Phaser question

[hunter5]

Okay so we know that phasers are not actually vaporizing people they hit, but several times when we see the "vanishing" effect the target in question gives off some smoke like gas. What are your thoughts on this.

P.s. Sorry if this has been done before but I didn't find anything doing a quick search.

[SapphireFox]

My bet is on a powdery residue of the target being kicked up by the energy of the effect, not vapuor per say just un-phasered residue.

[Captain Seafort]

It might be vapour. Just because the effect (obviously) doesn't vaporise the entire mass of the target doesn't mean that it doesn't vaporise any of it.

[Omeganian]

If it works better on destroying the lighter elements, upon the heavier ones (like belt buckles) the effect could be incomplete. Hence - a small residue.

[Picard]

It might be vaporisation, but it might be dematerialisation too (instead of producing vapor, it breaks mollecular links).

[Wyrm]

Are you saying that the subject turns into a monoatomic gas, which has just as many problems as the vaporization hypothesis? Or are you talking about an unknown process by which the guy's matter simply vanishes by all appearances — which, by the way, is something we already gathered and as such adds nothing to the discussion?

[Serafina]

Well, phasers can't completely
-vaporize their target, since that would produce a very hot cloud we never observe, but it would be damn obvious
-break molecular chains, because that would a plasma and even more problematic
-break down the atoms, since that would turn people into nuclear explosions
-other particles only work if they do not interact with matter, neutrinos being the best candicates.

That doesn't say that the phaser can't have some impurities in it. Indeed, if it relies on a chain reaction to transform baryonic matter into neutrinos, that chain reaction could easily be imperfect. The inefficiently used energy would simply turn some of the residue into small amounts of vapor.

[Batman]

We already know phasers can be used to heat rock to incandescence and routinely leave scorch marks so there's clearly a thermal component to phaser fire (or at the very least an OPTIONAL thermal component) so partial vaporization while the vast majority of the target mass is NDF'd away does actually sound highly possible.

[xcatydolenx]

i think that it might be a small bit of vapor that is given off when the subject is first hit with the phaser blast, because it takes a second for them to completely disintegrate from the phaser blast.

[lordofchange13]

people are made of more them one elemant, some gits durned to moleculer dust and some is made in to gas

[Stark]

When do targets give off 'smoke-like gas'? How much of this gas is there?

[Bottlestein]

-other particles only work if they do not interact with matter, neutrinos being the best candicates.

That doesn't say that the phaser can't have some impurities in it. Indeed, if it relies on a chain reaction to transform baryonic matter into neutrinos, that chain reaction could easily be imperfect.

It would be imperfect in a sense, as its impossible. Baryon number has to be conserved just as lepton number, in any normal reaction. The only time its violated (under Standard Model), is if some specific Selection Rule applies to the chiral states of the reaction - and even then, I believe baryon number increases for the products. In short, you can't transform something made up of quarks into "just" neutrinos and antineutrinos by any sort of chain reaction - imperfect/inefficiency doesn't enter into it. And if you have baryons as products, the baryons will form mesons or hadrons (otherwise you get single quarks), and those will have momentum - and all of the consequences of this.

[Temujin]

In the 1953 movie adaptation of War of the Worlds, Doctor Clayton Forrester explained how the Martian skeleton beams worked saying:

It neutralizes mesons somehow. They're the atomic glue holding matter together. Cut across their lines of magnetic force and any object will simply cease to exist.

Assuming this could be done, what effect would we see? Would it be anything like what we see in the movie? And could it be an explanation for what we see phasers do?

[Wyrm]

You'd get a huuuuge fuck-off burst of radiation, as the protons no longer remain bound by the nuclear force and thus zip off to get away from each other. Also, that much radiation in that short amount of time will ionize and heat the air around them, creating a fireball. This is how a nuke generates its own fireball, by the way. You'll end up with a big-ass explosion.

[Batman]

That's looks like a pretty definite 'no' WRT phaser operation then

[Temujin]

You'd get a huuuuge fuck-off burst of radiation, as the protons no longer remain bound by the nuclear force and thus zip off to get away from each other. Also, that much radiation in that short amount of time will ionize and heat the air around them, creating a fireball. This is how a nuke generates its own fireball, by the way. You'll end up with a big-ass explosion.

Thanks. That's kinda what I figured, but I thought I'd throw it out there for someone more knowledgeable in that area to confirm. The movie does show what appears to be heat effects (i.e., scorch marks on the ground where shit was), which is more than Trek, but nothing obviously nothing like what you described.

[Uncluttered]

Well, phasers can't completely
-vaporize their target, since that would produce a very hot cloud we never observe, but it would be damn obvious
-break molecular chains, because that would a plasma and even more problematic
-break down the atoms, since that would turn people into nuclear explosions
-other particles only work if they do not interact with matter, neutrinos being the best candicates.

