why are lasers better than neutral particle beams?

jaeger115 · Post by **jaeger115** » 2003-01-15 06:28pm

From my last poll, more people voted for lasers over neutrally-charged particle beams for best space weapon. Naturally, nukes took the lion's share, but I'd like to know why lasers are superior to particle beams.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2003-01-15 06:34pm

They disperse a lot eaiser than lasers do, even if neutral. They may have more oomph and not be redirected like laser beams (unless x-ray and above) but lasers are probably easier to do and ever so slightly faster.

NPBs would still be viable of course, can't see why they wouldn't.

Enlightenment · Post by **Enlightenment** » 2003-01-15 06:37pm

Range. Neutral particle beams are extremely destructive but unlike lasers they can't be effective at extreme (multi AU) ranges. X-ray lasers could in principle be used to destroy unprepared targets half way across the solar system. Neutral particle beams are much more limited and would only be useful at short ranges.

SWPIGWANG · Post by **SWPIGWANG** » 2003-01-15 06:38pm

c > lamer weaponz

jaeger115 · Post by **jaeger115** » 2003-01-15 06:52pm

Range. Neutral particle beams are extremely destructive but unlike lasers they can't be effective at extreme (multi AU) ranges. X-ray lasers could in principle be used to destroy unprepared targets half way across the solar system. Neutral particle beams are much more limited and would only be useful at short ranges.

So the typical space warship arnesal would be to use lasers for extreme long-range combat, NPBs for battleship-style and anti-fighter combat (assuming these ships have THEL systems that can destroy incoming nukes) and nukes for the unprotected targets or la-a-viva Sheridan at the Battle of Corina 6?

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2003-01-15 06:53pm

Howbout an electron+proton beam?

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2003-01-15 06:55pm

Shinova wrote:Howbout an electron+proton beam?

Still a particle beam, but in this case a charged one, thought the two particle types would cancel out, I doubt it'd be any better.

jaeger115 · Post by **jaeger115** » 2003-01-15 06:55pm

Howbout an electron+proton beam?

How would it deal out damage? Ionizing the target, I'd bet, but the beam wouldn't be as tight as NPBs.

ClaysGhost · Post by **ClaysGhost** » 2003-01-15 07:46pm

Assuming the "atom laser" principle isn't extended to neutral particle beams of significant power, the problems with beam divergence are correctly stated; the laser simply has far greater range. Further, hard X-ray and gamma ray lasers will exceed the particle beam in penetrating power (absorbed less than massive particle beams by hull materials) but disperse their energy over a larger volume inside the ship, whereas I'd expect NPBs to dump their energy into a much smaller volume (basically, the area of the hull that they strike). Maybe you could crudely divide them into laser = anti-personnel and electronics, NPB = armour/hull buster, but if you can destroy computers and fatally irradiate the ship's crew with a laser at long range, you have no need for NPBs. Besides, high power lasers will also have pretty drastic effects on hull materials anyway.

Graeme Dice · Post by **Graeme Dice** » 2003-01-15 07:51pm

Enlightenment wrote:Range. Neutral particle beams are extremely destructive but unlike lasers they can't be effective at extreme (multi AU) ranges. X-ray lasers could in principle be used to destroy unprepared targets half way across the solar system. Neutral particle beams are much more limited and would only be useful at short ranges.

Good luck getting a laser focused tightly enough that it won't disperse to an unusable intensity over that kind of range.

Seggybop · Post by **Seggybop** » 2003-01-15 08:13pm

What about a particle beam like Tesla claimed to have designed that did not disperse over huge distances and caused massive damage?

jaeger115 · Post by **jaeger115** » 2003-01-15 08:16pm

Provide the link so I can look it up. Tesla's stuff are hard to come by these days, and most of them are just pseudoscience.

Seggybop · Post by **Seggybop** » 2003-01-15 08:28pm

This is the most reputable record I could find.
http://uforeview.tripod.com/tesladeathray2.html
I've also read things that range from swiping the beam across a wing of planes and killing them all easily to having caused the 35MT explosion in Tunguska, Siberia.
Also note that the reason in the article linked that the range is 250 is that the beam is line of sight and can't hit things through the earth.

