this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2024
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Science Memes

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[–] lowleveldata@programming.dev 248 points 3 months ago (6 children)

It'd be impressive if they fire it at like half the speed of light

[–] Evil_Shrubbery@lemm.ee 76 points 3 months ago (2 children)

I mean, any other non-c speed really.

[–] Glowstick@lemmy.world 102 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Actually, c is the speed of light in a vacuum, but light travels slower through a medium, like air. So lasers shot through air will actually travel slower than c.

[–] Bassman1805@lemmy.world 55 points 3 months ago (2 children)

(For anyone curious, the speed of light in earth air is like 99.97% as fast as in vacuum)

[–] jaybone@lemmy.world 21 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Bunch of nerds in this thread.

[–] Vilian@lemmy.ca 15 points 3 months ago (1 children)

You're in science_memes what did you expected?

[–] Comment105@lemm.ee 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] Eheran@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] ODuffer@lemmy.world 4 points 3 months ago
[–] ASeriesOfPoorChoices@lemmy.world 6 points 3 months ago

exactly where they should be.

[–] LilDumpy@lemmy.world 5 points 3 months ago

Ya, but that's JUST slow enough to be able to see it.

[–] DannyBoy@sh.itjust.works 14 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Maybe it's going to be space lasers.

[–] 5oap10116@lemmy.world 33 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Do you know what the religious affiliation of these space lasers will be?

[–] dohpaz42@lemmy.world 21 points 3 months ago (1 children)

You have a lot of chutzpah to ask such a question. Oy! What would your mother say?

[–] TheFriar@lemm.ee 6 points 3 months ago

“You’re so skinny why are you not eating”

[–] shasta@lemm.ee 12 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] marcos@lemmy.world 7 points 3 months ago (1 children)

A laser strong enough to be used as a weapon will probably not leave a lot of medium on its path.

But the front-most part will still travel at less than c. It will just speed-up after a while.

[–] sinkingship@mander.xyz 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I'm curious. What happens to the medium? Does it simply get pushed aside? Or pushed along? Or will it eat up some energy and react to something else?

[–] Tlaloc_Temporal@lemmy.ca 6 points 3 months ago

Much like lightning, a powerful enough laser will ionize the air. That ionized air is hot and rises, just like the ionized gasses from combustion.

A powerful laser will look like a beam of fire.

[–] Eril@feddit.org 15 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I would be especially interested in speeds larger than c 🙂

[–] Evil_Shrubbery@lemm.ee 13 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)
[–] AFC1886VCC@reddthat.com 17 points 3 months ago

Imagine if they made it fire so slow that you could just do a dark souls dodge roll to avoid it

[–] Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Would you accept 10,000 times slower than the speed of light?

[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] swordgeek@lemmy.ca 2 points 3 months ago

Pffft. Amateur.

[–] Jumuta@sh.itjust.works 6 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

just shine a laser through a thing of zircon (n=index of refraction=1.923~2)

so speed of the laser in the zircon = c/n ~c/2

[–] rimjob_rainer@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 3 months ago

Then we could finally have Star Wars laser guns.