A few phase questions?

[Timo]

Unless, of course, the word has been adopted to describe something different from ionized gas. It only means "something that has form" or "something that supports form", after all. And funnily enough, the use of the word for describing ionized gas comes from said gas resembling blood plasma, at least per one urban science legend.

I mean, I personally favor the plasmoid idea, even given the known shortcomings of hot gas as a tool of destruction. But many a weapon has gained its name from an acronym or bastardization of a preexisting term. Say, "phaser" might be "that which phases" - or then another word in the family that originated with LASER, and now includes Taser (TM) where the letters a,s,e and r have nothing in common with the originals, but where the form of the word was deliberately chosen to echo LASER, in addition to being a homage to pulp fiction. Modern scifi (following Brin's lead) also freely uses "saser" for an intense sonic beam even though it obviously cannot have anything to do with stimulated emission of radiation...

We cannot argue with any certainty that "phaser" would have anything to do with "phase" or "phasing", then. Although I'd definitely want to make that argument, as "phase"/"phasing" seems to be central to two other Trek future technologies that make the target disappear without a trace: the transporter and the phase cloak.

Similarly, "plasma cannon" might very well be a weapon that spits out hot gas - or then a weapon so named because its original models looked vaguely like blood plasma containers...!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Unless, of course, the word has been adopted to describe something different from ionized gas.

"Under impusle power she expends fuel like any other vessel. We call it 'plasma.' But whatever the Klingon designation, it is simply ionized gas."
- Spock

I mean, I personally favor the plasmoid idea, even given the known shortcomings of hot gas as a tool of destruction.

There's a pretty big difference between "plasma" and "hot gas," especially chemical reactions that can produce one or the other have been desireable in combat for years.

This, for example, can be thought of as an example of a low-tech plasma weapon: it projects a substance that liberates high amounts of energy via ongoing chemical reaction with the surrounding oxygen, resulting in a (relatively) low temperature plasma.

More advanced plasma weapons might emerge as a type of flamethrower whose stream is fired at supersonic velocities, closer to the speed of a rifle bullet (the infamous "explosively formed penetrators" used in armor-piercing shells could be their closest ancestors). As these weapons become more sophisticated, the means of producing the high-energy plasma becomes more refined, using something like cold fusion or even magnetoplasma generators to create these little magnetically charged fireballs that don't dissipate until they hit something. The result of even these early weapons would be like combining the best features of a firehose and a blow torch: high pressure, big reach, BIG transfer of thermal energy focussed on a single spot.

Once you learn how to throw high energy plasma, all bets are off; that's like setting off a nuclear warhead whose blast wave only travels along a pencil-thin line. But the technical evolution from flamethrowers to respectable plasma weapons is a pretty long one, rather similar to the evolution from muzzle loaders to railguns if you think about it.

 

[Timo]

"Under impusle power she expends fuel like any other vessel. We call it 'plasma.' But whatever the Klingon designation, it is simply ionized gas."
- Spock

Yeah, impulse engines spit out ionized gas. And Crusher plays with blood plasma. Doesn't mean "plasma cannon" would have anything to do with ionized gas or thick biochemical goo. We still wear "boots" and have "boots" in our cars even though the booting of computers is something else altogether...

Not that I's seriously wish for the Trek plasma weapons to be unrelated to ionized gas. But the semantic possibility is certainly there.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Myasishchev]

We cannot argue with any certainty that "phaser" would have anything to do with "phase" or "phasing", then. Although I'd definitely want to make that argument, as "phase"/"phasing" seems to be central to two other Trek future technologies that make the target disappear without a trace: the transporter and the phase cloak.

Which is intelligible, although I prefer them as neutral particle beams. Concedly, and unfortunately, that makes the "phaser" or the "ph" harder to explain.

I keep meaning to look into whether phosphorous is a plausible beam medium for an NPB.

