Darth Viscera
Jul 29th, 2002, 11:46:40 AM
Serious question/discussion, if I may:
Hypothesis: One can use a 300mhz computer processor to regulate the flow of power from a battery to a laser pointer, thereby inhibiting through precision the distance a laser beam may be allowed to go. A laser beam could be activated and stay put at 1 meter, giving us bonafide lightsabers when fitted to a hilt and given some modifications so that the laser beam is actually visible.
The thing that prevents us from making an actual lightsaber is the lack of termination of a laser beam. The darn light just keeps on going, and won't stay stuck in place at 1 meter like in the movies with lightsabers. A cheap laser will be completely decayed at 1km, but what we need is a laser beam that terminates at 1 meter.
Now, the speed of light kicks in. Thank the dieties, light travels very slowly, so slowly in fact that my hypothesis is that you can manipulate it. The speed of light is:
300,000 kilometers per second
now, to turn that into a term we can use:
300,000,000 meters per second
Now that may seem awful fast, but who here is using a 300 megahertz processor? My computer is 1333 Mhz. That means that 1,333,000,000 times a second my computer is generating 0s and 1s, 0s to void a operation and 1s to activate it. All these operations, when used en masse, give you your windows graphical interface, and make those silly smilies to my left roll their eyes, laugh and jump about.
Now if a 300mhz processor could directly regulate power output, serve as a gas pedal for energy transfer from a battery to a laser pointer, we could get somewhere. A 1, to activate the laser pointer, and a 0 to deactivate it. Now as there are 300 million operations a second, that 1 will, in theory, produce a beam of light that extends 1 meter into the air for 1/300000000 of a second, certainly invisible to the human eye. However, if 50% of those operations are 1s and the other 50% are 0s, 10101010 and so on 300 million times a second, then in theory you would have a laser light which appears static extending 1 meter and abruptly stopping at 1 meter, as opposed to continuing until the laser degrades at 1km. Activation, deactivation, activation, deactivation, 300 million times a second, each activation only given enough time to extend 1 meter because a laser light travels the speed of light.
An object in motion will continue to be in motion unless acted on by an outside force.
I propose that the 150 million deactivations per second of the processor/power regulator is that force.
Opinions, please? Anyone else theorize that this operation would in fact create a static laser at 1 meter?
Hypothesis: One can use a 300mhz computer processor to regulate the flow of power from a battery to a laser pointer, thereby inhibiting through precision the distance a laser beam may be allowed to go. A laser beam could be activated and stay put at 1 meter, giving us bonafide lightsabers when fitted to a hilt and given some modifications so that the laser beam is actually visible.
The thing that prevents us from making an actual lightsaber is the lack of termination of a laser beam. The darn light just keeps on going, and won't stay stuck in place at 1 meter like in the movies with lightsabers. A cheap laser will be completely decayed at 1km, but what we need is a laser beam that terminates at 1 meter.
Now, the speed of light kicks in. Thank the dieties, light travels very slowly, so slowly in fact that my hypothesis is that you can manipulate it. The speed of light is:
300,000 kilometers per second
now, to turn that into a term we can use:
300,000,000 meters per second
Now that may seem awful fast, but who here is using a 300 megahertz processor? My computer is 1333 Mhz. That means that 1,333,000,000 times a second my computer is generating 0s and 1s, 0s to void a operation and 1s to activate it. All these operations, when used en masse, give you your windows graphical interface, and make those silly smilies to my left roll their eyes, laugh and jump about.
Now if a 300mhz processor could directly regulate power output, serve as a gas pedal for energy transfer from a battery to a laser pointer, we could get somewhere. A 1, to activate the laser pointer, and a 0 to deactivate it. Now as there are 300 million operations a second, that 1 will, in theory, produce a beam of light that extends 1 meter into the air for 1/300000000 of a second, certainly invisible to the human eye. However, if 50% of those operations are 1s and the other 50% are 0s, 10101010 and so on 300 million times a second, then in theory you would have a laser light which appears static extending 1 meter and abruptly stopping at 1 meter, as opposed to continuing until the laser degrades at 1km. Activation, deactivation, activation, deactivation, 300 million times a second, each activation only given enough time to extend 1 meter because a laser light travels the speed of light.
An object in motion will continue to be in motion unless acted on by an outside force.
I propose that the 150 million deactivations per second of the processor/power regulator is that force.
Opinions, please? Anyone else theorize that this operation would in fact create a static laser at 1 meter?