Re: Laser Weapons

On Tue, Jan 29, 2002 at 03:28:01PM +1100, Robertson, Brendan wrote:
>> Dunno the physics, never claimed to -- I was an English major, by
gum! --
>> but would/could this work?  Would the beam have to hit bare flesh
>directly?

If you tune your laser to be absorbed by water, it'll produce explosive
scalds of the type described. It'll also be absorbed by atmospheric
water, so you lose a lot of range. It's a trade-off that has to be made
at weapon design time. The sub-machine-laser might well be designed this
way; the sniper rifle won't be.

>>From my limited physics knowledge, and what I remember of the
Cyberpunk RPG,
>I think the energy weapons were more along the lines of concentrated
>microwaves (maybe with a laser carrier beam for accuracy).  Microwaves
would
>certainly produce steam explosions when enough energy was applied.

They had those too, and many more even less practical things. (Consider
the minimum size of a resonating cavity for a microwave - that's a
function of physics, not engineering.)