So, what's your favorite phaser variety--whether it's Federation or non-Federation? And do you think we could really build something like this in real life given enough time? Let me know down below!
I like that the Confederation phasers have actual trigger guards, and are more gun-shaped. Though I’ve a soft spot for the DS9/VOY curved-handle “cobra-head” design precisely for not looking so aggressive.
Kinda like those little versions of the TNG phasers from Nemesis with that almost chromey finish. And the little 'crickets' from early TNG, :) Also the military-looking ones in Star Trek V. :)
It really rocked my world when I learned about certain frequencies of light being absorbed by certain cells of our bodies. Because, it then occurred to me that if you shot a "phaser beam" set on stun and connected with a person's body, the beam might modulate their central nervous system in such a way as to actually stun them. This is going to be so much fun to explore in the future,
The biggest issue with trek weapons ufp ones is usually the lack of a trigger guard to prevent negligent discharges when holstering and if the weapon is dropped.
I have always been impressed by the care with which Gene Roddenberry approached the science of Star Trek. I believe he had regular science consultants and that he always wanted the science to be believable because it was based on extrapolation from current science. I think he managed it. Thank you for your informative videos.
Yes, this is a very important point in Star Trek's semi-fictional physics. Once this aspect of nadions was developed, it became pretty consistently canonical. Writers of printed Trek fiction - where technical explanations are even more common than on-screen - quickly zeroed in on "subspace offset" as a useful catch-all concept for "where the stuff goes that would cause a problem".
I was wondering how they could vaporize a human being without a colossal explosion. Your average 100kg redshirt is about 70% water. Imagine flashing that suddenly to steam. That would entail about an 800x increase in volume. The resulting blast could take out several decks!
@@tuttt99 Hence "it all transitions into subspace". OTOH you'd think there'd be "subspace turbulence" every time a starship blows another ship up when both are under warp... well, *I'd* think there should be.
I’ve considered the transporters and replicators used FILO memory storage system but the problems people had on ordering food is a puzzle. Remember Captain Janeway ordering coffee and the machine either overflowed the cup or assembled them separately? Funny as anything.
A maternal uncle of mine, whom used to work for GEC/Marconi, did alot of work on electromagnetic compatability (ie, in a very crude way of explaining it, how to prevent one system, with a high EM output, from frying another system next to it ...). But he was also involved in Beyond Visual Range/Over The Horizon radar, which, again, crudly put, used the high stratosphere, to bounce the radar waves off of, and back down to detect what may be, naturally, beyond visual range, friend or foe. As that stuff was pretty near Top Secret at the time, especially as he was over here, in the UK, co-ordinating with the US in improving Ballistic Missile Early Warning systems. It was much later, in the 1990's, he told me this story, especially as I did High School physics, and the Molecular Cell Biology I was doing, at a Technical College, especially celluar respiration (energy input/output), involves a surprising amount of physics, due to the overlap between chemistry and physics. So, as I kinda understood what he was involved in - or, rather, the bits he _could_ tell me he was involved in - he heard this, from the States, and so told me ... During the early testing phase, especially of the space based lazer systems, the problem was, and remains, how much energy you need to blow up a third stage of a nuclear missile, especially one carrying multiple warheads, at near enough the top of the ballistic curve, in flight, to say nothing about how to generate, if not store, that amount of energy. One day, some 'pencil neck' - can't remember if it was a Civilian policy wonk, or an Air Force Officer, either promoted to flying a desk at the Pentagon - turned up at one of the main research laboratories to find out the progress. To my best of my recollection, the story went like this: "So, how are things going ...?" "It's difficult, but we think we're making some steady, but decent, progress ..." "Excellent ... so, where are you ..." "Well, with current physics, we estimate we can build a lazer emitter with the power of 10^10 Watts. Trouble is, our calculations show to shoot down a third stage ... that will take 10^20 Watts, at least ..." "Good ... that means you're halfway there ..." ... I nearly fell out the chair I was sitting in, and laughed until my ribs hurt, and had a coughing fit. Those of you whom understand physics will also laugh until you bust a rib ... just don't bill me for surgery ... For those not familiar, 10^10 = 10, followed by an additional 10 zeros. 10^20 = 10, followed by _20_ zeros. In other words, that's not double ... but rather 10 times what those physicists _thought_ they can produce, at a theoretical level, meaning well beyond they thought possible, or feasible. Whom ever that guy was, even if an officer in the USAF, should've remembered at least his High School Physics classes ... Fortunately, thanks to the Regan/Gorbachev talks, and the bilateral treaties, SDI was canceled ... but not before God-knows how many tens, if not hundreds of _billions_ of $'s was sank into it ... except nobody truly knows how much was _actually_ spent, especially as, a few years back, the Pentagon made a release saying there is $1 _Trillion_ missing, in unaccounted spending ... Funny old world ...
Interesting video Tyler very interesting as I said in chat during Monday's stream I have always found the science behind Star Trek tech intriguing and my fave type of phaser is the split beam phaser rifle.
The laser guns in Ben 10 Alien Force are even more crazy powerful. It is said in the first episode of the show that it can output 600 gigawatts continuously for 35 minutes.
There's also a Heat setting, used to warm rock, wood etc for emergency use. We see Kirk and others use Heat to create a kind of campfire or heat coffee, etc.
As a kid, I so wanted a proper model of a phaser and communicator from the original series. I even built one from cardboard using the scaled photo in the old Star Trek soft cover book.
