Could a Star Trek Phaser actually work?
As some of you probably know, the main weapon used in Star Trek is the Phaser. The original weapon was a hand held device that shot a focused energy beam much like a laser. The weapon had settings, the lowest was called ‘Stun’ and it did what the setting suggested--it knocked a person out cold. The ‘Kill’ setting could, as expected, kill a person, and the full power setting could disintegrate a person. The Phaser could also be used to cut through metal and rock, and the weapon’s beam could be widened to affect a wide area, knocking out several people.
This weapon in a more powerful version was used on the Enterprise to blast enemy ships and cause damage on a planet’s surface. Star Fleet ships had shielding to protect the ship’s outer hull from damage due to Phaser or other energy weapons’ fire such as the Disrupter or the Phased polaron cannon.
Obviously, all of these weapons were part of Star Trek fiction. The question is: could we make such a weapon?
The Department of Defense is working on laser beam weapons to knock down missiles and planes; however, the energy source has a portability problem, but the weapons tested so far can punch a hole trough a thick steel plate, but this idea is designed to be mounted in a tank or plane, not carried around attacked to a belt.
According to Memory Alpha, Phaser weapons were invented in the 23d century and used by Starfleet as early as 2230. There is little known about how it actually works. They claim that the Phaser was made to fire a steady stream of nadion particles, whatever the heck they are, and the beam’s resonance frequency (in gigahertz) could be modified, which changed the bean’s color. One thing I can say about them is that they emitted a cool sound, which was supposedly like the Martians made in the 1953 version of War of the Worlds.
Later it was revealed that Phasers were basically lasers with a pulsating beam that could be adjusted to interfere or interact with any molecule. That was one explanation. The other was that the Phaser was a mixture or combination of particle cannon and laser.
Still later the explanation was--and I quote--“The Phaser involves a process of turning stored energy into an energy beam without intermediate transformation. Energetic plasma is pumped into a prefire chamber made of a superconducting lithium-copper. There it undergoes a rapid nadion effect in which strong nuclear forces are liberated. A protonic charge forms and is released in pulses to the emitter made out of the same superconducting crystal. A beam of electromagnetic energy is releases from it at the speed of light. On starships, energy for phasers originates from the EPS, while on hand units, the charge of energetic plasma is stored in sarium-krellide. This material is used because it can’t accidently release the charge of plasma.”
Yeah, right!
Whatever that means is pure fiction.
However, with what we know about lasers and particle physics, I would not be surprised if something like this was made and used by the military. Stay tuned.
Thanks for reading.