ClaysGhost · Post by **ClaysGhost** » 2003-01-15 08:32pm

Seggybop wrote:What about a particle beam like Tesla claimed to have designed that did not disperse over huge distances and caused massive damage?

"Gentlemen! I have designed and constructed a particle beam that does not disperse over huge distances and causes massive damage! I believe it will be of great utility in beating the living hell out of enemy starships in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries!"

"Stick to electricity, Nikola".

ClaysGhost · Post by **ClaysGhost** » 2003-01-15 08:42pm

Seggybop wrote:This is the most reputable record I could find.
http://uforeview.tripod.com/tesladeathray2.html
I've also read things that range from swiping the beam across a wing of planes and killing them all easily to having caused the 35MT explosion in Tunguska, Siberia.
Also note that the reason in the article linked that the range is 250 is that the beam is line of sight and can't hit things through the earth.

Curious that the US chose to research, design and build nuclear weapons when such a cheap option with a famous proponent who claimed to know exactly how to construct this death ray was available. After all, US carriers would never have to fear Japanese aircraft with a weapon capable of engaging aircraft as described. Also, NPBs should be absorbed by the atmosphere to a great extent (presumably producing a deal of heating in the process if the available yield is on the order of megatonnes). I think it's more likely to be a "Populace worried about Nazi airforce? Reassure them with 'We have Death Ray!' newspaper story" device than an NPB.

SyntaxVorlon · Post by **SyntaxVorlon** » 2003-01-15 09:08pm

I almost looked at that sight but then I saw the world Tunguska and I knew that it was crap.
Tunguska was proved a while ago to have been a meteor, they mucked out the bog at the center and found a chunk of Iron.
Tesla may have been working on or created a working example but to make a particle beam really effective would require a great deal more than 8e7 Volts.

jaeger115 · Post by **jaeger115** » 2003-01-15 09:22pm

http://uforeview.tripod.com/tesladeathray2.html

umm... this site looks like it'd been designed by wanking fanboys.

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kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2003-01-15 10:09pm

neutral particle beam means neutron gun. In other words, the worst youll get is radiation poisoning among the crew then you get blasted because theyve just shot you with a gigawatt laser with a beam cross section of 1 cm^2. Youre dead and theyre just going to get cancer. Maybe. Youd have to swatch the entire ship and still pray that its not got led walls. THATS why neutral particle beams are shit. Lasers and news are radiative, they heat the object up not knock nuclei apart and cause genetic mutation etc. You might as well use an equivalent mass of bullets instead. atleast then the destructive power will be caused by impact energy.

jaeger115 · Post by **jaeger115** » 2003-01-15 10:17pm

neutral particle beam means neutron gun. In other words, the worst youll get is radiation poisoning among the crew then you get blasted because theyve just shot you with a gigawatt laser with a beam cross section of 1 cm^2. Youre dead and theyre just going to get cancer. Maybe. Youd have to swatch the entire ship and still pray that its not got led walls. THATS why neutral particle beams are shit. Lasers and news are radiative, they heat the object up not knock nuclei apart and cause genetic mutation etc. You might as well use an equivalent mass of bullets instead. atleast then the destructive power will be caused by impact energy.

And everyone thinks that particle beams are superior because they're been buying into too much sci-fi.

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2003-01-15 10:23pm

shooting atoms might do some good, but it really is of no use. if it were, we'd have anti airplane guns shooting particle beams right now. its simply better to just use lasers and coilguns in space.

Besides, how are you going to get the particles up to speed? not a particle accelerator, they work on charged particles not neutral particles. magnetics and electrostatics wont push your particle beam along. How much energy do yuo think a high speed low mass beam will do? Little, thats how much.

