The Physics of Starship Firepower- Phasers & Disintregration

[MissingMandible]

0:31-0:37 reminded me of a star wars parody sketch. Here's the link: /watch?v=lhXhF2XSy9Q

[SvenTviking]

Surely, if you convert someones entire body to plasma, there is a pretty huge explosion?

[SpreadingtheMuse]

@SvenTviking

You might just spontaneously combust and flame out. Either way you wouldnt feel a thing ;)

[shippem]

You sound like the comic guy from the simpsons haha

[badcop2009]

dont worry commander shepard will save u

[Excalibur01]

watching your videos again. Very informative and fun

[MegaFederation]

1:56 they look exactly like star trek torpedoes how did you get that effect?

[SpreadingtheMuse]

@MegaFederation

Well, I bent the rules. Those ARE Photon Torpedoes. ;)

The FX Program I used has lasers and phasers and bombs and torpedoes. I just used the torpedoes as Proton Electron etc cause it looked cool. The name of the FX program is FXLab.

[Pfandfleisch]

Ok now i understand how a phazer stuns you. You become a heat stroke. XD

[corncommy]

When you say each element has its own color, are you talking about spectral lines? Meaning every element produces its own collection of multiple colors at very specific wavelengths?

[SpreadingtheMuse]

The emission spectra lines, yes. Every element releases spectra in its own combination of wavelength lines.

[TheKarlish]

Cool Videos man. :)

[MrWooaa]

i wonder where he got a phaser replaca

[SpreadingtheMuse]

I've had that particular one for about 14 years. Its a common replica they sell in stores and still do depending on what trek show is the current popular one.

[ShyDaniel2112]

I'll be honest, I wasn't as impressed with this video as the first two. A lot was left unexplained, such as "If phasers flashheat you to plasma when you get disintegrated, why does no one ever get flashburns from being too close?" Still, I did enjoy the 50's War of the Worlds footage. :)

[Skaramine]

I particularly appreciate how stun, in the ST "bible" is based on human reaction to "mild" overheating. Peter David once wrote that a phaser on "stun" could cook a Thanksgiving turkey in 15 minutes - which is why you see varying lengths of time when different people/races are stunned - a human would take only a portion of a second while a hot-worlder like a Vulcan would take a second and a half...

Thank you for this channel - it's so great to talk physics.

[jeffbengtson]

what is the clip at 4:50 on from?

keep the great vids coming

[SpreadingtheMuse]

1995 Michael Crichton film called "Congo."

[thatIdahokid]

It is me once again Mr. Finnigan. Do you think that an operational Phaser could be made and if possible how soon and when could I get on the recieving end of your production line (You know what i am talking about)! But seriously i think that phasers in Lord of The Rings would have been awesome. It could have saved Boromir, but then again Sarumon would have one too. So Awesome. I hope you continue making movies for a long time. Bless you and Bless your kids. Acohohan and Out!

[nekovelo]

These videos are so interesting! Thanks allot!

[adrade]

Excellent!

[dashin999]

Wow what a nice explanation. Five stars for you.

[norb1937]

Wowee. You've got a laptop. You sound like a pail is on your head.

[SpreadingtheMuse]

Thats what happens when you compress a 1 Gig file down to 20 MB. But surely you didnt come all the way to a movie about electron shells and spectrography only to make that ignorant and juvenile comment.

[EnigmaHood]

Ape ownage at 4:52 lol. That wasn't very nice!

[KoutaSeto]

INDI SOLL SCIFI SEIN? ok das stimmt XD trotzdem sowas is nich scifi (also hitzestralen) man kann sie nur noch nich so bündeln wie die wollen XD(flammenwerfer wäre ne präzisionswaffe)

[EnigmaHood]

The problem with turning a person into plasma, is that he would explode violently, while in Star Trek, they tend to disappear without harming the environment or people around them.

I guess you could say instead that disintergraters turn matter into neutrinos. Neutrinos of course interact very little with matter. They can travel through an entire light year of lead without interacting with it.

[Remulasce]

great video, but.... heat isn't caused by the electrons jumping to high orbits. it's caused by each molecule/ atom bouncing against other molecules. Like a ton of people meandering in one room- the faster they bump each other, the "hotter" the room is. What happens in neons and light bulbs is that electricity or heat makes the electrons jump to higher orbits to accept the energy- they are then excited. They release this energy as radiation (light, radio etc.) when they return to normal state.