That doesn't say that the phaser can't have some impurities in it. Indeed, if it relies on a chain reaction to transform baryonic matter into neutrinos, that chain reaction could easily be imperfect. The inefficiently used energy would simply turn some of the residue into small amounts of vapor.

This is the best explanation by far. Too bad the ST writers never actually thought in depth about what their own the fictional technology can do.

Phase particles hitting a low atomic number fuel, such as liquid hydrogen would make a nice cheap impulse drive. Neutrino exhaust is much safer to have around than a fusion torch.

I suppose the reason why not, would be due to inefficiencies with the reaction.

[Temujin]

Too bad the ST writers never actually thought in depth about what their own the fictional technology can do.

Phasers aren't the tech that is badly thought out and portrayed; transporter and replicator tech is an egregious offender as well.

Regarding phasers, I'd rather they just dropped the disintegrate mode and went with a blaster style effect.

[Uraniun235]

Too bad the ST writers never actually thought in depth about what their own the fictional technology can do.

Phasers aren't the tech that is badly thought out and portrayed; transporter and replicator tech is an egregious offender as well.

Regarding phasers, I'd rather they just dropped the disintegrate mode and went with a blaster style effect.

Disintegrate is incredibly handy from a television production perspective, though. You can have Our Heroes kill someone without having to deal with a dead body (both in terms of the logistics, as well as television censors), nor do you have to worry about matching up where the phaser was aiming with where the scorch marks will appear on the body later. It's even better when you need to have Our Heroes blasting through a door or a wall or something - instead of having to take the time (time's the biggest killer here, they were always against the clock on TOS) and trouble to rig up explosives, you can just do a before shot, remove the door, and do an after shot. Special effects will transition the two. Hurrah!


Transporters and replicators - well, frankly, this goes back to all those old threads where people would pound out (usually largely the same) lists of Rules that they would have imposed to make Star Trek a Better Show. What they didn't count on was that you can write up all the Rules you want - all it takes is for a writer and a producer to agree on an idea, and all those Rules will go right out the fucking window if they think it's worth it to make the episode. Hell, for TNG, Gene Roddenberry laid down an ironclad rule - no space pirates. You know what happened? Season 7 rolled around, the writers wanted to do Gambit (which involved a band of space pirates), and Rick Berman said "ehhh... okay!" A clearly defined, absolute rule from the legendary Great Bird Of The Galaxy to whom every Trekkie at the time bowed down to, and they said "meh."

The producers will throw out whatever rule or background information they want to if they think it's necessary to get a passable episode out the door, even if it's grossly inconsistent with the past or has weird implications about the surrounding setting. At least one science adviser was ignored more than half the time on TNG. This isn't a problem with the setting or the concept - it's a problem with the writers and producers who didn't give enough of a crap about the setting and concept they were (allegedly) working within. It's not just "all writers" either, because the same adviser who reported being ignored half the time also reported that some of the writers were far, far more receptive and responsive to his advice than others.

[Uncluttered]

Too bad the ST writers never actually thought in depth about what their own the fictional technology can do.

Phasers aren't the tech that is badly thought out and portrayed; transporter and replicator tech is an egregious offender as well.

Regarding phasers, I'd rather they just dropped the disintegrate mode and went with a blaster style effect.

I prefer bullets myself.

[Dave]

I prefer bullets myself.

Then you get messy, non-cauterized holes and blood spatter. And holes inside your ship.

[Temujin]

I prefer bullets myself.

Bullets traditionally have definitely been underutilized because people felt SciFi had to have pew pew lasers; though they have become more popular recently with SG, NBSG and other shows.

It all depends on the setting and the tech level. Atomic Rockets has some good pages on this topic:

• Sidearms: Intro
  Sidearms: Slugthrower
  Sidearms: Energy Weapons
  Sidearms: Exotic Weapons

I actually like to see a mix of weapons, especially if there is a varying level of tech between different groups. With Trek though, Phasers are part of the mythos. However they, just like all tech, are handled poorly by the people producing the show as Uraniun pointed out. Though I disagree that disintegration is really any cheaper and easier than scorch marks or bullet holes as plenty of lower budget SciFi shows have had a lot of combat scenes without resorting to disintegration FX.

[Sea Skimmer]

It’s not about being cheaper, its about being cleaner. Star Trek needed a general audience rating, and bullet holes and blood splatter couldn’t be allowed more then rarely if at all. Having people get routinely disintegrated instead is defense in absurdity. Same reason cartoons get away with so much violence, it’s too outlandish to be mistaken for being real even by children.

[hunter5]

When do targets give off 'smoke-like gas'? How much of this gas is there?

The best example is in Star Trek III when the Klingon bad guy (his name escapes me at the moment) shots one of his men on the Bridge of his ship I will have to look for more examples later. As for amount it isn't much mostly faint wisps impossible to quantify.

[IvanTih]

Read this it explains many things.I know that it's from other site,but still.Read the posts of L-W.
http://www.factpile.com/type-2-star-tre ... laster.htm