I am. And I’m sad that two weeks ago I didn’t have to bother with it. The quality of posts has definitely taken a nose-dive.
Even this discussion is getting offtopic but I can’t be bothered to move this. If anyone wants to reply link to this post and reply in the THE NEW Miscellaneous Talk That Doesn’t Deserve A New Thread Thread Thread
What would an Ion beam do to something when it made contact? Would ions tear atoms apart and cause an explosion? I want to know if an ion beam would be a better weapon than a rail gun.
Double post but it’s been 14 days so fair game.
Ok so more likely than not it would cause an explosion, worse than nukes actually. If a nuclear reaction happens from something as small as parts of atoms colliding with other atoms I can only imagine the reaction of high energy atoms smashing low energy atoms and then the pieces of those atoms smashing into other atoms. It would be MUCH more devastating than nukes. The perfect orbital bombardment weapon too, high accuracy and high devastation.
That’s exactly what happens with a nuke tho… The uranium-atoms smash into each other and explode, creating more particles which then hit other particles setting off a chain reaction of explosions. Also, the charge of the particles is negligible. If it’s a positively charged atom (which it most likely is, because the heavier metals are all metals), the charge is actually because of the absence of an elektron, which means that the explosion would be smaller, not bigger (still no a visible difference tho)
Last of all, because you’ve shooting it at a ship, the materials you’ll hit are most likely of a smaller atom than uranium, which means the explosion will be smaller. If it’s made of a material with a lower atomic number lower than iron, such as carbon, fission will actually cost energy, and you might even end with fusion, though I don’t know enough about that to know what’ll happen)
Yes but that’s a few atoms smashing into a few atoms this is a beam of millions being fired at something.
…no. Nuclear fission isn’t just “a single atom hitting another one”. It’s at least 56 kilograms of uranium atoms per, usually way more, theoretically all bursting in the same time. The uranium rods in nuclear generators are jumpstarted by only a couple atoms at the same time, but that’s because you don’t want your generator to explode. That doesn’t really apply to weaponry.
Here’s something and I hope this logic is flawed but because the air is made of atoms if you fire an ion beam the second it comes into contact with the air would the air around the beam start exploding too?
I think we have come to the conclusion that Ion weapons can prove very dangerous, possibly for the user as well if I read stuff right.
So, figure out a way to superheat particles into plasma and fire it somehow?
If it can destabilise the atoms in the air, then likely so.
Even then, Ion beams would be far too dangerous to handle, akin to antimatter.
Halo used gravity accelerators, which I assume works similar, if not works the same as warp.
As in, warping the plasma to its target.
This is an Ion beam thread though, not a plasma weapons thread.
Ion beams could work as a space weapon or as I said an orbital bombardment weapon.
Why does it have to be using ions tho? You could also just drop a lead rod, that’s way cheaper that using ions when using it as an orbital bombardment weapon. For space weaponry, remember this thread.
Bringing this back. So strapping plasma guns onto a large warship, space, naval, or atmospheric, seems plausible enough due to having the space to store whatever is being turned into plasma and the factilities needed to heat up the material to plasma state. One thing that I do care about would be ground troops, my thought on how this would work would be very proton pack like in that there would be a large storage pack on the back of the soldier that would have a tube leading to the firing mechanism (rifle, pistol, whatever). This pack would not make the plasma, since I don’t see a miniature version of the machinery needed to do that, it would have a port that would be filled with plasma and to keep the plasma at the heat needed. This would probably require powered armor since this would proabably heavy.