[oleyullah]

great man!

try to explain how the light sword could work ;-)

and the Star Trek Teleport - i've been on the open days of Physics Dept. of my University and there some doctor explained it in "Physics of Star Trek Class"

peace!

[puffydollsandrocks]

Hey, that's a great idea. I have a brother-in-law who teaches high school science who would love to ues these movies. Why, wouldn't anyone, they are fast, easy, and educational.

[SpreadingtheMuse]

I'm always looking for more ideas, but there are strict requirements, first and foremost being a large volume of movies that use the concept that I can apprehend. But if I had a whole classroom giving me ideas, it would work.

[chemistrypro123]

Great Work Bernard, You wouldn't mind if I showed these videos to my Chemistry and Physics students, Mr. Finnigan.

Thanks, Professor Dean Hanson

[SpreadingtheMuse]

I just got done passing out DVDs to my local high school, so by all means! More the merrier and let them be enjoyed by all. I'm trying to get inspired for the next movie and havent found the right angle yet.

[puffydollsandrocks]

Thanks, I think I will. You need to continue making movies. I think you have a gift for it. You ought to make a movie about einstein's constant variable law or about the possibility of nuclear fusion. Anyway I think that it is great that you are giving your movies to a learning environment where they can do some good. Some of those kids need to be set on the right path and teachers like you really help. I am sure this high school will truly benefit from your work. Thanks Barbara Luise.

[mikanac]

ok so we covered phasers making light and how it works, desintigration and how it works, and stunning but how do phasers stun you pointed it out but never explained it

[SpreadingtheMuse]

Thats because I'm not entirely sure how. ;)

Since its an entirely different setting, it may just be a blast of electricity like a taser, or it could be low power plasma, which would just hit you like a punch in the gut. Whenever they say "phaser burns" I think of that option.

[stonermanpigbird]

there is a show called Stargate Atlantis with an enemy, the Wraith,only use stunner weapon which for various reasons. How they work was explained as, they fire a stream of neurons which overwhelm the motor and sensory nerves in the body, leaving the target temporarily paralyzed. I don't know if this is good physics but it's a topic for debate

[SpreadingtheMuse]

They said a stream of "neurons?" A neuron is a brain cell. It sounds icky, and it might work, but I think they meant to say something else.

[stonermanpigbird]

I knew what a neuron is, and hopefully they just meant neural energy or something

[SpreadingtheMuse]

An electrical shock of the same level as our usual biochemical system would do it, like a taser. But sci fi shows make it look like a cool beam for color TV.

[stonermanpigbird]

this is true

[Rpwuk]

Fascinating.

[toasterpip]

The Phaser from Star Trek uses the Rapid Nadion effect to cause a cascade of phased energy. Basically, it uses the energy released by the decay of the nadions to fire a directed energy pulse. The difference between stun, kill, and vaporize boils down to the amount of atomic disruption the pulse causes.

That's the really simplified explanation. I have the Tech Manual, and it does a good job of explaining it.

[SpreadingtheMuse]

I had one of the tech manuals, the TNG, but hesitated to consult it because I knew it didnt agree entirely with the TOS tech manual (They have different explanations for shields, for one thing). I also knew that "phaser" in general was a compromise by Roddenberry, who was told by his tech advisers in his first pilot that "laser" didnt do what his plot said it did. So he just changed a couple letters and sailed off into the sunset a rich man. ;)

[fc007]

I bought one of those phasers. I use it for my barbecue.

It's not so great; my hamburgers seem to always disantregrate

[alphathewolf]

I have a question. Can you explain the physics on why the phaser don't burn the area around their feet or ignite anything they are touching. (I know the computer chips in the weapon some how knows how to do it.)

If my physics is correct, the energy has to go out some where.

[SpreadingtheMuse]

Once they invent the actual weapon, it probably would burn the ground where you were standing. If you're changed to plasma, it would burn itself out real quick, but maybe long enough to start a fire on the carpet, or maybe just a scorch mark. But definitely some heat damage.

[JheakrynaKyAlur]

i love those star trek sounds in the vids and your comments, those really rock ^^

this is hot *beep beep*

this is cold *tüdeldü*

^^

[Poseidon500]

Actually, they have explained the phaser. The beam is composed of fictional particles called rapid nadions. These particles hit the person and sends a bunch of their molecules out of phase and the person disintergrates.

