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real life raygun

created by adamwolf

(thing) by adamwolf (6.3 y) (print)   ?   (I like it!) Wed Jun 21 2000 at 23:21:38

A ray gun that can stop people in their tracks without harming them may sound like science fiction, but some experts believe it could soon be reality.

The gun is designed to zap its victim with an electric current, using a laser to carry the charge along a beam of ultraviolet light.

The light particles, called photons, would create a path of ions through the air that will be capable of conducting electricity up to a distance of about 100 metres (330 feet).

When the current hits someone, it would interfere with the tiny electrical charges that control the victim's muscles, making movement impossible.

But vital organs like the heart and diaphram would not be affected because they are protected by a greater thickness of body tissue.


seen on BBC
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This is what i have saved on my hd. I will check to see if i can find some links.

(idea) by bitter_engineer (6.5 y) (print)   ?   (I like it!) 1 C! Thu Jun 22 2000 at 0:06:32

Dry skin has a very high resistance. To get through it, you're going to need a pretty powerful laser that will need to be sustained on the muscle for as long as you want to keep the person immobilized. Too much of this, and your target is going to start getting cooked.

The bag of ionized water that the skin keeps in shape has a very low resistance. If the laser hits an arm or the head, the shortest path to ground may well be through the heart and diaphram, which is undesirable.

I'll believe it when I see a URL pointing to something coherent.


(idea) by Wormer (4.4 y) (print)   ?   (I like it!) Thu Jun 22 2000 at 3:01:45

The concept works by using a pair of LASERs operating at about 193 nanometers. When the weapon is fired, the LASERs ignite and create two ionized particle trails between the weapon and the target. The ionized particle trail has much less resistance than normal air, allowing current to flow towards the target.

This idea is actually nothing new. I had this idea back when I was a junior in high school, and that was without any kind of external references about this specific topic or really even knowing that much about LASERs. Ground Control mentions that he had the idea too.

The major problem in producing these things is getting a LASER diode which puts out enough power and emits light at the correct frequency. I would suspect, however, that these things have been built and are probably being carried by people. For obvious reasons, nobody who created the necessary LASER emitters would publish information about them or sell them because they really only have one purpose, and that would tip the police off that the person probably has one of these. Anyone who had built the actual weapon would best not make it known either, for the same reasons: they don't want the Department of Defense or the police breaking down their door.

It's also interesting to note that if one of these were used, the target would just loose muscular control and then would probably be taken down by more conventional means, meaning that the use of this stun weapon wouldn't be known.


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chaos

Alcor It is now illegal to die Ground Control BBC
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