 

[Christopher]

I tend to think the word "phaser" has to do with what happens when the weapon disintegrates something. Realistically, if a solid object were swiftly vaporized, the sudden enormous expansion of volume would result in a huge explosion. The only way you could get the "glow and disappear" effect is if most of the matter just ceased to exist somehow, at least in our continuum. The TNG Tech Manual suggests that a large fraction of the matter disintegrated by a phaser "transitions out of the continuum" -- and perhaps it does that by phasing into a different plane (akin to the old "out of phase" gimmick from "The Next Phase" and "Time's Arrow").

 

[Crazy Eddie]

I tend to think the word "phaser" has to do with what happens when the weapon disintegrates something. Realistically, if a solid object were swiftly vaporized, the sudden enormous expansion of volume would result in a huge explosion.

Unless "vaporize" is just a colloquialism for what that maximum setting does, along with "incinerated," or "disintegrated."

I should think that if FX artists wanted to push the envelope they could add a cloud of ash erupting from a vaporized character's body (or better yet, have a phaser beam vaporize only PART of his body; I don't see a whole person being vaporized just because a phaser beam landed on his toenail). Likewise, no matter HOW the thing actually works, there should still be some leftover chunks of the vaporized individual lying around since some components require more energy to disintegrate than others; it's just too damn convenient that the phaser takes the person and his clothes and his shoes and whatever he was holding at the time but doesn't even touch the ground under his feet. It might even be fun to see someone hit by a phaser beam that only vaporizes him from the waist up and his suddenly-useless legs fall over on the ground.

 

[Mytran]

Ah, the old smokin' shoes scenario

 

[Myasishchev]

I tend to think the word "phaser" has to do with what happens when the weapon disintegrates something. Realistically, if a solid object were swiftly vaporized, the sudden enormous expansion of volume would result in a huge explosion. The only way you could get the "glow and disappear" effect is if most of the matter just ceased to exist somehow, at least in our continuum. The TNG Tech Manual suggests that a large fraction of the matter disintegrated by a phaser "transitions out of the continuum" -- and perhaps it does that by phasing into a different plane (akin to the old "out of phase" gimmick from "The Next Phase" and "Time's Arrow").

The entire water mass probably couldn't vaporize without hurting bystanders, true--although you'd expect enough would to kill the target, and this could be sort of an extension of your "visible phasers in space as VFX for the benefit of the viewer" explanation. Obviously, they can't show a burned, burst corpse on TV--and it would also be much more expensive--so the disappearance effect is a stand-in for the gore.

Probably not, although accepting the disappearance effect as literally true raises the questions 1)why the effect was virtually abandoned during DS9 and 2)why we never saw a small starship undergo the same effect.

 

[Christopher]

Unless "vaporize" is just a colloquialism for what that maximum setting does, along with "incinerated," or "disintegrated."

Those all have the same problem. Matter doesn't cease to exist, it just changes form (unless it's annihilated by antimatter). So any depiction of something just "disappearing" makes no physical sense. If the material that was there is changed into a non-solid, non-liquid form, then it must expand in volume and push aside the air around it, and if it does so in mere seconds, then that is an explosion by definition.

Disintegration doesn't mean that something just ceases to exist. It means that it stops being integrated, that it's broken apart into its constituent particles. That's essentially the same thing as vaporization. Or at least pulverization, but dust can be pretty explosive too.

And incineration is just burning, and when something burns up instantaneously or nearly so, we call that a explosion as well.

It might even be fun to see someone hit by a phaser beam that only vaporizes him from the waist up and his suddenly-useless legs fall over on the ground.

You have a strange definition of "fun."

 

[Crazy Eddie]

If the material that was there is changed into a non-solid, non-liquid form, then it must expand in volume and push aside the air around it

Only if the whole thing phase-changes simultaneously as in an explosive deflagration. Technically, an explosion only happens when combustion is very fast, approaching supersonic, and when the combustion results in a compressive force. If you're vaporizing a body from the outside in, there isn't alot of compressive force, even less if huge parts of him (body fat, for example) actually melt and trickle to the ground as a puddle of hot chemicals.

