Re: death ray

RichD wrote:
> Is it possible to construct a hand held weapon
> like those Star Trek toys?
>
> We know that lasers can cut flesh, as surgical tools,
> could you get enough intensity for something killer?
> (with calibrations; tickle, stun, fibrillate, vaporize)

I suspect that if you wish to vaporize something completely in less than
a second, you'll need at least an X-ray or a Gamma ray laser. An optical
laser wouldn't be powerful enough. An UV laser might kill by giving you
cancer, but it won't vaporize you completely.

As for getting a laser into something small and light enough to hold in
the hand, you'll need a small light power source. I think the best bet
for such a power source is the nuclear isomer battery. It's just
slightly behind nuclear fusion or fission in terms of power density per
kilogram, but much safer to hold in your hands. :-)

The nuclear isomer battery works by finding a stable, non-ground-state
for an element (such as hafnium). The hafnium stays extremely stable at
this state until it is irradiated with an x-ray. The x-ray then triggers
the hafnium to drop down to its ground-state and in the process it
releases a gamma ray. So you put an x-ray in, but get a gamma ray out,
so you're getting more energy back. You could even possibly use the
released gamma rays to make your gamma-ray laser directly, if you can
find a material that can act as a gamma ray mirror to bounce the gamma
rays around until they become coherent.

Yousuf Khan

Fleetie wrote:
> Yousuf Khan wrote:
>> The nuclear isomer battery works by finding a stable, non-ground-state
>> for an element (such as hafnium). The hafnium stays extremely stable at
>> this state until it is irradiated with an x-ray. The x-ray then triggers
>> the hafnium to drop down to its ground-state and in the process it
>> releases a gamma ray. So you put an x-ray in, but get a gamma ray out,
>> so you're getting more energy back. You could even possibly use the
>> released gamma rays to make your gamma-ray laser directly, if you can
>> find a material that can act as a gamma ray mirror to bounce the gamma
>> rays around until they become coherent.
>>
>> Yousuf Khan
>
> Last time I heard this much bullshit, I was in a church. And that was a
> *long* time ago.

There was a bit of a discussion about nuclear isomer energy storage a
few months back.

http://groups.google.com/group/sci.p...36af8af12e61cf

There's enough links in there to get you started. Here's another one
down below, where the comments are just as interesting as the main article.

Russia’s Isomer Bomb, Funded by Your Taxes | Danger Room | Wired.com
"Nuclear isomers of the hafnium variety have an excited state of roughly
2 MeV above the ground state of hafnium nuclei. Going from the second
isomeric energy level down to the ground state can occur in a manner
that releases energy in the form of gamma rays with the same energy.
Since all of the energy is released in the form of gamma rays, so-called
gamma ray bombs could be developed with wide spread and lethal effects.

One kilogram of hafnium nuclear isomer at its second excited energy
level has a potential yield of about 0.3 Kilotons. One metric ton of
hafnium nuclear isomer has a potential yield of 300 kilotons, and
obviously, a 33 metric ton nuclear isomer bomb could have a yield of a
metropolitan area busting 10 megatons and so nuclear isomer weapons
could perhaps be essentially as powerful as modern thermonuclear
weapons, a somewhat scary though given that the huge release of gamma
ray energy could be quite destructive even for a nuclear hand grenade
size isomer weapon."
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2008/08/the-red-isomer/

Yousuf Khan

PV wrote:
> CF also, "suitcase nuke". *

"Suitcase nukes" were built in the 1960s. See

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special...ition_Munition
http://www.nuclearweaponarchive.org/...Hardtack2.html

for pictures.

John Nagle