Gentlemen, we have a Deathray.

[TCO]

What if you had a laser and you used it to bounce off of a spaceship to accelerat that to near light speed. With mirrors and such. although, I thought the laser already was a tube with mirrors...

[DanS]

That's what the solar sail's for. Although I'm guessing that the focus of the laser would be good only for the initial acceleration. But that's not nothing when solar sails are involved.

Also, I understand that normal photovoltaics work fine with lasers, such that your solar sail could collect electricity for your ion thrusters to decelerate at Mars or whatever. This assumes that you could fabricate photovoltaics of minimal mass per unit area, of course.

There really are a ton of cool potential uses for solid-state high-power lasers.

[Theben]

Like detonating mines from 1000 yards. Be a helluva minesweeper.

[The Mad Monk]

I think that's already been done.

[Alinestra Covelia]

We now need sharks.

[OzzyKP]

What about ill-tempered mutated sea bass?

[Alinestra Covelia]

More importantly what effect will this have on the "ozone layer"?

[Blaupanzer]

KH, are you genuinely unaware of electro-magnetic pulse weapons? The electronic and communications effects of a nuclear blast without the bomb? Your earlier response was nasty and inappropriate. Chill if you don't know. There are still things you can learn. There always will be.

[Krill]

Hahahahahahaha!!!

[Alinestra Covelia]

KH [...] Your earlier response was nasty and inappropriate. Chill if you don't know. There are still things you can learn. There always will be.

It's not worth it: KH is a well-known troll. I've heard that his posts are actually fairly knowledgeable, but I've never had the patience to sort through his "screw you all" attitude to find out.

[Elok]

KH isn't a troll, he just has the same problem as Asher: no patience with the ignorant.

KH, are you genuinely unaware of electro-magnetic pulse weapons? The electronic and communications effects of a nuclear blast without the bomb? Your earlier response was nasty and inappropriate. Chill if you don't know. There are still things you can learn. There always will be.

KH is a physics grad student. He knows all about this stuff. I hardly know any physics and I know that you're talking nonsense. An EMP is a specific phenomenon totally different from a directed laser. Comparing the two is, AFAIK, like comparing a sonic boom to a drill press. Totally different applications of force, totally different effects. Maybe it's strange to you that an undirected explosion of one type of energy has such different effects from a sharply concentrated dose of another type, but look at it this way: a flashlight, lasers used for cutting diamonds and the lasers in a supermarket scanner are all directed visible light. They all do very different things.

And "electro-magnetic beam" simply means a beam composed of energy on the electromagnetic spectrum, which includes visible light as well as UV, infrared, radio, X-ray, microwaves, gamma radiation and other stuff. I believe it's called that because all forms of EM radiation consist of paired electrical and magnetic fields or some such. It's a very wide spectrum, and different wavelengths have different effects. Actually, I'm not sure if an EMP is caused by the energy itself, or just stray electrons flying through electronics. Tried reading the Wiki once, couldn't make head nor tail of it. So I said screw it.

[snoopy369]

IIUC (and KH/Jon/etc., please correct me here), EMP is caused by gamma rays that induce a magnetic field; one component is direct induction and one is through manipulating the earth's magnetic field. Wiki describes a third kind that I don't really understand (even beyond my limited understanding here).

In either case, EMP has an effect that is distinctly different from an EM radiation pulse [ie, a laser]. That said, I wouldn't be surprised if you could use a laser in some part of the nonvisible spectrum to cause an EMP-like effect (induce a magnetic field of some sort that could screw with electronics). And, for that matter, aren't gamma rays a form of EM radiation ...

I think the original statement KH was objecting to was the implication of some sort of 'microwave' effect, which of course is silly, as microwaves are just another wavelength of EM radiation [as is light]. At the highest level of simplicity, that's no different from light, except that some things are transparent to it that are not transparent to visible light, and vice versa. Or something like that.

[Lord Avalon]

That said, I wouldn't be surprised if you could use a laser in some part of the nonvisible spectrum to cause an EMP-like effect (induce a magnetic field of some sort that could screw with electronics).

Well, then it wouldn't really be a LASER, would it?

[KrazyHorse]

KH, are you genuinely unaware of electro-magnetic pulse weapons? The electronic and communications effects of a nuclear blast without the bomb? Your earlier response was nasty and inappropriate. Chill if you don't know. There are still things you can learn. There always will be.

My earlier response was quite appropriate, actually. And the fact that you still don't realize how idiotic what you said was speaks volumes.

[KrazyHorse]

Basically, Blaupanzer, you are obviously trying to sound knowledgable about a subject with which you obviously only have passing familiarity. Referring to an EMP as an "electro-magnetic beam" is ridiculous on its face, and is even more so when considered in the context of comparing it to a laser (which IS an electromagnetic beam).

And Elok, I have no problem with the ignorant. I have a major problem with ignorant people attempting to sound knowledgable or refusing to acknowledge that they are ignorant.