Shrike · Post by **Shrike** » 2003-01-16 03:45am

kojikun wrote:neutral particle beam means neutron gun. In other words, the worst youll get is radiation poisoning among the crew then you get blasted because theyve just shot you with a gigawatt laser with a beam cross section of 1 cm^2. Youre dead and theyre just going to get cancer. Maybe. Youd have to swatch the entire ship and still pray that its not got led walls. THATS why neutral particle beams are shit. Lasers and news are radiative, they heat the object up not knock nuclei apart and cause genetic mutation etc. You might as well use an equivalent mass of bullets instead. atleast then the destructive power will be caused by impact energy.

Nein. A neutral particle beam fires uncharged atoms to inflict damage, not neutrons. Besides which, at the energy levels most space weapons would likely have, you'd be vaporised long before you suffered direct radiation poisoning.

Of course, poisoning due to secondary effects from all these nifty-keen death rays is entirely possible as well.

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2003-01-16 09:20am

shrike, either way, neutrons or atoms, accelerating them to speed is rather difficult if its not charged. The mass of the beam, if its of any speed, would be too small to do anything. Its too light to actually cause lots of heat, but light enough to knock atoms around and change chemical makeup and shit. thats the problem.

you cant accelerate such a small mass to speed and end up with a death beam. And the appropriate mass to actually cause the damage would be large enough to resist particle accelerator type propulsion. You would need a metal slug and a magnet to get any particle accelerator like effects, but that setup with the magnets and slugs is a gauss gun.

Shrike · Post by **Shrike** » 2003-01-16 10:25am

kojikun wrote:shrike, either way, neutrons or atoms, accelerating them to speed is rather difficult if its not charged. The mass of the beam, if its of any speed, would be too small to do anything. Its too light to actually cause lots of heat, but light enough to knock atoms around and change chemical makeup and shit. thats the problem.

you cant accelerate such a small mass to speed and end up with a death beam. And the appropriate mass to actually cause the damage would be large enough to resist particle accelerator type propulsion. You would need a metal slug and a magnet to get any particle accelerator like effects, but that setup with the magnets and slugs is a gauss gun.

Actually, a NPB works just like a CPB with an extra two steps. The first is charging the atoms (let's say deuterium) with an extra electron as they go into the acceleration ladder, this gives them a charge which means that they can then be accelerated via conventional magnets, just like a 'normal' particle accelerator. Then, at the muzzle, the final step is to strip the extra electron off, leaving you with a beam of neutral (and thus non-repelling) atoms travelling at relativistic speeds.

And yes, you can make a death ray out of a small amount of beam mass, if it's going fast enough. The highest energy particle ever recorded had something like 50 Joules of energy. For ONE particle. Two grams of deuterium (one mole) accelerated to that speed would deliver 3E25 joules of energy - 7.2 Exatons of yield, more or less. That's enough to ruin anyone's day. Not only would such a weapon have incredible penetrative powers, it would cause a ridiculous amount of secondary radiation.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2003-01-16 10:58am

Damn, Shrike beat me to it.

Particle Beams are actually MORE destructive than lasers and are favoured as part of SDI over lasers (chiefly in space) due to the fact that they impart their energy straight into the molecular structure. Would you like a shit load of high energy helium nuclei or electrons or protons smashing into your hull? I know I wouldn't, it would instantly explode the whole armour plate and the heat and radiation would be intense. A laser works by heating generally which helps in cutting, particle beams are subtly different, they may be slower and less penetrating and susceptible to dispersion more, but they are terrifyingly powerful.

Look at what lightning strikes do to vehicles or trees or even houses.

Lasers would make good CIWS and penetration or cutting weapons however.

http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airc ... berds.html

http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/program/npb.htm

http://www.nasm.si.edu/galleries/gal114 ... sec630.htm

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2003-01-16 01:39pm

Deuterium is an isotope of hydrogen, not a hydrogen ion.

And if you can built a 3e25 joule particle beam, you could easilly create a gigawatt laser which would be cheaper, faster, and carries the same energy as the particle beam.

you say the beam has more energy? well if you can put that energy into the particle beam you can put it into a laser too. And because lasers have superiority over particle beams of equal energy, a laser is better then a particle beam. Not only that, but lasers dont need ammunition.

The fact remains that if you were to fire 1 gram of particles at relativistic speeds, you can do damange, but the same energy in laser form is superior.