Focused Ultrasound Forcefields & Plasma Weapons

[All Seeing Eye]

I saw in the other thread on new holographic tech about focused ultrasound and I remember a long time back about being able to focus a sound wave in a direct line so you could speak to someone and only that person would hear.

Well in the video on the new holographic tech the ultrasound causes paper and even skin to be pushed upon to give the illusion of "feeling".

Just how powerful can a focused ultrasound beam be?

If you build a doorway and all around this door way you had tiny focused ultrasound speakers firing focused ultrasound beams with enough power could it block people or objects getting past?

imagine you have ultrasound beams going left to right, right to left, top to bottom and bottom to top so you basically have at least 4 layers of multiple ultrasound beams all next door to eachother in the doorway.

Could they prevent passage?

Also imagine there are microwave emitters firing microwaves left to right, right to left, top to bottom and bottom to top so you not only have the 4 layers of focused ultrasound beams you also have 4 layers of high intensity microwave beams which could hurt, kill or burn through people or object trying to pass through the doorway.

Even if at high power the ultrasound beams would not stop people they could at least slow people down trying to get through so the microwave beams cause more damage or death.

On a tiny separate note. How about an ultrasound weapon?
basically the weapon would not actually be the ultrasound. Around the nozzle of the weapon would be multiple ultrasound devices in a circle which would shoot beams at the target creating an ultrasound tube if you will.
Within this ultrasound tube a ball of plasma would be fired and the ultrasound tube would prevent the plasma from dissipating.

 

[Zachary Smith]

A sturdy door with a good lock seems a cheaper, more economical option, dont'cha think?

 

[All Seeing Eye]

A sturdy door with a good lock seems a cheaper, more economical option, dont'cha think?

Yes, but let's not let that stand in the way of technological progress.

What about the plasma weapon?

 

[Alpha_Geek]

Dooorways that cook people? An ambulance chasing lawyers dream!

As for sound prohibiting passage, pretty unlikely. You're likely to cause more of an inpenetrable barrier with Innagaddadavida turned to 11.

 

[All Seeing Eye]

Dooorways that cook people? An ambulance chasing lawyers dream!

OK ignoring the microwaves, could 4 layers of multiple focused ultrasound beams prevent passage?

What about using an ultrasound tube to contain plasma so a plasma bolt could be fired at a target so it will reach target without spreading out and disipating long before hand.

 

[Alpha_Geek]

No.

Sound isn't a laser. You're not going to project a tube with it.

Might I suggest:

Physics for Beginners
http://physics.webplasma.com/physicstoc.html


- or -

Fuzzics Fizzle
http://library.thinkquest.org/16600/beginner/

 

[Zachary Smith]

A sturdy door with a good lock seems a cheaper, more economical option, dont'cha think?

Yes, but let's not let that stand in the way of technological progress.

What about the plasma weapon?

How do you reckon that overly complicated and ridiculously expensive means (both in terms of energy and cost) of accomplishing something which can be done far more effectively in a simple fashion and with no energy expense (once it's in place) is "progress" of any sort, technological or otherwise? Are you REALLY Rube Goldberg?


And, we need a plasma weapon because . . . ?

 

[All Seeing Eye]

This is all just for scientific fun and hypothetical, why get your knickers in a twist over why should we build one?

The question is not should we build one but could we build one.

We're not here to determine what should be made and we're not here to make them, we're just people here on a Star Trek message board to have discussions about things, have a bit of a chit chat.

I just want to discuss the possibilities of such devices working.

No.

Sound isn't a laser. You're not going to project a tube with it.

The distance of the weapon probably would not be very far but i'm sure a tube could be created.
One sound beam next to another, next to another all around the nozzle of the weapon would create a circular wall of sound with a centre that is sound free.

Should the plasma bolt try to spread out it would just hit the wall of sound.

 

[Zachary Smith]

This is all just for scientific fun and hypothetical, why get your knickers in a twist over why should we build one?

The question is not should we build one but could we build one.

We're not here to determine what should be made and we're not here to make them, we're just people here on a Star Trek message board to have discussions about things, have a bit of a chit chat.

I just want to discuss the possibilities of such devices working.

No.

Sound isn't a laser. You're not going to project a tube with it.

The distance of the weapon probably would not be very far but i'm sure a tube could be created.
One sound beam next to another, next to another all around the nozzle of the weapon would create a circular wall of sound with a centre that is sound free.

Should the plasma bolt try to spread out it would just hit the wall of sound.

