For the Trekkies - What is the PF of a phaser

[Franklin D Wolverton]

Feel free to do your own math and discredit mine...

Assuming a phaser beam (handheld) is 1 inch wide by 1/4 inch thick, and a 1/10000th of a second blast would be 18.6 miles long, this is a resonance area of 294624 cubic inches, or 170.5 cubic feet.

Lets assume that a phaser beam consists of charged photons (Hydrogen atoms minus their electron). Hydrogen at normal pressure weights .52lbs per 100 cubic feet. Take the electron weight out of there, and we end up with about .515lbs per 100 cubic feet.

This gives us a total projectile weight of .515 x 170.5 / 100 = 0.878 lbs or 6146 grains

Now... the speed of light is roughly 186,000 miles per second - or 2,232,000 feet per second

So taking our formula of MV*BW/1000 = PF we get...

2,232,000 * 6146 / 1000

Or a power factor of 13,717,872

I'd say that makes major...

Frank

[JFlowers]

So whats the PF of the NX-class Enterprise's Phaser Cannon?

[Graham Smith]

Or a power factor of 13,717,872

Sounds about right. But it would be tough to score if you vaporized all the targets.

[SA Friday]

... and impossible to hold on to to the point of killing the shooter also. equal and opposite.

[Rocket35]

You lost me!

[el pres]

... and impossible to hold on to to the point of killing the shooter also. equal and opposite.

Thats what I was thinking ?? Would it have recoil ?? It is just light right ??

Too much time on our hands, we should be dryfiring or something !!

[Franklin D Wolverton]

So whats the PF of the NX-class Enterprise's Phaser Cannon?

Well... based on assumptions here... I would say the beam from the starship phaser cannon would be probably 6' x 6'... and they tend to fire them longer, so lets say they fire it for half a second.

1/2 second blast would be about 93,000 miles long (the distance light travels in 1.2 second). This comes out to 491,040,000 feet. That times 36 (the square of the beam) comes to 17,677,440,000 cubic feet of resonance.

17,677,440,000 / 100 x .515 = 91,038,816 lb of projectile, or 637,271,712,000 grains.

MV * PW /1000 (637,271,712,000 * 2,232,000 / 1000)

Power Factor equals 1,422,390,461,184,000

Geesh...

Or if we assume the same length of blast (1/10000th of a second) it comes to.... PF = 552,384,645,120

[XRe]

Lets assume that a phaser beam consists of charged photons (Hydrogen atoms minus their electron).

This is a bad assumption. Photons are not protons. Photons are massless... You have a PF of zero in both cases

[Mike Schramm]

I don't think it has a PF

You set your Phaser for "kill" and then hit A, B, C or D and the target is dead.

Should be scored like a popper.

[sfinney]

From wikipedia:

"Originally (from the production notes to TOS), the Phaser was a PHoton mASER, or PHASER, since at the time of writing the Laser was a relative unknown, and powers were not expected to be very great. Masers, on the other hand, were already very powerful machines which produce very destructive radiation pulses. The term "phaser" has since been revised as a backronym for PHASed Energy Rectification, though from a physics standpoint even this is of equal semantic content—ordinary incoherent light is not "rectified", or synchronous, whereas Lasing and Masing emissions are rectified, or synchronous. Phasers make a beam of a fictional type of subatomic particles called "rapid nadions".

So, once you guys figure out what mass, if any, "rapid nadions" posess, then you can start figuring the PF of a phaser. Good Luck!

[ChuckS]

And I think we will have Heisenberg issues at the Chrono. In any case, everybody makes the same PF since velocity is constant ( C ) and mass is zero. So for now, we will just have to accept that kill = major and stun = minor (except in prodution, of course )

Edited February 9, 2009 by ChuckS

[double_pedro]

I'm not a Trekkie but....Power Factor is a measure of momentum. If you're talking about a pulse of light from the phaser, the calculation is as follows:

The momentum of a photon, p, is related to its energy, E, by p = E/c where E is the energy of that photon and c is the speed of light. So, to determine the PF of the photon pulse, you need to know the power of the phaser in watts and the time length of a pulse. Let's do the calculation for a 1 watt phaser and a 1 sec burst. You can scale up from there. You get:

E_pulse = 1 W x 1 s = 1 J = 1 kg*(m/s)^2

p_pulse = E/c = (1 kg*(m/s)^2)/(3 x 10^8 m/s) = 3.3 x 10^-9 kg*m/s.

This is the momentum of the pulse in SI units; we need to convert kg*m/s into grains*ft/sec and then divide by 1000 to get the answer in PF units. Converting kg*m/s into grain*ft/s you can use the equivalent mesaures:

1 lb = 7000 grains = 0.454 kg, and 1 ft = 12 inches = 12 * 0.0254 m = 0.3 m

you get 1 kg*m/s = 5 x 10^4 grain*ft/s.

From above, we have

p_pulse = 3.3 x 10^-9 kg*m/s = (3.3 x 10^-9) x (5 x 10^4) grain*ft/s = 1.7 x 10^-4 grain*ft/s.

Dividing this by 1000 gives the Power Factor:

PF_burst = 1.7 x 10^(-7) = 0.00000017 for a 1 watt phaser and 1 second pulse.