Or at least pulverization, but dust can be pretty explosive too.

Only as a fine aerosol, and then it has to be combustible. Household dust--whose constituents are mostly organic waste sloughed off your hair and skin--is actually not that flammable.

It might even be fun to see someone hit by a phaser beam that only vaporizes him from the waist up and his suddenly-useless legs fall over on the ground.

You have a strange definition of "fun."

What did you expect? I'm a trekkie.

 

[Christopher]

You're missing my point. What you're talking about may be true for various real-life situations, but I'm not talking about those situations, I'm talking about what's depicted in the show itself. What we're shown in Star Trek is a large object or human body glowing and completely disappearing in the course of a few seconds. This event is labeled "disintegration," but it makes no physical sense, because where does the matter go? It can't be rationalized as vaporization, because, again, it takes only a few seconds. Calculate the difference between the volume of a human body and the volume of its constituents in gaseous form, then divide that by two or three seconds, and you're going to end up with a very, very rapid expansion, enough to qualify as an explosion. It wouldn't be what we see on the show, an object glowing and disappearing without having any effect on its surroundings. What we see on the show is nonsense. And Sternbach and Okuda themselves rationalized it by postulating that most of the disintegrated matter phased entirely out of the continuum. Look up the phaser section in the TNG Tech Manual -- it's in there.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

You're missing my point. What you're talking about may be true for various real-life situations, but I'm not talking about those situations, I'm talking about what's depicted in the show itself. What we're shown in Star Trek is a large object or human body glowing and completely disappearing in the course of a few seconds. This event is labeled "disintegration," but it makes no physical sense, because where does the matter go?

Where did the rock face go when the Horta dissolved a big chunk of it (using the same FX commonly associated with phasers)? Are we going to assume the Horta uses some kind of technobabble corrosive element that actually phases rock out of our space time continuum or just explain that away as some incredibly simplistic FX to represent what would realistically look like a block of thermite being ignited?

Plus, there's still the fact that phasers magically know exactly where to stop "vaporizing" the object they're aimed at, and THAT can't be explained scientifically with any amount of technobabble. The more likely scenario is that of, shall we say, Federation censorship in the flight recorder visuals the rest of us know as "Star Trek" that filter out the really gruesome parts and leave a neat-looking "glow and then he's gone" effect in place of what would otherwise be a much slower and much more gruesome looking "burned into cinders like a dried up christmas tree" effect that leaves chunks of melted fat and charred bone lying on the deck along with tougher bits of uniform insignia and the fillings from the guy's teeth.

It can't be rationalized as vaporization, because, again, it takes only a few seconds.

Oh, but it can. Try the time-honored experiment of burning something highly flammable--a t-shirt or a stack of cotton balls, for example--in an oxygen rich environment. Even large amounts will be consumed by VERY hot flames in less than ten seconds, and that's just a normal chemical reaction with no external power source.

Moreover, that power source makes all the difference in an energetic reaction like this. Like putting a lit candle in a microwave; the flame will act as an antenna, absorbing the radiation and amplifying itself. An amplified burn effect could easily consume the mass of a grown man by simple combustion in a very short amount of time without actually deflagrating the material of his body; the latter requires INSTANTANEOUS conversion of his entire mass to a gaseous state, while the former only requires PART of the substance to phase change, with the resulting heat and chemical synthesis breaking the rest into simpler compounds that either float away as an aerosol (smoke, soot, dust) or trickle to the ground underneath him (ash, remains, more soot).

In a nutshell, what I'm saying is that even if we try the fanciful "phased out of our continuum explanation," it CANNOT be as neat as it appears on screen, and with this in mind there's no reason to prefer the fanciful explanation in favor of O'Brien's "the man just incinerated right in front of me."

 

[Christopher]

It can't be rationalized as vaporization, because, again, it takes only a few seconds.