[SpeakerForBoskone]

Did they explain what "out of phase" means? A big problem with trek writers is using big words that sound cool but dont themselves understand. Read the two different tech manuals by two different authors and you'll get two different explanations for how shields work, for example.

Was the explanation in the tech manual, or one of the novels?

[Poseidon500]

Well that's the problem with FICTIONAL technology. However, the nadion particles have been mentioned in The Voyager series and was also in the Next Gen Tech manual. Phasers have been known to use "rapid" nadions, and disruptors use "normal" nadions. The only weapon that makes any sense in reality is the photon torpedo. A matter/anti matter blast would be quite devistating.

[alphathewolf]

Are you familiar with the phase particle diagram. More or less he is saying the same thing. Give it enough energy and it will turn them in to hot...plasma...or what is left of plasma anyway.

[Magni56]

Does it explain why the bloody things tend to not make anything denser than people (rocks, metal etc.) vanish? And how exactly this disintegration works? (It´s obviously no vpourisation, because there´s no vapour.)

[Poseidon500]

Obviously the denser the material, the harder it is to make it phase out. Fictionally speaking of course.

[SpreadingtheMuse]

Denser materials are denser because of excessive large nuclei. But the larger the nuclei, the larger the internal nuclear forces that have to be heated up. Humans, based on Carbon have only a tenth of the density of something thick like Iron. Thats a lot more energy needed.

[lordmike11b]

man this stuff is fantastic! i'm a BIG fan of sci fi stuff like "Battlestar galactica (the newer series)". And i also wanna study astro physics and stuff at university. This is really informative! keep up the really good work! :)

[SpreadingtheMuse]

Thanks for posting! I'm waiting for Battlestar: Razor to air this weekend, wherein I hope to find a heap of new video-clips for my next movie I hope to have done before Christmas. ;)

[lordmike11b]

keep'em coming man! great stuff! learning sh*t loads! lol

Yeah, battlestar razor should be pretty awsome! already seen the minisodes!

Honestly, do you reckon that vipers and battlestars could be a reality?

Also, im wondering about artificial gravity... lol

[SpreadingtheMuse]

Building a Battlestar wouldnt be any harder than building an aircraft carrier. It would just take longer. But I figure that once we get into space, we can build anything we want as big as we want. We could almost build a viper right now. Its just a F-16 modified with its own oxygen supply for the engines.

[SwordlordRoy]

Eh...I find the New Battlestar Galactica too Soap Opera-ish, I truly prefer the older series...have yet to see any of the Galactica 1980 episodes...Anyway, I'm currently studying Astronomy, hoping to start studying physics next year...these are very informational, keep it up!

[SpreadingtheMuse]

You didnt miss a thing by skipping 1980. ;)

I think the new series overdid the Human Cylons, but the overall direction of the show is above par. Its worth your time.

My 4th physics movie will be uploaded in another week or so. Stay tuned...

[CanadianWolverine]

The science fiction "phasor" is not so far off. I could have sworn I have seen programs featuring weapon systems that "heat" people up with either lasers or microwave emitters, which apparently only makes their world really painful and is supposedly intended for crowd control. I'm sure more devious uses for it have already been thought of, if not tested.

[SpreadingtheMuse]

I've seen that too. They use microwaves to give you heartburn and make you throw up. Sounds good to me. ;)

[cliftut]

I really hate to think what happens to someone's brain if one of those is pointed at their head.

[buckaroohawk]

I love these videos! "Mr. Wizard" for the sci-fi set. Great fun!

[cliftut]

And to think, science teachers always tell us it has to do with atoms vibrating... :)

Seriously, I like your videos. Very fun and informational.

[CanadianWolverine]

I think you may be confusing atoms with molecules ... or as I like to call them, "bunches" of atoms =P

[cliftut]

Perhaps so... but either way, I've never heard of heat referred to in this way. I have learned about electron levels being excited, but I've never heard that this was the cause of heat. What's the connection between what is said in this video and the fact that heated molecules/atoms, most noticeably in gasses, move more quickly?

[SpreadingtheMuse]

My description of excited electrons was meant to be more visual than literal. "Excited" electrons do move more quickly, which is how they are quantified to be in a "higher" electron state. Higher heat= Higher level= Higher speed.

[valerie374]

Great job. Just watch where you point that thing, hon.

[losbarbour]

These episodes you do rock man.

Keep them coming!