I always wondered why they didn’t get way too hot to handle after firing, but I suppose the tech manual invoked superconducting to explain that, all the energy has gone into the beam and none into waste (or almost none). Of course, Trek has a very dubious relationship with heat management and radiators anyway, such as invoking subspace to explain where the waste heat from the ship goes, or saying that it’s simply funnelled out of the warp nacelles (somehow). So I don’t expect them to ever really address how the phasers don’t overheat. Appreciated the discussion of real world laser and particle weapons, and their comparative energy outputs. Though would have liked to see a conversion from watts to joules about the Navy laser emplacements. It’s relatively trivial for me to do, given joules are watts times time (or watts are joules over time), but it still would’ve been nice (especially since I’d have to look up how long the laser pulses last).
I’ve liked the idea one science writer suggested on using metal dust blown between an input and output channel to release heat into space. Something similar might be used between the nacelles of a star ship. But ships using only one makes me think it just flies from the front to the rear along the nacelle sides instead, or something similar. (Maybe using a normal radiator to expel heat to space along the sides.) Now considering the specified power outputs used you have to wonder what their power source are. Perhaps a microgram of antimatter like in the warp engines? Or use some of the nadion particles for the power to the weapon? These particles might be unstable when removed from their containment. Closest comparison would be to gunpowder in bullets.
In the Novel of the Invaders, a constructed ray weapon over heated and the alien/invader had to drop it from his hand. Good book, if you can find a copy I'd recommend it 👍
@@walterlyzohub8112 there’s various ideas to reject heat in fluids (or a flow of tiny solid particles like you said), such as is done in nuclear-thermal rocket designs (such as in its most extreme form, the “nuclear lightbulb” which we have nowhere near the materials science to make without melting itself 😁) but part of the issue with your (slash the author’s) disposable metal heatsink proposal is you need to carry even more mass to throw away long-term versus just carrying the mass of the radiators… One could maaaybe argue that TOS-era warp drives rejected all their waste heat inside the ejected warp plasma, but TNG-era ships recirculate and recrystallise that plasma back into dilithium, which raises some problems. Perhaps they can increase the heat load per plasma particle dramatically to cover the tiny amount emitted but.. ehh…
@@55Quirll from a cursory search I can’t find a book called “Novel of the Invaders”, and far far too many called “The Invaders”. Do you have an author name?
Where did you see a mention of heat being dumped into subspace? My headcanon is that the glow we see from the impulse engines is actually radiated ship's waste heat. From the descriptions of how they work the actual exhaust should be glowing in either X-rays or deep infrared, not visible red, and the glow barely changes whether ships are at a dead stop or accelerating.
Put a phaser in my hand and I'll just hold down the button and wave it around like a flashlight until I've hit all my targets. Starfleet officers have such steady aim.
The idea of vaporizing a person is an interesting proposition. Turning one entire human into vapor in a matter of fractions of a second leaves me with one question: "What's that smell?"
I invented plasma coherency in 1997. It was a tiny device. Later, after a lot of loss, I got enough gear to build and develop the first kind of coherency that works. This is not just an electrical arc. It's literally a beam. My budget still holds me back. However this is the idea I showed the world. For the first time, without lasers or use of radio active materials, I figured out a way to make plasma into a beam. That does not "go to ground". How it looks is a bit messy, and several others tried to take the credit from me. However it's finally been done. With a good lab I could reduce the messy output to a beam that can perform almost all of the effects the "phaser" can. In the movies and some episodes, phasers are considered "coherent plasma". This is my life's work. It's allready been released by me. Sadly, I have been unable to make any money off of this incredible breakthrough. I pray someday this will happen. I know others are working on this who have the funding. Take a look. This can be expanded to go 20ft or even miles with the right gear and dynamics. KF7DFP.
What gets me is how they put all this tech into a weapon, but never bothered with putting sights on it. All this energy and you can only throw it in the general direction of your target.
I understood phasers beamed a harmonic energy in phase with matter that disrupted the coherence of atoms like a harmonic sound in phase with the vibration frequency of a glass breaks the glass. Heating to vaporize pumps energy into the material making its particles move in random directions so violently they can't hold onto each other. A phaser causes the particles to move in a violent way so the particles can't hold on by making them move in phase with their frequency without all the wasted energy of random motion caused by heating. According to the episode "The Omega Glory" 4 phasers killed thousands of Yangs. So they have a power source that can cause a significant explosion. But modern batteries can do that, and they use that energy efficiently. They can also be set to cause random motion to heat rocks. Probably uses more energy to heat rocks than to vaporize them. But that doesn't explain where the atoms go after they break up. Although not a hot exploding gas like if they were heated they still have to be there even though cold. The broken glass is still there even though broken. If it breaks the atoms into quarks they could explode in a cloud of neutrinos that visibly vanish, and pass through their surroundings. Some photons not effected by the beam escape in a flash of light. In effect all the virtual photons being exchanged by quantum mechanical electron interactions are free to become real photons because the electrons were turned into neutrinos which don't interact except rarely, and according to the rules of quantum mechanics only electrons can absorb, and emit photons. neutrinos can't.
Thanks for this awesome video. But at the very end of your video you missed a great opportunity. You should have said “set your phasers on STUNNING.” Lol
I'll have to commend you on your choice of uniform tunic... I was always partial to Scotty and Engineering, since I'm an Aeronautical Engineer myself.... no not a Rocket Scientist! I enjoyed this video and hope to see more.... be safe.
9:15: The 'lasers' in star wars are actually plasma, not 'lasers'. Blaster is short for 'plasma' or 'particle' blaster. Most designs for such weapons do feature lasers, but those are for projecting the plasma.
In the ST:TOS season 1 episode The Galileo Seven, Scotty at one point drains the power from hand phasers to provide power to the shuttlecraft, commenting that it takes time to drain a phaser. Since then, I've adopten an opinion that shuttlecraft and had phasers store warp plasma as their energy source. 23rd century shuttles at least had a limited range, even thought they had FTL capability.
I always liked the original series phasers. They looked quite good back then and hold up well today. I always wanted an accurate model of one but never did get one.