Oh, but it can. Try the time-honored experiment of burning something highly flammable--a t-shirt or a stack of cotton balls, for example--in an oxygen rich environment. Even large amounts will be consumed by VERY hot flames in less than ten seconds, and that's just a normal chemical reaction with no external power source.

Why the hell are you arguing with examples that have nothing to do with the specific situation I'm talking about? We're not discussing what would happen if a t-shirt or a stack of cotton balls evaporated. We're discussing what would happen if an adult human or humanoid body were completely vaporized in 3-4 seconds. The average t-shirt weighs about 150 grams. I'm talking about something 500 times more massive than that, and significantly denser. I'm also not talking about burning, I'm talking about the situation depicted onscreen where the object COMPLETELY ceases to exist in any visible form. For both reasons, the amount of vapor released would be immensely greater than in the example you're offering, and thus it would cause an explosion as it displaced the air.

In a nutshell, what I'm saying is that even if we try the fanciful "phased out of our continuum explanation," it CANNOT be as neat as it appears on screen, and with this in mind there's no reason to prefer the fanciful explanation in favor of O'Brien's "the man just incinerated right in front of me."

Tell that to Rick Sternbach and Mike Okuda. It was their idea before it was mine.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

It can't be rationalized as vaporization, because, again, it takes only a few seconds.

Oh, but it can. Try the time-honored experiment of burning something highly flammable--a t-shirt or a stack of cotton balls, for example--in an oxygen rich environment. Even large amounts will be consumed by VERY hot flames in less than ten seconds, and that's just a normal chemical reaction with no external power source.

Why the hell are you arguing with examples that have nothing to do with the specific situation I'm talking about? We're not discussing what would happen if a t-shirt or a stack of cotton balls evaporated. We're discussing what would happen if an adult human or humanoid body were completely vaporized in 3-4 seconds.

That's my point. It would probably resemble what happens when a five foot body pillow is vaporized in 3-4 seconds. Under normal conditions this can be done without creating an explosive reaction. Phasers, obviously, create conditions where this occurs in the human body.

In a nutshell, what I'm saying is that even if we try the fanciful "phased out of our continuum explanation," it CANNOT be as neat as it appears on screen, and with this in mind there's no reason to prefer the fanciful explanation in favor of O'Brien's "the man just incinerated right in front of me."

Tell that to Rick Sternbach and Mike Okuda. It was their idea before it was mine.

Good for them, but since the TNG manual is still technically non-canon, its explanation on the workings of phasers can be considered Starfleet propaganda designed to intimidate the Romulans.

 

[Rick Sternbach]

Tell that to Rick Sternbach and Mike Okuda. It was their idea before it was mine.

Actually, it was my idea; I wrote the section on phasers. But I think the basic rationalization for transitioning some matter out of the continuum is valid, given the on-screen evidence over the years. If all the matter stayed here, and you hit a person with enough energy to cause he/she/it to fly to flinders in a few seconds, you've be knocked over by a big blast wave and get smeared with a fine film of body yuck. A humanoid body contains a lot of mass.

Rick

 

[Timo]

The fictional phasing phenomenon can also more easily explain why the destruction ends at the soles of the shoes rather than jumping across to the floor. The phenomenon obviously propagates in the targeted material or tissue; a discontinuity in the tissue is likely to slow it down or weaken it, an air or vacuum gap is likely to stop it. Alongside this, there'll be a steady decrease in propagation speed, and in the ability to cross discontinuities, as the initial injection of "phasing effect energy" spreads out and wanes to nothing.

All we need to argue after that is that the effect loves to propagate in water and/or body tissue, but hates dense metal. And that's not really difficult to believe, seeing how slowly the effect spreads in metal walls when one tries to phase holes into those, yet how wonderful fireworks it creates in the aqueduct of "Ensigns of Command". Bye bye, shoes - but you're welcome to stay, floor.

