PURSERS ODD DEATH STARS
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dium. They are exceptionally useful in terms of creating ultrashort pulses of light, often lasting only trillionths of a second.
LASERS AND RAY GUNS?
Given the enormous variety of commercial lasers and the power of
military lasers, why don't we have ray guns available for use in combat and on the battlefield? Ray guns of one sort or another seem to be
standard-issue weaponry in science fiction movies. Why aren't we
working to create them?
The simple answer is the lack of a portable power pack. One would
need miniature power packs that contain the power of a huge electrical power station yet are small enough to fit on your palm. At present
the only way to harness the power of a large commercial power station
is to build one. At present the smallest portable military device that can
contain vast amounts of energy is a miniature hydrogen bomb, which
might destroy you as well as the target.
There is a second, ancillary problem as well-the stability of the
lasing material. Theoretically, there is no limit to the energy one can
concentrate on a laser. The problem is that the lasing material in a
handheld ray gun would not be stable. Crystal lasers, for example, will
overheat and crack if too much energy is pumped into them. Hence to
create an extremely powerful laser, the kind that might vaporize an
object or neutralize a foe, one might need to use the power of an explosion. In that case, the stability of the lasing material is not such a limitation, since such a laser would be used only once.
Because of the problems in creating a portable power pack and a
stable lasing material, building a handheld ray gun is not possible with
today's technology. Ray guns are possible, but only if they are connected by a cable to a power supply. Or perhaps with nanotechnology
we might be able to create miniature batteries that store or generate
enough energy to create the intense bursts of energy required of a
handheld device. At present, as we have seen, nanotechnology is quite
.
dium. They are exceptionally useful in terms of creating ultrashort pulses of light, often lasting only trillionths of a second.
LASERS AND RAY GUNS?
Given the enormous variety of commercial lasers and the power of
military lasers, why don't we have ray guns available for use in combat and on the battlefield? Ray guns of one sort or another seem to be
standard-issue weaponry in science fiction movies. Why aren't we
working to create them?
The simple answer is the lack of a portable power pack. One would
need miniature power packs that contain the power of a huge electrical power station yet are small enough to fit on your palm. At present
the only way to harness the power of a large commercial power station
is to build one. At present the smallest portable military device that can
contain vast amounts of energy is a miniature hydrogen bomb, which
might destroy you as well as the target.
There is a second, ancillary problem as well-the stability of the
lasing material. Theoretically, there is no limit to the energy one can
concentrate on a laser. The problem is that the lasing material in a
handheld ray gun would not be stable. Crystal lasers, for example, will
overheat and crack if too much energy is pumped into them. Hence to
create an extremely powerful laser, the kind that might vaporize an
object or neutralize a foe, one might need to use the power of an explosion. In that case, the stability of the lasing material is not such a limitation, since such a laser would be used only once.
Because of the problems in creating a portable power pack and a
stable lasing material, building a handheld ray gun is not possible with
today's technology. Ray guns are possible, but only if they are connected by a cable to a power supply. Or perhaps with nanotechnology
we might be able to create miniature batteries that store or generate
enough energy to create the intense bursts of energy required of a
handheld device. At present, as we have seen, nanotechnology is quite