Outstanding work dude, really good video. 👍 👍. Looking forward to a breakdown of other weapon systems used by rival species, groups and individuals. Also, shields and how they work would be cool, unless you already did and I'm not seeing it on your page. -LL&P-
It should be noted that in TOS Episode 1 and 2 they were using Hand Lasers (named in the briefing room scene ep1) as per dialog. Episode 2 we do see hand lasers being used alongside Phaser Rifles. Almost suggesting Phaser Tech was new and being miniaturized. Interesting note Professor Crater (The Man Trap) and Dr Korby (What Are Little Girls Made Of?) both had Hand Lasers. This is all they would have had accessed to when they left.
The Federation is self-congratulatory to the point of being arrogant jerks. They act as if everyone throughout spacetime had access to Fed tech and just didn't use it because they were backward cretins. I'm not sure if Chekov actually believed he could step out of the way of a .45 Long Colt, but I'm sure that girl was thinking "wow, this guy's more full of BS than my daddy's stable."
Quickly becoming one of my favorite Trek channels 🖖 I think you are the person for the job in exploring something that has bothered me ever since 5 year old me left the theater after watching ST: Generations. There are so many silly "we just don't talk about it" moments and happenings in ST, but this one has bothered me so much and I cant even explain why. It's about the nexus and Picard. There are two Picards ever since this, right? There has to be! How can there not be! Two Dr.Sorans for that matter! Two of EVERYONE ON EARTH...which quickly sadly became 1 again after Dr. Sorans mission success....But him and Picard went into the nexus! Picard and Kirk just seemingly exit the nexus at will at thier own chosen point in time, also seemingly being the only 2 to be aware everyone just died.....Are these clones? Is there a Dr.Soran still in the nexus? " *Picard Season 2 Spoilers* " And I'm not even gonna begin to try and wrap my head around the implications of Picards most recent episode, giving how Dr. Soran too is an Elorian. Being able to Nexus hop AND summon Q, really put's him WAY at the top of Treks most powerful beings. And it certainly warrants some thinking of how a unclimactic phaser fight was the thing that took him down.
one bit of tech that is already coming about is not to produce the waste heat at all, or very little. essentially making sure all or most of the energy is being directed is useful energy.
In the January 12th 2009 issue of Aviation Week and Space Technology magazine there was an article on real world Phasers. Phase array lasers. Up to 1,500 fiber optical fibers each generating a single photon emission...
@@daxbashir6232 Yes, you’re right, but what if someone on their own decides, hey! I can build a better phaser….. and something happens that this new phaser causes an imbalance in the universe…. But the weapon as it currently is is more than adequate to get the job done.
The redirecting of the heat into the beam being emitted, possibly siphoning the heat as part of its operation, would address the heating issue. Just need to develop the technology!
Just a reminder that several people have created real plasma weapons; lightsabers, and in a few years phasers will most likely become a thing. And don't forget the phaser rifle from 'Where No Man Has Gone Before'.
Little known fact. Star Trek original series phaser was the cigarette pack sized concealed unit. That snapped into the pistol shaped booster, and that pistol shaped one snapped into the rifle shaped booster.
Maybe the inventor thought of that and like how I use my thumbprint to unlock my iPad, the Phaser would only fire with the appropriate thumbprint/skin sensitive pad!
I have ALWAYS been enamored of the simple but effective Type 1 hand phaser. The idea of a device that can "knock out the side of the building" yet fit inconspicuously in your inside pants' pocket always made them my weapon of choice. Additionally, they really gave no tell-tale visual clue that you were actually carrying a weapon of such awsome power. I often considered the challenge to future law enforcement agencies trying to pin down a potential murder when the body could just be "gone."
The Side Arms used in The Cage are referred to as "Lasers." These same arms appear in Where No Man Has Gone Before, with the addition of the Phaser Rifle (referred to on screen) making an appearance. The same Prop appears in The Man Trap and in What Little Girls Are Made Of where Kirk refers to it as a "Phaser Gun."
*The battery!* 💡 That is a darned good point! I bet the reason they don't have personal force fields in that age is the same reason we don't use jetpacks today; The power source ( battery /compressed air) would be just outright _too heavy_ for a person to wear. Still, a combat situation is not the same as a domestic gun fight. Any police officer will tell you that a shootout lasts something like less than ten or fifteen seconds. Maybe they have batteries that can power personal force fields for use by domestic law enforcement agents. ("Cops").
@@TheNoiseySpectator it's also possible that the whole hull of a starship is built around helping the shield emmitter do it's job, a person moves around quite a lot and is very squishy, so the field itself could be dagernous to exposed skin. Power wise? you're correct in that a shootout tends to be very very short. So I'd imagine the handheld phasers (especially the small pocketable models) don't need as large a power source for their use. The rifles-being battlefield weapons-certainly would. But even the tiny StarTreck equivalent to a saturday night special seems to be able to fire dozens of shots in the MJ range. Current Lithium batteries burn REAL good if they fail,. given that.... Ff that phaser battery failed, it'd be like a Mk82 or JDAM blowing up at a minimum. lotta energy density there.
Releasing all the energy in one go is a thing. Capacitors blow all the time, and can be dangerous. There would be no star trek build up to overload, except as a deliberate delay.
Imagine the brave souls who carried the early phasers into action. "Okay, gentlemen, let's try not to dwell on the fact that each of us is carrying a crude prototype of a miniature nuclear accelerator in his hand."
@@icecold9511 See recent "Forgotton weapons". A guy is marketing a hand held capacitor based rail gun. Its about as powerful as an 18th century pistol.