To make major in a 1 sec burst, you'd need a gigawatt phaser. But I like the simplicity of Chuck's approach: kill = major and stun = minor.

Edited February 9, 2009 by double_pedro

[Doug H.]

Scoring:

T1 - Burned up - 2A

T2 - Burned up - 2A

T3 - Burned up - 2A

PP1 - Burned hole but did not fall - 1M

Doug

Edited February 9, 2009 by Doug H.

[p99shooter]

Lets assume that a phaser beam consists of charged photons (Hydrogen atoms minus their electron).

This is a bad assumption. Photons are not protons. Photons are massless... You have a PF of zero in both cases

Photons are massless but they do have momentum, so there would be a PF

[Franklin D Wolverton]

Scoring:

T1 - Burned up - 2A

T2 - Burned up - 2A

T3 - Burned up - 2A

PP1 - Burned hole but did not fall - 1M

Doug

Actually... wouldn't that be a range equipment failure?

I'm not a Trekkie but....Power Factor is a measure of momentum. If you're talking about a pulse of light from the phaser, the calculation is as follows:

The momentum of a photon, p, is related to its energy, E, by p = E/c where E is the energy of that photon and c is the speed of light. So, to determine the PF of the photon pulse, you need to know the power of the phaser in watts and the time length of a pulse. Let's do the calculation for a 1 watt phaser and a 1 sec burst. You can scale up from there. You get:

E_pulse = 1 W x 1 s = 1 J = 1 kg*(m/s)^2

p_pulse = E/c = (1 kg*(m/s)^2)/(3 x 10^8 m/s) = 3.3 x 10^-9 kg*m/s.

This is the momentum of the pulse in SI units; we need to convert kg*m/s into grains*ft/sec and then divide by 1000 to get the answer in PF units. Converting kg*m/s into grain*ft/s you can use the equivalent mesaures:

1 lb = 7000 grains = 0.454 kg, and 1 ft = 12 inches = 12 * 0.0254 m = 0.3 m

you get 1 kg*m/s = 5 x 10^4 grain*ft/s.

From above, we have

p_pulse = 3.3 x 10^-9 kg*m/s = (3.3 x 10^-9) x (5 x 10^4) grain*ft/s = 1.7 x 10^-4 grain*ft/s.

Dividing this by 1000 gives the Power Factor:

PF_burst = 1.7 x 10^(-7) = 0.00000017 for a 1 watt phaser and 1 second pulse.

To make major in a 1 sec burst, you'd need a gigawatt phaser. But I like the simplicity of Chuck's approach: kill = major and stun = minor.

And I thought I was a geek

Yes... kill=major stun=minor works for me to

This is turning into a better discussion than I thought...

Frank

[D.Hayden]

Isn't there a difference.. if you're talking old Star Trek vs Next Generation?

On the old show.. it never made sense to me (I wasn't a big fan).. a Phaser would vaporise the target totally.. in Next Generation... it made holes..

[Viggen]

Power output depended on if a particular show was using AA or AAA batteries, and how many.

[Doug H.]

So the Phaser guy calls for a calibration, RM walks up and knocks down the popper with a 9mm, MIKE!

Then tells the shooter he owes $100 bucks for the steel!

Doug

[el pres]

Isn't there a difference.. if you're talking old Star Trek vs Next Generation?

On the old show.. it never made sense to me (I wasn't a big fan).. a Phaser would vaporise the target totally.. in Next Generation... it made holes..

Maybe the vaporizing models were seen as a warcrime and so the intergalactic NATO types banned them ???

[Hank Ellis]

Isn't there a difference.. if you're talking old Star Trek vs Next Generation?

On the old show.. it never made sense to me (I wasn't a big fan).. a Phaser would vaporise the target totally.. in Next Generation... it made holes..

Technological innovation? Kinda like going from black powder to smokeless powder?

Maybe the vaporizing models were seen as a warcrime and so the intergalactic NATO types banned them ???

I remember one episode where the bad guy was a collector of the most rare things in the universe. One item was an unopened Mickey Mantle bubble gun package. Another was a Romulan disruptor that was banned by treaty as being too inhumane. Slow, painful tearing apart of your molecules.

[Chris Keen]

Whats a Phaser ?

[38superman]

Why worry with all the math?

Fire one through the chrono and see what it reads.

[ChuckS]

Why worry with all the math?

Fire one through the chrono and see what it reads.

We already pointed out that Heisenberg will make taking a reading marginal at best. Besides, at relativistic velocities, we won't really know when we chronoed so we will be uncertain on "Time of Day". The Kill/Stun scheme is really the best way to go here.

Later,

Chuck

Heisenberg was here. (I think)

PS: This is a lot more fun than arguing about runnin' with a pistol...

[Graham Smith]

Why worry with all the math?

Fire one through the chrono and see what it reads.

Assuming you can find what's left of the chrono afterwards.

[JThompson]

... and impossible to hold on to to the point of killing the shooter also. equal and opposite.

Photons do not have mass, so there is no equal and opposite. Photons do have heat energy though and can/do impart that heat on objects, so you could have a beam cook something without any recoil.