Solar death ray (this thing is awesome)

Discussion in 'General Science & Technology' started by apendrapew, Oct 21, 2005.

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  1. apendrapew Oral defecator Registered Senior Member

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    What do you think would be the motivation to take objects, burn it in a kiln and make it seem as though it were burned by a solar death ray? And though there is no video footage of him burning things, there are animated gifs created from video images. You still didn't look at the site, did you.

    Take your own advice. You think that because mythbusters managed to screw it up that the idea doesn't work at all? For proof that these devices work, look at the link lybogany provided us with.
     
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  3. alain du hast mich Registered Senior Member

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    "Alain, surely the MIT project proved feasible, no?"

    feasable, but not practical

    "You still didn't look at the site, did you." i went to the site, and saw the picture of the 'death ray' and saw that it was much worse then the mythbusters one. I went to the MIT site, and they had a better death ray, so i actually read their site
     
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  5. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    I do not think so. How would each solder know his reflected beam was on target instead of missing the ship entirely? That it could work, under ideal conditions has been established:
    http://physics.about.com/gi/dynamic...edesResult.html
    but note that each securely fixed mirror (not hand held) was aimed and then covered up so the next one could be aimed. If 1000 men HAND HELD mirrors, they would be lucky if more than 5 could place their reflected rays on the same spot. (Once 5 are there the sixth contributes too little difference to know it it is on target or not. -the whole ship would be equally illuminated and no one would know if his beam was even hittling the ship - much less where on the ship if it happened to be one of those that was hitting the ship.
     
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  7. gukarma Beijo do Gordo! Registered Senior Member

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    It's not like this is a novel idea at all.
     
  8. Businesswiz Registered Senior Member

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    Im just wondering, bear in mind that I'm not an optical physist or anything. Can death-type-rays be used to direct sunlight to devies which absorb it and convert it into electricity?
     
  9. RonVolk Registered Senior Member

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    I can't see bullets flying at a target but I can aim them at a target, Maybe the army of men would need to develop aiming mechanisms like a hole in the center of the mirror and a very straight object directly below the hole to make Gun sites of a sort.
     
  10. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    Like an emergency mirror used to signal airplanes. But due to inevitable wobbling, it would be less and less accurate at greater and greater distances.
     
  11. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    try looking thru a finger sized whole in a yard long tube (Role up an newspaper) and see if you can find a particular window on a building a a few hundred yards away - then you will understand why your idea does not work.
     
  12. RonVolk Registered Senior Member

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    So it wouldn't be easy, doesn't mean it couldn't be done. Proper shooting techniques allow people to hit point targets at distances over 500 yards using mirrors it should be easier as the target is not a point. Undoubtably they'd need to mount the mirrors though.
    Are you telling me to find a particular window because you think I couldn't count fifth window from the left fourteenth from the ground, or do you think I can't hold a newspaper rolled into a tube steady?
    Spidergoat, wouldn't this whole Light beam be less effective at increased range because the Air and any humidity (like generated by an ocean) would diffuse the light.
     
  13. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    I think you could count windows, but not hold tube steady enoungh to be sure - like counting a long line of identical objects is hard - but this is a doable task, I agree. I suggested it so you would appreciate the problem of a narrow field of view - However it is easy to solve the narrow field of view problem - just the way the rifle does. don't look thru tube. keep the small hole in the mirror and use two orthogonal archs to form a "cross hair" sight - now you have awide field of view.

    The real problem when 5 to10 guys have their beam onn the target is to know if one of those is yours or is your beam passing by the target entirely.
     
  14. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    I will answer for him: Air and humidity effect is less that the fact the beam is 1/2 degree wide off a flat mirror. Your vision is sharp and clear thru clean humid air to well beyond the horizon (proof: the stars are seen as points even if near the horizon looking out over the sea if the air is clean, as it often is when the humid breaze is toward the land.)

    Water dropplets (fog or clouds, not vapor) or dust in the air (sand storms etc) is an entirely different story. Once late I was driving a date home on an unfamiliar widing road in the mountains and I had to make her walk in front of the car because the fog was so thick that all I could see thru the window was a white space.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Oct 28, 2005
  15. Rekkr Registered Senior Member

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    What would you use for a lens? Where could you get a lens that would focus light (coming from all angles) to one point?
     
  16. RonVolk Registered Senior Member

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    The people aiming would have to practice aiming their mirrors alone, then use it in a group. They could have everyone in the group wiggle left and right or up and down except a certain person (The person with no confidence in their aim) so they could figure out who was missing and sacrifice them to Saturn, retrain them, or whatever.
    Flaming arrows would be cheaper I think but definatly not as cool.
     
  17. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    yes they would, and unlike the solar death ray, they work.

    Yes if you get all but say 5 to shift their beams off target the remaining five can be sure that they are on target (one makes a fast wiggle up/down, another slow wiggle left right etc., but the ship will not be heating much in "5 sun" intensity. The basic problem could be solved with modern technology, but not back then.

    For example each mirror could have a different audio frequency vibrational distortion making it slightly non planar. The man holding that mirror wears a head set to hear the tone (filters remove all other tones). For economy, there is only one "optics/amplifier wagon" with telescope and photo detectors. etc. He makes slight intentional movement of his mirror to keep the tone strength loudest, but even in this his first "intentional movements" will more than likely be in the wrong direction, but he will quickly realize this and reverse direction.

    That would let 1000 men / mirrors stay on target and know they were, but I think it would be even more economical (assuming were are allowing some modern technology) with a wire guided missle and only one man to feed after the ship is sunk.

    Perhaps an arrow with a stick of dynamite does the trick, if the archer is good and can hit just above the water line, but that is getting off thread, which I am now going to consider sunk, dead, over, etc.
     
  18. parker Registered Member

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    Hello to everyone, I'm new to this forum. Been reading thru a lot of old threads and found this one. I built a small " death ray" and it works really well. I used 81 one inch sq. mirrors focused at about 30". Cardboard smokes almost instantly and burns in less than 5 sec. Wooden paint stick burns in less than a minute. Melting lead takes longer but it does work. Started building 3 more so I can aim all 4 at same spot. Gonna be fun. Anyone wants to know more just ask. I get on here a couple times a week. b
     
  19. phlogistician Banned Banned

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    One by one, probably by using something like a glob of tile cement to mount them to the board, so you can squish down an edge until the mirror is aligned? Sounds a simple and cheap method to me, you know, using tile cement on mirror tiles?

    Maybe because 'Tiles R Us' don't sell laser components, but they do sell mirror tiles and mirror cement?
     
  20. parker Registered Member

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    For instructions on how to build one google science hobbyist. Go to the bottom of that site and click on Good stuff. At the bottom of that page click on solar furnance. Tells you everything about it.
     
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