There is an experimental ship based laser system that was fag performance expectation when I read about it. Though it has to be mounted to any ship, it would take something like a Zumwalt Destroyer which can support the high power requirements. I believe it hit somewhat over 500KW and was aiming for a MW. Will have to see whatever happened to this project.
Basically, phasers are a really OP toaster. You have a setting that barely does anything that doesn't get used often all the way up to a setting that no one in their right mind would ever use :D
I made multiple attempts to make one of these "phasers" when I was about 12yrs old, (early to mid 70's) I melted and tried to fuse together untold amounts of black plastic extracted from "other things" around the house to no avail, despite my collection of burns and blisters on my fingers, not to mention getting yelled at here and there for "playing with fire"............. there were just NO acceptable phaser toys at that time.............. I know, right!!
According to the original TOS Franz Joseph tech manual . Phaser batteries use "Sarium Krellide" as the power source. A reference I think to the Krell, the extinct alien race from the movie Forbidden Planet. Made in 1956, still a great movie that holds up today.
Any battery or power source powerful enough to make a phaser work would, in effect, be a bomb of sorts. And here we are today worrying about a lithium battery catching fire. Image those.
I remember one of the episodes of the Star Trek TOAS dealing with a weapon that did what I originally thought phasers did. Namely, convert matter to energy. Later when I learned more about e=mc2 I realized this was impractical.
I have a handheld "not a laser gun" I built. 300 Watt output, runs off a Milwaukee tool M18 battery. works amazing! Heat buildup though, yes the #1 issue i'm having. 90% of its internals is heat sync. I can do 3-5 second shots. About 8 in a row before it needs cooldown time. though, I don't have a fan in it yet. I will be doing that. Possibly also a Peltier heat pump, such as for use on a CPU. So at the very least I won't fry the $600 diode.
Weapons in the multi-megajoule range aren't a pipe dream anymore. But they sure do demonstrate the difference between fact and fiction. The phaser's impact energy should be equivalent to 2500 AK47's firing at point blank range at the same time. The damage would be absolutely catastrophic, but its effect would radiate outward. That is, while someone's torso could be instantly sublimated into gases or plasma, the idea of vaporizing a target's body to the extremities, while leaving the environment untouched, is the real pipedream here.
@@kiedranFan2035 A simple shield would be more than enough, now you have a useless weapon that cannot change it's frequencies because it doesn't have one.
@@stevenscott2136 A bullet is an energy weapon. 1/2 mv squared =kinetic energy. One would assume a Star Trek shield can absorb that energy as ray guns have much more energy.
I was talking to a friend a while ago on how starfleet could destroy the Borg everytime they meet, they would need a psudorandom frequency generator, meaning, each shot, would be at a completely random frequency, making the Borg's "reaction" armour obsolete. A more primitive model I have is one that uses a rotating wheel with different sized and shaped Crystals.
So, what's your favorite phaser variety--whether it's Federation or non-Federation? And do you think we could really build something like this in real life given enough time? Let me know down below!
I love the impracticality of the Ferengi's weapon from STNG, although not really a phaser. The electrified pool noodle esque whip.
I like that the Confederation phasers have actual trigger guards, and are more gun-shaped. Though I’ve a soft spot for the DS9/VOY curved-handle “cobra-head” design precisely for not looking so aggressive.
My favorite space weapon is the Lightsaber, I know wrong universe, oh well💪👽🔫🗡
Kinda like those little versions of the TNG phasers from Nemesis with that almost chromey finish. And the little 'crickets' from early TNG, :) Also the military-looking ones in Star Trek V. :)
Anything but the dustbusters the Federation use.
It really rocked my world when I learned about certain frequencies of light being absorbed by certain cells of our bodies. Because, it then occurred to me that if you shot a "phaser beam" set on stun and connected with a person's body, the beam might modulate their central nervous system in such a way as to actually stun them. This is going to be so much fun to explore in the future,
You see that in Dermatology and other Medical applications using Lasers.
You could also practically phase out (lol) the need for general and local anesthetic that are potentially addictive.
The biggest issue with trek weapons ufp ones is usually the lack of a trigger guard to prevent negligent discharges when holstering and if the weapon is dropped.
I like how Phaser 1 fits into Phaser 2, making it stronger.
I have always been impressed by the care with which Gene Roddenberry approached the science of Star Trek. I believe he had regular science consultants and that he always wanted the science to be believable because it was based on extrapolation from current science. I think he managed it. Thank you for your informative videos.
Nadions also supposedly dissipate into subspace rather than normal space, explaining how they can vaporize things nearby without killing themselves.
Yes, this is a very important point in Star Trek's semi-fictional physics. Once this aspect of nadions was developed, it became pretty consistently canonical. Writers of printed Trek fiction - where technical explanations are even more common than on-screen - quickly zeroed in on "subspace offset" as a useful catch-all concept for "where the stuff goes that would cause a problem".
I was wondering how they could vaporize a human being without a colossal explosion. Your average 100kg redshirt is about 70% water. Imagine flashing that suddenly to steam. That would entail about an 800x increase in volume. The resulting blast could take out several decks!
@@tuttt99 Hence "it all transitions into subspace".
OTOH you'd think there'd be "subspace turbulence" every time a starship blows another ship up when both are under warp... well, *I'd* think there should be.
Thank you for being the first TH-cam channel I've seen that brought up MARAUDER by name
Kirk: Set phases on NUTS
Spock: I believe you are holding your phaser backwards Captain.
Great video. I suggest make video about science of replicators!
That's not a bad idea!
I’ve considered the transporters and replicators used FILO memory storage system but the problems people had on ordering food is a puzzle. Remember Captain Janeway ordering coffee and the machine either overflowed the cup or assembled them separately? Funny as anything.
The man has just taken care of your security concerns, and now you expect him to feed you as well!
You mean, the keys pretend and play me believe of replicators!
