Naked Science Forum
Non Life Sciences => Technology => Topic started by: ScientificSorcerer on 12/08/2013 20:11:53
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Indeed the awe inspiring classical weapon of science fiction, the ray gun. You know a powerful enough ray of most any kind can do damage if it's strong enough. you can have light rays, heat rays, radioactive rays and even electron rays too, but if I want to physically make a "ray gun" or ray/beam weapon how do I go about doing that?
I know that lasers are a good candidate but I was thinking something a little different.
I heard about a somewhat simple device called a "Cathode ray tube" It's very old technology and nobody really cares about it is anymore but I think the future has a place for it still. In essence it's a beam, like a laser, but it's not made of light, it's made out of electrons. It's weird to describe
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It is a type of "particle beam" It sounds hard to understand but it's is no more complex then a florescent light bulb. Maybe this old tech can be used in some kind of particle beam weapon. I imagine a weapon that looks a lot like a laser but in reality it's more like a taser, the beam would be able to electrocute a target from a distance using a large cathode ray, if you got hit by this beam then your being hit by electrons, in a similar way if you get hit by lightning then your being hit by electrons. the only difference is how the electrons are moving.
I wonder how possible this idea is, I bet the military has already had a similar thought back in the 50's. What I want to know is can you make a cathode ray without the tube? how powerful would the beam need to be in order to actually do some kind of damage? and what other uses can you make for a cathode ray in the 21st century?
it's like a plasma laser, if it's pulsed then you can get a plasma bolt weapon which would be epic. Ill bet that this idea has already been thought of in the past and I would like to find some better reading material on this subject so if you know of an old scientific paper just let me know. any comments an stuff would be graeatly appreciated so if you want just speak your mind.
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this book called "The zeppelin destroyer" turned me on to this Idea