January 24, 2007
U.S. military has developed a ray gun. No, seriously. I think CNN's choice of title for this article is making me more alarmed than I should be. Also: "Technology is supposed to be harmless".
I remember when y'all had to do that. I think Javelina determined that it would not work at all (doh!).
My question is, could you just start wearing an appropriate outer layer (one that shields in the range of this wavelength) and bring a surreptitious shield with you to your little PETA demonstrations or kiteboarding-is-not-a-crime demonstrations and protect yourself as needed?
Isn't it somewhat easy to subvert (with pre-planning, of course-- the same kind that has everyone bringing bike-locks to chain their necks together)?
"Military officials say it could save the lives of civilians and service members in places like Iraq and Afghanistan.
The weapon is not expected to go into production until at least 2010, "
Exactly how long are we planning on staying in Iraq....
My Griffy E&M paper was on remote sensing of sea ice thickness. . . yawn, compared to yours.
Reid- Is there any way that glass would work as a shield? Maybe that's why they wouldn't comment on it.
See, that's what I was wondering too. I mean, gosh, simple to implement. I have bakeware that could protect me in that case. Perhaps we should do some calculations about the possible diffraction effects, whatnot, and then let our non-science demonstration friends know.
More importantly, will this device do that really cool thing that happens to CD's you put in the microwave?
that CD in the microwave thing was really cool. I had no idea.
although i think it would be pretty funny if people started carrying casserole dishes at protests, it turns out that all you need is some thick clothing or a thin metallic sheet like a trash can lid. . which is actually even funnier.
/2 WTB [Shimmering Pyrex Greaves] x2 PST
Hilarious!
would mylar work?
I wonder how the military is coming on their Sonic Gun?
I believe I read somewhere that an effective countermeasure was to coat yourself in puppies one or two layers deep. They should be a dark hair breed like chocolate lab for greater effectiveness.
you cracked me up reid.
Our griffy paper was a rehash of the previous classes paper on negative index materials. I got a 90 which was my only A in grad school. Good times.
We were asked to show how the signal from a GPS satellite could be used to measure the ionosphere thickness. It's a pretty hard but reasonable problem, and most people I think got the formula showing how to do this.
As one of the few people who actually plugged in numbers and interpreted them -- showing the effect existed but was uselessly small at the GPS signal's wavelength -- I got a very high score.
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Those of us in my incoming class know this weapon well...we all had to do a report for Griffy's E&M class about it. Taking an internet article very similar to this one (long on promise, short on details) we had to try to work out all the relevant parameters (wavelength, radiated power, etc.) just using the skin depth (1/64 inch) and temperature rise. I remember receiving a grade that was okay but not as good as I hoped. I also seem to remember talking to people after turning it in and everyone had wildly different conclusions about every aspect of the ray gun.
posted by natedogg at 10:02AM CST on January 25