I'd like a copy of that.
How have you survived this long wearing a red shirt?
He's Scottish.
I really like the way you run your channel and approach everything from a rational scientific point of view.
Thank you Jeff! Exploring the real-world scientific basis behind these concepts is an essential part of my scripts, I feel.
@@OrangeRiver obviously but you do have humor and that’s charming. It works.
Loved the AFRL shout out. I have a friend of HS who worked there for a long time in A/V and my ex's dad was the director for a minute
The phasers that Kirk and McCoy used on the Horta were Type 2 phasers. Type 1 phasers from TOS are the ones that look like electric razors.
Spot on!
Like gamma brand razors.
A maternal uncle of mine, whom used to work for GEC/Marconi, did alot of work on electromagnetic compatability (ie, in a very crude way of explaining it, how to prevent one system, with a high EM output, from frying another system next to it ...). But he was also involved in Beyond Visual Range/Over The Horizon radar, which, again, crudly put, used the high stratosphere, to bounce the radar waves off of, and back down to detect what may be, naturally, beyond visual range, friend or foe. As that stuff was pretty near Top Secret at the time, especially as he was over here, in the UK, co-ordinating with the US in improving Ballistic Missile Early Warning systems.
It was much later, in the 1990's, he told me this story, especially as I did High School physics, and the Molecular Cell Biology I was doing, at a Technical College, especially celluar respiration (energy input/output), involves a surprising amount of physics, due to the overlap between chemistry and physics.
So, as I kinda understood what he was involved in - or, rather, the bits he _could_ tell me he was involved in - he heard this, from the States, and so told me ...
During the early testing phase, especially of the space based lazer systems, the problem was, and remains, how much energy you need to blow up a third stage of a nuclear missile, especially one carrying multiple warheads, at near enough the top of the ballistic curve, in flight, to say nothing about how to generate, if not store, that amount of energy.
One day, some 'pencil neck' - can't remember if it was a Civilian policy wonk, or an Air Force Officer, either promoted to flying a desk at the Pentagon - turned up at one of the main research laboratories to find out the progress. To my best of my recollection, the story went like this:
"So, how are things going ...?"
"It's difficult, but we think we're making some steady, but decent, progress ..."
"Excellent ... so, where are you ..."
"Well, with current physics, we estimate we can build a lazer emitter with the power of 10^10 Watts. Trouble is, our calculations show to shoot down a third stage ... that will take 10^20 Watts, at least ..."
"Good ... that means you're halfway there ..." ...
I nearly fell out the chair I was sitting in, and laughed until my ribs hurt, and had a coughing fit. Those of you whom understand physics will also laugh until you bust a rib ... just don't bill me for surgery ...
For those not familiar, 10^10 = 10, followed by an additional 10 zeros. 10^20 = 10, followed by _20_ zeros.
In other words, that's not double ... but rather 10 times what those physicists _thought_ they can produce, at a theoretical level, meaning well beyond they thought possible, or feasible. Whom ever that guy was, even if an officer in the USAF, should've remembered at least his High School Physics classes ...
Fortunately, thanks to the Regan/Gorbachev talks, and the bilateral treaties, SDI was canceled ... but not before God-knows how many tens, if not hundreds of _billions_ of $'s was sank into it ... except nobody truly knows how much was _actually_ spent, especially as, a few years back, the Pentagon made a release saying there is $1 _Trillion_ missing, in unaccounted spending ...
Funny old world ...
😲 It's Friday!!!
Interesting video Tyler very interesting as I said in chat during Monday's stream I have always found the science behind Star Trek tech intriguing and my fave type of phaser is the split beam phaser rifle.
The laser guns in Ben 10 Alien Force are even more crazy powerful. It is said in the first episode of the show that it can output 600 gigawatts continuously for 35 minutes.
There's also a Heat setting, used to warm rock, wood etc for emergency use. We see Kirk and others use Heat to create a kind of campfire or heat coffee, etc.
That's just classic Star fleet. Every thing is multipurpose.
I think that's the lowest setting, even below "Stun."
We could technically make a phaser that is just on the heat setting today
I worked on Beam Experiment Aboard Rocket, glad it got mentioned
A very good presentation. Thank you.
New Video!!!! Let’s go!!!!!!!
I like the idea of deciphering the concepts of how things might work and how they could be developed for use.
As a kid, I so wanted a proper model of a phaser and communicator from the original series. I even built one from cardboard using the scaled photo in the old Star Trek soft cover book.
I just always liked how you can put the little dinky phaser onto the bigger pistol phaser, and then put THAT on a rifle!
Set phasers on shake and bake.
it was the sigh and the “My government is going at one thing” was the part that sent me😂😂😂
Great episode, well done and well researched! Thanks!
Thank you so much!
I always wondered why they didn’t get way too hot to handle after firing, but I suppose the tech manual invoked superconducting to explain that, all the energy has gone into the beam and none into waste (or almost none).
Of course, Trek has a very dubious relationship with heat management and radiators anyway, such as invoking subspace to explain where the waste heat from the ship goes, or saying that it’s simply funnelled out of the warp nacelles (somehow). So I don’t expect them to ever really address how the phasers don’t overheat.
Appreciated the discussion of real world laser and particle weapons, and their comparative energy outputs. Though would have liked to see a conversion from watts to joules about the Navy laser emplacements. It’s relatively trivial for me to do, given joules are watts times time (or watts are joules over time), but it still would’ve been nice (especially since I’d have to look up how long the laser pulses last).
I’ve liked the idea one science writer suggested on using metal dust blown between an input and output channel to release heat into space. Something similar might be used between the nacelles of a star ship.
But ships using only one makes me think it just flies from the front to the rear along the nacelle sides instead, or something similar. (Maybe using a normal radiator to expel heat to space along the sides.)
