Shield: How Farfetched?

[Haruko]

When TechTV still existed before one of the most tragic occurences in television history took place, that being that a merge was made with G4 before TechTV was eventually rid of altogether, a show called The Screensavers had a guest who was a scientist, if I recall correctly, and a discussion took place whereas Leo Laporte asked the guest about just how farfetched it would be for there to be lightsabers as shown in Star Wars. The answer was pretty surprising, as he made it sound not too farfetched.

Now my question is: how about shields like we've seen in way too many sci-fi movies, shows, et cetera?

[LordShaithis]

Someone will come along and say "Sure lightsabers are possible, plasma bla bla magnetic bla bla bla!" And then I'll say "That's nice and all, but built with current technology, your 'lightsaber' will be the size of an office building."

[defanatic]

THat, and anyone who could carry it would definitely be shot a lot (it's a target!).

I don't think shields are particularly effective tools in the modern world. Especially if you have explosives to fight them (grenade launchers? That shield should make a lot of drag). Or even armour penetrating rounds.

[NoXion]

Someone will come along and say "Sure lightsabers are possible, plasma bla bla magnetic bla bla bla!" And then I'll say "That's nice and all, but built with current technology, your 'lightsaber' will be the size of an office building."

I always thought that the feasability of science fiction technologies factored in a reasonable extrapolation of current technologies and was not simply limited to what we can do now.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

When TechTV still existed before one of the most tragic occurences in television history took place, that being that a merge was made with G4 before TechTV was eventually rid of altogether, a show called The Screensavers had a guest who was a scientist, if I recall correctly, and a discussion took place whereas Leo Laporte asked the guest about just how farfetched it would be for there to be lightsabers as shown in Star Wars. The answer was pretty surprising, as he made it sound not too farfetched.

Now my question is: how about shields like we've seen in way too many sci-fi movies, shows, et cetera?

Don't we already have a thread on this here? Oh yes, yes we do.

Okay, so it's not a thread about shields, per-se, but the fact that a plasma confined with tuned EM fields can absorb certain types of EM radiation, as well as deflect or absorb particle radiations, makes a plasma stealth system a potential candidate for a sci-fi type shield.

A couple of obvious problems exist, though:

A) Creating the sort of tuned EM field necessary to keep the plasma around the craft, where it can do some good . . . which nobody has been able to do yet, if I remember right. As was said in the last thread, the Russians claim to have done plasma stealth, but they tend to claim a lot of things which aren't necessarily true.

B) Such a system would not only absorb incoming radiation, but outgoing radiation as well. So, no radio communications, and no radar. And certainly no weapons based around particles (including large collections of particles, like missiles) or certain kinds of lasers (MASERS, namely.)

So as a shield, it would be somewhat less-than-ideal. However, if you could overcome the various technical challenges involved in creating, confining, and maintaining such a sheath, then you could concievably have a system that would serve as a crude shield, as well as reduce your radar profile. Is it feasible though? Not unless you can somehow confine enough plasma around your ship to be useful.

Of course, if you could manipulate the properties of matter and space-time you could create what's called a diode sail which reflects radiation coming from one direction, while passing radiation going the other. While such a system would make a handy solar sail, it also has a fairly obvious military defense application. However, as this requires fine control of space-time itself, it's even less feasible than the "plasma stealth system as a shield" idea.

So the end result is: "While possible in theory, putting it into practice is going to be a real sonofabitch."

[Winston Blake]

Someone will come along and say "Sure lightsabers are possible, plasma bla bla magnetic bla bla bla!" And then I'll say "That's nice and all, but built with current technology, your 'lightsaber' will be the size of an office building."

I always thought that the feasability of science fiction technologies factored in a reasonable extrapolation of current technologies and was not simply limited to what we can do now.

It's the 'reasonable' part that's the trick. Individual definitions of 'reasonable' range from near-future hard-scifi up to the Death Star and the Culture (e.g. the Orion's Arm folks). Shields are one of those things that are easy to imagine but definitely not based on extrapolation of current technologies, just like teleporters, FTL and many other common soft scifi elements.

Of course, occasionally some superficially similar RL technology will pop-up, but quantum 'teleportation' and plasma stealth are far cries from transporters and shields.

[SirNitram]

If you want a shield that does the 'Act like a brick wall which appears with a flip of a switch', in theory, if you have arbitrary control of such things, a sufficiently powerful EM field will act just like a solid object(Remember the amounts of empty space in 'solid matter' and this makes more sense). And as such it'd be damn useful, especially as it would at very least cause the oppositions weapons to detonate away from you.

[Blackwing]

THat, and anyone who could carry it would definitely be shot a lot (it's a target!).

I don't think shields are particularly effective tools in the modern world. Especially if you have explosives to fight them (grenade launchers? That shield should make a lot of drag). Or even armour penetrating rounds.

I think you're thinking of the wrong definition of shield here.

Anyway, to summarise the whole debate this may turn into:

- Yes very usefull against modern weapons
- Not attainable with current technology
- Less effective against potential futuristic weapons (IIRC an EMPulse should either be able to disrupt an EM forcefield or else penetrate it without affecting it and disable the device producing it)

[Ariphaos]

If you want a shield that does the 'Act like a brick wall which appears with a flip of a switch', in theory, if you have arbitrary control of such things, a sufficiently powerful EM field will act just like a solid object(Remember the amounts of empty space in 'solid matter' and this makes more sense). And as such it'd be damn useful, especially as it would at very least cause the oppositions weapons to detonate away from you.

This type of thing is also called a quantum dot, a kind of fake atom that has no protons, just an electron cloud.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Since we only have the ability to make fields powerful enough to levitate frogs and our cold plasma field generators are fairly small and low powered, you'd have to sort out the power generating ability first.

[Winston Blake]

If you want a shield that does the 'Act like a brick wall which appears with a flip of a switch', in theory, if you have arbitrary control of such things, a sufficiently powerful EM field will act just like a solid object(Remember the amounts of empty space in 'solid matter' and this makes more sense). And as such it'd be damn useful, especially as it would at very least cause the oppositions weapons to detonate away from you.

This type of thing is also called a quantum dot, a kind of fake atom that has no protons, just an electron cloud.

IIRC quantum dots are just curious confinements of electrons within semiconductors, so if you want to put quantum dots in the way of enemy firepower you would be putting a bunch of matter there anyway.