Thoughts on lazer beams

So, just in case anyone is still on the 'is Dave a big geek?" fence... I think about this sort of thing ALL THE TIME!


Did you ever notice how in movies and videogames, you can always see the lazers that people / robots are shooting at each other? This isn't really the bad part too me, since there's bound to be some dissipation in the beam due to Tindel's effect. But the bad part is when people see it coming, and move out of the way! The lazer itself is MADE of light! It's moving as fast as the light refracted off it is coming to your eye. In other words, the very exact same instant that you see the lazer beam fired, it hits you. Hopefully in the eye. Heck you might even see it after you get hit, since the light your seeing bounced around a little on it's way to you. So, if these are just regular lazers, then dodging is out of the option.

So they can't be lazers. And really, if they're handheld guns, putting the power to produce enough light to do any serious damage, and the lenses to focus it in such a small space is costly and all kinds of dangerous. And sure, you can say that it's not light, just fired energy, but you still get the same problem. I like think that it is still light, but that it's light slowed down

Yeah, think about that one for a second. Cause you just can't do it. Except for maybe in some sort of space-stretching "warp" drives or other nonsense. But that also would take a bunch of power and I want my lazers handheld. Yes, this quickly turned into a "how can we make lazer guns cause I really want them" line of thinking.

So, we go back to keeping regular light, focused in on itself, and somehow refracting the wavelengths, off of itself. This really doesn't make much sense, but I really like the idea. The lazer beam is a tightly packed group of light bouncing off of itself, inside itself, to keep it condensed into a single point of contact and seering lazer death! High five!

And then you can have all kinds of wacky stuff, like altering the speed of the beam for intensity, so fast shots do less damage then slow shots, which is the sort of balance you'd expect in, you guessed it, video games. Which means that I like this idea, regardless of just how rediculous it is.