Now considering the specified power outputs used you have to wonder what their power source are. Perhaps a microgram of antimatter like in the warp engines? Or use some of the nadion particles for the power to the weapon? These particles might be unstable when removed from their containment. Closest comparison would be to gunpowder in bullets.
In the Novel of the Invaders, a constructed ray weapon over heated and the alien/invader had to drop it from his hand. Good book, if you can find a copy I'd recommend it 👍
@@walterlyzohub8112 there’s various ideas to reject heat in fluids (or a flow of tiny solid particles like you said), such as is done in nuclear-thermal rocket designs (such as in its most extreme form, the “nuclear lightbulb” which we have nowhere near the materials science to make without melting itself 😁) but part of the issue with your (slash the author’s) disposable metal heatsink proposal is you need to carry even more mass to throw away long-term versus just carrying the mass of the radiators…
One could maaaybe argue that TOS-era warp drives rejected all their waste heat inside the ejected warp plasma, but TNG-era ships recirculate and recrystallise that plasma back into dilithium, which raises some problems. Perhaps they can increase the heat load per plasma particle dramatically to cover the tiny amount emitted but.. ehh…
@@55Quirll from a cursory search I can’t find a book called “Novel of the Invaders”, and far far too many called “The Invaders”. Do you have an author name?
Where did you see a mention of heat being dumped into subspace?
My headcanon is that the glow we see from the impulse engines is actually radiated ship's waste heat. From the descriptions of how they work the actual exhaust should be glowing in either X-rays or deep infrared, not visible red, and the glow barely changes whether ships are at a dead stop or accelerating.
All I have to say to this:
Doc: _"1.21 jigowatts!!!"_
Put a phaser in my hand and I'll just hold down the button and wave it around like a flashlight until I've hit all my targets. Starfleet officers have such steady aim.
Oh man, glad this just popped up. I've been hooked on your vids lately. 😄
The idea of vaporizing a person is an interesting proposition. Turning one entire human into vapor in a matter of fractions of a second leaves me with one question: "What's that smell?"
Very grounded explanation, thank you!
I knew you were going to say "more manageable".
I invented plasma coherency in 1997. It was a tiny device. Later, after a lot of loss, I got enough gear to build and develop the first kind of coherency that works. This is not just an electrical arc. It's literally a beam. My budget still holds me back. However this is the idea I showed the world. For the first time, without lasers or use of radio active materials, I figured out a way to make plasma into a beam. That does not "go to ground". How it looks is a bit messy, and several others tried to take the credit from me. However it's finally been done. With a good lab I could reduce the messy output to a beam that can perform almost all of the effects the "phaser" can. In the movies and some episodes, phasers are considered "coherent plasma". This is my life's work. It's allready been released by me. Sadly, I have been unable to make any money off of this incredible breakthrough. I pray someday this will happen. I know others are working on this who have the funding. Take a look. This can be expanded to go 20ft or even miles with the right gear and dynamics. KF7DFP.
Very interesting, thank you.
Perhaps cover klingon and other types of disruptors?
What gets me is how they put all this tech into a weapon, but never bothered with putting sights on it. All this energy and you can only throw it in the general direction of your target.
I understood phasers beamed a harmonic energy in phase with matter that disrupted the coherence of atoms like a harmonic sound in phase with the vibration frequency of a glass breaks the glass. Heating to vaporize pumps energy into the material making its particles move in random directions so violently they can't hold onto each other. A phaser causes the particles to move in a violent way so the particles can't hold on by making them move in phase with their frequency without all the wasted energy of random motion caused by heating. According to the episode "The Omega Glory" 4 phasers killed thousands of Yangs. So they have a power source that can cause a significant explosion. But modern batteries can do that, and they use that energy efficiently. They can also be set to cause random motion to heat rocks. Probably uses more energy to heat rocks than to vaporize them. But that doesn't explain where the atoms go after they break up. Although not a hot exploding gas like if they were heated they still have to be there even though cold. The broken glass is still there even though broken. If it breaks the atoms into quarks they could explode in a cloud of neutrinos that visibly vanish, and pass through their surroundings. Some photons not effected by the beam escape in a flash of light. In effect all the virtual photons being exchanged by quantum mechanical electron interactions are free to become real photons because the electrons were turned into neutrinos which don't interact except rarely, and according to the rules of quantum mechanics only electrons can absorb, and emit photons. neutrinos can't.
Thanks for this awesome video. But at the very end of your video you missed a great opportunity. You should have said “set your phasers on STUNNING.” Lol
I always thought that the actor just held the phaser still and the special effects team did the rest. 🤣👍
I'll have to commend you on your choice of uniform tunic... I was always partial to Scotty and Engineering, since I'm an Aeronautical Engineer myself.... no not a Rocket Scientist! I enjoyed this video and hope to see more.... be safe.
9:15: The 'lasers' in star wars are actually plasma, not 'lasers'. Blaster is short for 'plasma' or 'particle' blaster. Most designs for such weapons do feature lasers, but those are for projecting the plasma.
Great Video.
Thank you for sharing this! 🖖
In the ST:TOS season 1 episode The Galileo Seven, Scotty at one point drains the power from hand phasers to provide power to the shuttlecraft, commenting that it takes time to drain a phaser. Since then, I've adopten an opinion that shuttlecraft and had phasers store warp plasma as their energy source. 23rd century shuttles at least had a limited range, even thought they had FTL capability.
Really well done and informative!
I always liked the original series phasers. They looked quite good back then and hold up well today. I always wanted an accurate model of one but never did get one.
Great video, as aways!
Thank you so much!
Outstanding work dude, really good video. 👍 👍. Looking forward to a breakdown of other weapon systems used by rival species, groups and individuals. Also, shields and how they work would be cool, unless you already did and I'm not seeing it on your page.
