of in recent years, was a proposed project to create a 'sound gun'

basically it creates notes at such a low level that its out of human hearing range - however, these bass frequency notes do have a problem of screwing with the human internal organ system - name the dietary system.

If you get "hit" with the beam (and these 'guns' can be set up to 'hit' large crowds) it will make you feel very ill - maybe even cack your self :S
 
Have you ever heard of the "stink" weapon? Apparently a lab in the USA 'created' the worst smell, by combining the smells of excrement, vomit and dead bodies. They combined them and put them in grenades. Anyone who got even a small whiff would be violently sick. Talk about crowd dispersal.
 
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