(The minor inconsistency would be that a few metal objects, such as swords and phasers, are removed along with the targeted body, even though they are generally at the extremities of this body. But if I were designing a phaser, I'd hardwire it so that a single trigger-push would unleash just enough phasing power to remove one body plus appliances, but less than it would take to cross from the body to the floor or soil underneath. There may well be a nice broad "sweet zone" there ...)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Rick Sternbach]

While I didn't like the overall film, the remake of War of the Worlds had that neat effect of the alien ray blowing people into clouds of vapor, but one guy's jeans go flying in the wind. Yeah, it's a problem in a lot of media SF; similar to the deal with ghostly out-of-phase people who can walk through walls but the floor stays rather solid.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

The fictional phasing phenomenon can also more easily explain why the destruction ends at the soles of the shoes rather than jumping across to the floor. The phenomenon obviously propagates in the targeted material or tissue; a discontinuity in the tissue is likely to slow it down or weaken it, an air or vacuum gap is likely to stop it. Alongside this, there'll be a steady decrease in propagation speed, and in the ability to cross discontinuities, as the initial injection of "phasing effect energy" spreads out and wanes to nothing.

But as Rick already pointed out, there's the question of why the reaction also vaporizes his clothes and his communicator. There SHOULD be some floating uniform bits wafting through the air after Ensign Ricky gets zapped by disruptor fire, if not huge chunks of bone and cartilage or anything else that doesn't vaporize as quickly as soft tissue. There's also the fact that beams of different duration have the same effect, when we know that longer/shorter contact can do less damage, so no matter how phasers work there ought to be some variation on the completeness of vaporization; you might walk through a battlefield and find a few scorch marks on the ground where someone was completely vaped, and next to him some limbs and clothes of his buddies, and then the squad leader with the personal forcefield is missing the middle thirty centimeters of his abdomen.

Either way, we're still left with what is obviously a highly sanitized depiction of "vaporization" which reduces the need to explain literally what we see on screen. Especially considering that lower-level phaser wounds are invariably described and depicted as ordinary burns. The best technical fit would be that phasers at the highest level cause the fission of oxygen atoms into a pair of lithium atoms; since fission of oxygen would actually ABSORB quite a big of energy, this gives you your explanation for (relatively) low-temperature incineration. For that matter, it might also explain why phaser beams appear to be visible in the air (visibility in a vacuum, though, we can interpret as "art").

 

[Timo]

It's quite possible there would be some variation to the phasing process - but all the clothing would probably always be consumed, and then some, just because the typical phaser bolt is sized to do that much. It might be twice as powerful as needed to remove (99% of) a naked body, and thus always sufficient for removing the whole body and all the clothing - and still would only have one tenth the power needed so that the effect would jump from the targeted person to the surrounding terrain.

After all, between the person and the landscape, there's the air gap, and the significant difference in density. If the person is standing on a metal floor, it's quite natural if the metal isn't phased at all. If he's standing on dirt, some of the dirt may disappear but we won't notice because phasing does not leave burn marks. There's little or no heat or temperature change involved (as we can observe whenever phasers create a hole in a dense wall material - it's immediately cool to the touch).

and then the squad leader with the personal forcefield is missing the middle thirty centimeters of his abdomen.

Which is more or less what we saw in "Nor the Battle to the Strong".

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Crazy Eddie]

It's quite possible there would be some variation to the phasing process - but all the clothing would probably always be consumed, and then some, just because the typical phaser bolt is sized to do that much. It might be twice as powerful as needed to remove (99% of) a naked body, and thus always sufficient for removing the whole body and all the clothing - and still would only have one tenth the power needed so that the effect would jump from the targeted person to the surrounding terrain.

That's pretty convenient when somebody gets vaporized while standing on grass or something.

After all, between the person and the landscape, there's the air gap

There's an even larger gap between a Klingon and his armor, yet the almost five seconds it takes to vaporize him consumes his armor completely while leaving his gunnery console untouched.

and then the squad leader with the personal forcefield is missing the middle thirty centimeters of his abdomen.

Which is more or less what we saw in "Nor the Battle to the Strong".

Yeah, a rare high point in Star Trek battlefield makeup.