-LL&P-
I have to give it a 👍. I grew up with the original Star Trek and was (am) a big fan of TNG. I've always wondered about this subject...thank you.
Hey man, love your videos, always indepth informative and relaxing! Keep up the great work Bro!
It should be noted that in TOS Episode 1 and 2 they were using Hand Lasers (named in the briefing room scene ep1) as per dialog. Episode 2 we do see hand lasers being used alongside Phaser Rifles. Almost suggesting Phaser Tech was new and being miniaturized. Interesting note Professor Crater (The Man Trap) and Dr Korby (What Are Little Girls Made Of?) both had Hand Lasers. This is all they would have had accessed to when they left.
Nice! Great video! Thank you!
This video earned a sub. Thank you
This bugs me not just Star Trek, but a lot of sci-fi have projectile weapons considered more primitive. They're still very effective.
I believe there was one episode featuring a projectile and a transporter built-in. A weapon originally for use on the Borg.
But Boring, I want multicolor energy beams!!
The Federation is self-congratulatory to the point of being arrogant jerks. They act as if everyone throughout spacetime had access to Fed tech and just didn't use it because they were backward cretins.
I'm not sure if Chekov actually believed he could step out of the way of a .45 Long Colt, but I'm sure that girl was thinking "wow, this guy's more full of BS than my daddy's stable."
@@subraxas They don't even have to be that high tech a firearm of today would be fine.
@@subraxas as we learned in Lower Decks, navigational deflectors are used to push aside ftl objects, including asteroids
This kind of puts a damper on pointing my finger at someone and going "pew pew pew!"
Very interesting, Tyler. But now you got me interested in the working of shields… Any plans for the weekend? 😉
I geeked out a little too much watching this. I watched a NASCAR video after just to balance it out… that said, a great video! Thanks
Quickly becoming one of my favorite Trek channels 🖖 I think you are the person for the job in exploring something that has bothered me ever since 5 year old me left the theater after watching ST: Generations. There are so many silly "we just don't talk about it" moments and happenings in ST, but this one has bothered me so much and I cant even explain why. It's about the nexus and Picard. There are two Picards ever since this, right? There has to be! How can there not be! Two Dr.Sorans for that matter! Two of EVERYONE ON EARTH...which quickly sadly became 1 again after Dr. Sorans mission success....But him and Picard went into the nexus! Picard and Kirk just seemingly exit the nexus at will at thier own chosen point in time, also seemingly being the only 2 to be aware everyone just died.....Are these clones? Is there a Dr.Soran still in the nexus?
" *Picard Season 2 Spoilers* "
And I'm not even gonna begin to try and wrap my head around the implications of Picards most recent episode, giving how Dr. Soran too is an Elorian. Being able to Nexus hop AND summon Q, really put's him WAY at the top of Treks most powerful beings. And it certainly warrants some thinking of how a unclimactic phaser fight was the thing that took him down.
It sounds like someone really wanted the initials to spell out Marauder.
Backronyms are extremely common in military and aerospace :)
@@kaitlyn__L Sorry, I was making an obscure Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. reference. Maybe too obscure.
@@billweasley1382 I will make a more obscure man from U>N>C>L>E> reference. Napoleon Solo.
one bit of tech that is already coming about is not to produce the waste heat at all, or very little. essentially making sure all or most of the energy is being directed is useful energy.
Very interesting. Thank you
Be careful bro. Im glad you made it to the end of the episode
In the January 12th 2009 issue of Aviation Week and Space Technology magazine there was an article on real world Phasers. Phase array lasers. Up to 1,500 fiber optical fibers each generating a single photon emission...
Nicely done.
I really enjoyed all your videos
Always look forward to your videos.
Varon-T disruptor. I'd have a fun time using one.
Excellent vid.
As the Trek universe matures, what comes after phasers? That could be a good story in itself.
@@daxbashir6232 Yes, you’re right, but what if someone on their own decides, hey! I can build a better phaser….. and something happens that this new phaser causes an imbalance in the universe….
But the weapon as it currently is is more than adequate to get the job done.
The redirecting of the heat into the beam being emitted, possibly siphoning the heat as part of its operation, would address the heating issue. Just need to develop the technology!
Use the heat energy as a source to generate the power to recharge an energy weapon.
I have to say I am really loving your channel. I become more of a fan with each video.
I saw someone talk about recoil on firing a laser? Lasers have no recoil, since there is no explosion in such a weapon!
Thanks Tyler
Sweet ending. I love the LLAP ending
Just a reminder that several people have created real plasma weapons; lightsabers, and in a few years phasers will most likely become a thing. And don't forget the phaser rifle from 'Where No Man Has Gone Before'.
Little known fact. Star Trek original series phaser was the cigarette pack sized concealed unit. That snapped into the pistol shaped booster, and that pistol shaped one snapped into the rifle shaped booster.
The best use of phasers is to feed hungry energy-based beings on the prowl for a free meal. "Captain, that thing LIKES phasers!!!"
I love the Type II Phaser of TOS the most even though, with it's lack of trigger guard, makes it inherently unsafe.
Maybe the inventor thought of that and like how I use my thumbprint to unlock my iPad, the Phaser would only fire with the appropriate thumbprint/skin sensitive pad!
I have ALWAYS been enamored of the simple but effective Type 1 hand phaser. The idea of a device that can "knock out the side of the building" yet fit inconspicuously in your inside pants' pocket always made them my weapon of choice. Additionally, they really gave no tell-tale visual clue that you were actually carrying a weapon of such awsome power. I often considered the challenge to future law enforcement agencies trying to pin down a potential murder when the body could just be "gone."
The Side Arms used in The Cage are referred to as "Lasers."