TM -Phil Spector

 

[Trekker4747]

Microwaves aren't "magical heat beams." They're weak radio waves.

You're not going to burn shit with people walking into them in a split second. Stop getting your science from shitty disaster movies.

 

[All Seeing Eye]

Microwaves aren't "magical heat beams." They're weak radio waves.

You're not going to burn shit with people walking into them in a split second.

Depends on the intensity of all the beams and also depends on the ability of the sound beams to slow down or stop passage.

Stop getting your science from shitty disaster movies.

Stop being so hostile.

 

[Trekker4747]

Depends on the intensity of all the beams and also depends on the ability of the sound beams to slow down or stop passage.

No. Microwaves do not work like that. Microwaves are specific "radio waves" tuned to excite water - something that takes the better part of a minute to do in a microwave oven just to make a glass of water boil. Nor do these beams "stack" (if they did you'd be cooked just by stepping outside and getting bombarded by all of the microwaves flying around the air from modern technology.)

If you had these microwave heat-beams in this doorway they might harm a person if he stood there for a minute or two to begin to feel uncomfortable and decide to move. But no ammount of power or wavelength of microwave is going to instantly burn or harm someone. Radiation doesn't work like that.

 

[All Seeing Eye]

Multiple beams of Gamma radiation then.

 

[Trekker4747]

Gamma radiation then.

Uh-huh.

"We've got this great door that will give anyone within a mile of it a higher-instanace of cancer sometime over the course of their lifetime!"

 

[All Seeing Eye]

Tesla coils around the door frame working in conjunction with the sound beams. If you hit the sounds beams the Tesla coils activate and zap you whilst you're stuck in the doorway.

I saw a youtube vid once where they had a briefcase but it was only disguised as one and at the flick of a switch little electrical bolts shot out like what you see with Tesla coils.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Dooorways that cook people? An ambulance chasing lawyers dream!

OK ignoring the microwaves, could 4 layers of multiple focused ultrasound beams prevent passage?

Maybe you should try a different application of this technology before reinventing the wheel.

We already have barriers that prevent passage. They're called "doors." They work pretty well, and unlike ultrasound type weapons they can be locked.

Try to think of a situation where doors would not be feasible. Traffic safety, for example, could benefit from the creation of a sudden barrier that appears out of nowhere and dampens the movement of errant vehicles before they can crash into something. Warships and fighter planes, also, could benefit from momentarily created a high-pressure wave in the path of an oncoming missiles. Tanks, APCs, and certain VIP vehicles could also benefit from this type of technology.

You could MAYBE use intersecting ultrasonic beams to create some air pressure currents that would contain a plasma barrier for a few seconds or more, but it would function more like an airbag deploying than any kind of real forcefield. You could more easily get the same effect by very careful application of high explosives.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

If you had these microwave heat-beams in this doorway they might harm a person if he stood there for a minute or two to begin to feel uncomfortable and decide to move.

Actually, it would only take a second or two if you're using the same type of microwave weapons the U.S. Army is developing for crowd control. That would make a pretty effective anti-prowler barrier around some rich guy's house to deter burglars and the neighbor's cat, but it won't physically stop anyone, and a sufficiently persistent perpetrator could probably dive right through it.

But no ammount of power or wavelength of microwave is going to instantly burn or harm someone.

Well that's just patently incorrect. You could kill a man instantly with a powerful enough lightbulb; it might take a few hundred megawatts, but it would work. As for non-hypotheticals, I have been told that the radar antenna on the F-14 Tomcat is powerful enough to instantly kill a grown man standing in front of it when active.

 

[Trekker4747]

I saw a youtube vid once where they had a briefcase but it was only disguised as one and at the flick of a switch little electrical bolts shot out like what you see with Tesla coils.

Oh, you saw a Youtube video of it?

Well then it MUST be true!

 

[Alpha_Geek]

The distance of the weapon probably would not be very far but i'm sure a tube could be created.


Should the plasma bolt try to spread out it would just hit the wall of sound.

Part A. What laws of physics do make this supposition on?

Part B. Sounds is what? Why would it stop plasma to begin with?

 

[Trekker4747]

But no ammount of power or wavelength of microwave is going to instantly burn or harm someone.

Well that's just patently incorrect. You could kill a man instantly with a powerful enough lightbulb; it might take a few hundred megawatts, but it would work. As for non-hypotheticals, I have been told that the radar antenna on the F-14 Tomcat is powerful enough to instantly kill a grown man standing in front of it when active.

Well, enough power, sure, I over-stated my point, perhaps. How about no reasonable ammount of power.