Plasma bombs

[reyam200]

i know this is star treky, but its probably possible.

 

think of two north magnets, push them together than let go and they will fly apart, would the same happen if you compress a bunch of electrons in a sphere, than release them.

thatd take alot of power tho, wouldnt it.

[ecoli]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_rifle

 

Purely in the realm of SF. But I play Warhammer 40k... plasma guns are quite fun, but there's the danger of them over-heating.

[reyam200]

ya plasma guns would be fun, but you would have a problem with the plasma staying in a sphere, it would disapate.

i made a plasma beam with an old TV.

i couldnt see the beam unless it was very dark, even then it was just a soft glow.

it could burn a piece of paper tho

they could make one in space, and run it off of solar radiation.(light microwaves,solar flares, ect.) than direct the beam at a weak magnetic area on the earth.

[JonM]

flames are plasma

 

and theres flamethrowers... so thats about the closest you can get right now

[ecoli]

flames are plasma

 

and theres flamethrowers... so thats about the closest you can get right now

 

Fire is not plasma. Plasma is super heated ionized gas. flames aren't ionized

 

edit: actually, it may not even have to be super heated. Would flouresent lightbulbs be considered plasma?

[RyanJ]

edit: actually' date=' it may not even have to be super heated. Would flouresent lightbulbs be considered plasma?[/quote']

 

I think they would, its normally considered to be anything that is ionized.

 

In physics and chemistry' date=' a plasma is an ionized gas, and is usually considered to be a distinct phase of matter. "Ionized" in this case means that at least one electron has been removed from a significant fraction of the molecules. The free electric charges make the plasma electrically conductive so that it couples strongly to electromagnetic fields. This fourth state of matter was first identified by Sir William Crookes in 1879 and dubbed "plasma" by Irving Langmuir in 1928, because it reminded him of a blood plasma [Ref'].

 

So, Wikipedia seems to agree witht hat statement anyway, it says noting about potential super-heating

 

http://en.wikipedia.com/wiki/Plasma

 

Cheers,

 

Ryan Jones

[ecoli]

My physics teacher last year seemed to think that plasma had to be super-heated, but I'm not so sure.

[RyanJ]

My physics teacher last year seemed to think that plasma had to be super-heated, but I'm not so sure.

 

I agree with you, it does not have to be - any gas that is ionizes is actually classed as plasma.

 

Cheers,

 

Ryan Jones

[Tigerbeam]

i think we all see the solution here- massive television sets ( the old kind)

[RyanJ]

i think we all see the solution here- massive television sets ( the old kind)

 

Or loads of devices simmilar to light bulbs....

 

All you need to do is make enough electricity to strip some electrons from and atom and then use a magnetic field to compress the beam and make it hot.

 

That exactly how they are trying to fo nuclear fussion too!

 

Cheers,

 

Ryan Jones

[reyam200]

i know you can make a beam. but what about a plasma bomb, you would have to compress it alot untill you couldn't anymore, than release it, wouldn't the particals fly apart? or would that be a nuke?

like holding two magnets togather, than letting go.

youl'd need electromagnets so's to realease it quickly.

 

two particals with a like charge will repel eachother like magnets doo right?

[Lifshiztz]

If you wanted to deliver a plasma bomb as a weapon, your best bet would be to contain a mass of plasma in a magnetic shell. As far as I know, the only thing that can contain plasma is a magnetic field. If you could encapsulate the plasma within some kind of shell that can generate said mag field, you could in theory use it as a plasma bomb.

[reyam200]

ok, i got it.

 

i wonder if the millatary has them, or is working on them.

[padren]

I've been wondering about hybrid weapon systems that fire a shell that would be made of a composite of materials that could effectively generate and pull a ball of plasma with it.

Part of the concept is seperating the explosive fuel source from the round itself, and rapidly charging the projectile from a capacitor while in the barrel at the time its fired.

The right shape of projectile would have a vacuum behind it, which could aid in maintaining a plasma blast.

 

 

I've read around on the internet that you can make plasma in your microwave by ignoring the advice of various friendly warning labels on the thing...I'm in between medical insurance right now and haven't tried.

[chemfreak]

the military worked on them at the same time that they were working on nukes but gave it up because there was to ,much heat involved acording to the history channel

[reyam200]

im sure they could figure somthing out, its not that hard.

besides, the "to much heat" could have bein a cover, who knows.

[mrblond5311]

Not to get off the main subject but has onyone heard of the military trying to create powerful weapons using sound waves?

[Illuminati]

Would they be able to stick to people and vehicles???

 

(Sorry, played halo for 16 hours straight last night)

[reyam200]

ya, ive heard of that,

sound over 180db will kill a human, no matter the frequincy.

scilent death. so to speak.

 

ya, you probably could make one to stick to almost any serface. think of sticky tac. it sticks to almost anything and holds.

itd be easy to make it stick to cars, just use a magnet, since some cars are made from iron.

[Illuminati]

ya' date=' you probably could make one to stick to almost any serface. think of sticky tac. it sticks to almost anything and holds.

itd be easy to make it stick to cars, just use a magnet, since some cars are made from iron.[/quote']

 

haha, thankyou for entertaining my stupid question

[elas]

think of two north magnets, push them together than let go and they will fly apart, would the same happen if you compress a bunch of electrons in a sphere, than release them.

thatd take alot of power tho, wouldnt it.

 

 

Basically this is all that experimentors do. compress and collide; but they do it with a variety of particles, not just electrons. From this they have constructed a prediction theory that tells us what particles will do; but it does not tell us what particles are or how or why they do it.

The questions what, how and why, can only be answered by interpretation and the introduction to all particle physics books contains a paragraph or two explaining that a complete interpretation does not exist at present.

 

TFQHE is interpreted as showing that compressing electrons produces fractionally charged particles, but the flaw in this interpretation is that we do not know what charge is only what it does. Neither do we know what an electron is but only what it does.

 

So the answer to your question is that expriment has already proven what will happen but we do not know how or why.

 

A point of interest if you read up on TFQHE that won the Nobel prize, note that the charge nature (+ or -) is dropped from the interpretation. I found only one article that referred to this; it stated that charge nature was not mentioned because the fractionally charged particles were positive and that defied explanation even in the currnt partial interpretation.