These same arms appear in Where No Man Has Gone Before, with the addition of the Phaser Rifle (referred to on screen) making an appearance.
The same Prop appears in The Man Trap and in What Little Girls Are Made Of where Kirk refers to it as a "Phaser Gun."
I don't want the phaser so much as I'd want the battery that could power that phaser. Good lord could you imagine the failure state of a short?
*The battery!* 💡
That is a darned good point!
I bet the reason they don't have personal force fields in that age is the same reason we don't use jetpacks today;
The power source ( battery /compressed air) would be just outright _too heavy_ for a person to wear.
Still, a combat situation is not the same as a domestic gun fight.
Any police officer will tell you that a shootout lasts something like less than ten or fifteen seconds.
Maybe they have batteries that can power personal force fields for use by domestic law enforcement agents. ("Cops").
@@TheNoiseySpectator it's also possible that the whole hull of a starship is built around helping the shield emmitter do it's job, a person moves around quite a lot and is very squishy, so the field itself could be dagernous to exposed skin. Power wise? you're correct in that a shootout tends to be very very short. So I'd imagine the handheld phasers (especially the small pocketable models) don't need as large a power source for their use. The rifles-being battlefield weapons-certainly would.
But even the tiny StarTreck equivalent to a saturday night special seems to be able to fire dozens of shots in the MJ range. Current Lithium batteries burn REAL good if they fail,. given that.... Ff that phaser battery failed, it'd be like a Mk82 or JDAM blowing up at a minimum. lotta energy density there.
What about the fact that phasers can be intentionally overloaded? They are all basically carrying mini reactors.
Releasing all the energy in one go is a thing. Capacitors blow all the time, and can be dangerous. There would be no star trek build up to overload, except as a deliberate delay.
Imagine the brave souls who carried the early phasers into action.
"Okay, gentlemen, let's try not to dwell on the fact that each of us is carrying a crude prototype of a miniature nuclear accelerator in his hand."
@@icecold9511 See recent "Forgotton weapons". A guy is marketing a hand held capacitor based rail gun. Its about as powerful as an 18th century pistol.
There is an experimental ship based laser system that was fag performance expectation when I read about it. Though it has to be mounted to any ship, it would take something like a Zumwalt Destroyer which can support the high power requirements.
I believe it hit somewhat over 500KW and was aiming for a MW. Will have to see whatever happened to this project.
Basically, phasers are a really OP toaster. You have a setting that barely does anything that doesn't get used often all the way up to a setting that no one in their right mind would ever use :D
I can't find any shops selling phasers in my local village that I can afford. So I'll have to stick with using a pea shooter.
I made multiple attempts to make one of these "phasers" when I was about 12yrs old, (early to mid 70's) I melted and tried to fuse together untold amounts of black plastic extracted from "other things" around the house to no avail, despite my collection of burns and blisters on my fingers, not to mention getting yelled at here and there for "playing with fire"............. there were just NO acceptable phaser toys at that time.............. I know, right!!
Did you ever notice, st, tos type 2 phasers incorporate a type 1 phaser.
At 0:57, the ‘barrel’ looks like a PL259 coax plug.
Some big questions are: What kind of power source could power your standard phaser sidearm? How will they miniaturize it?
According to the original TOS Franz Joseph tech manual . Phaser batteries use "Sarium Krellide" as the power source.
A reference I think to the Krell, the extinct alien race from the movie Forbidden Planet. Made in 1956, still a great movie that holds up today.
Any battery or power source powerful enough to make a phaser work would, in effect, be a bomb of sorts. And here we are today worrying about a lithium battery catching fire. Image those.
Another great video
As superconductor tech advances, the reduction of parasitic heating would severely reduce need for cooling anyway.
I remember one of the episodes of the Star Trek TOAS dealing with a weapon that did what I originally thought phasers did. Namely, convert matter to energy. Later when I learned more about e=mc2 I realized this was impractical.
I have a handheld "not a laser gun" I built. 300 Watt output, runs off a Milwaukee tool M18 battery. works amazing! Heat buildup though, yes the #1 issue i'm having. 90% of its internals is heat sync. I can do 3-5 second shots. About 8 in a row before it needs cooldown time. though, I don't have a fan in it yet. I will be doing that. Possibly also a Peltier heat pump, such as for use on a CPU. So at the very least I won't fry the $600 diode.
Are Coalescents the organism from The Thing?
Weapons in the multi-megajoule range aren't a pipe dream anymore. But they sure do demonstrate the difference between fact and fiction. The phaser's impact energy should be equivalent to 2500 AK47's firing at point blank range at the same time. The damage would be absolutely catastrophic, but its effect would radiate outward. That is, while someone's torso could be instantly sublimated into gases or plasma, the idea of vaporizing a target's body to the extremities, while leaving the environment untouched, is the real pipedream here.
"Bullets are primitive, therefore it's the only weapon that can kill a borg easily".
You can kill two or three dones before they get useless
@@rommdan2716 how? They don't have a frequency. Or would they just use a simple shield instead?
@@kiedranFan2035 A simple shield would be more than enough, now you have a useless weapon that cannot change it's frequencies because it doesn't have one.
But that was in the holodeck. Holodecks have killed more Fed personnel than the Dominion war. Why not Borg?
@@stevenscott2136 A bullet is an energy weapon. 1/2 mv squared =kinetic energy. One would assume a Star Trek shield can absorb that energy as ray guns have much more energy.
great video! live long and prosper🖖
I was talking to a friend a while ago on how starfleet could destroy the Borg everytime they meet, they would need a psudorandom frequency generator, meaning, each shot, would be at a completely random frequency, making the Borg's "reaction" armour obsolete. A more primitive model I have is one that uses a rotating wheel with different sized and shaped Crystals.