# Electrons, scientists wanted



## Aryeonos (May 17, 2008)

K so I'm writting a story, about sci-fi stuff. My main character is Yuri, because its russian and japanese, or something, I couldent rely think of a better name. His main weapon is an electron gun, which in a vacuum as far as I know, can atomize, gasousize, and something else messy. But I want to know if the idea of using a particle exelerator/ atom smasher/electron gun, is even possible in the slightest? Keep in mind that its sci fi so anything thats even a good theory should be able to go. And to counteract the electrons could you use a condensed field of protons to make a sheild against it?
Man my spelling is atrocious, I probably spelled that wrong too! I feel less than adequate right now....


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## Ishnuvalok (May 17, 2008)

Well, if you're going for sci-fi I'd say go for a positron gun instead. Positron-electron anhilation is quit violent. I guess you can use a cyclotron to accelerate the positrons. Renard would now more, him being an educated in nuclear physics and all.


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## Aryeonos (May 17, 2008)

But Yuri's a robot, actualy a Mecharoid (C) he's got a positronic brain, so it would be redundant, plus to store the proper reaction the gun he uses has two cyclotrons in it. Its just being able to project a beam made of electrons that has destructive capabilities that I want to know about. the Idea of using an electron gun has a deeper meaning, if his brain-his thought capasity is positronic, and the weapon is the opisite of thought, electrons a destructive force. Or something likethat.


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## WarMocK (May 18, 2008)

Particle accelerators are nothing new. They were developed in the 1970s to destroy incoming nuclear warheads and were supposed to be mounted on satellites.
However those weapons only work in vacuum. In an atmosphere, the accelerated particles would be stopped by the air, and the particle beam would simply dissipate within a few centimeters. The only thing you could try is to use the theory about ball lightnings.
According to new theories, ball lightnings have a very strong magnetic field that surrounds the huge electric charge like a capsule. The field is so strong that it ionizes the surrounding air for a few miliseconds, which is just enough to force the ionized air around the ball lightning. Otherwise, the elecrtric charge would ionize the air and dissipate within a milisecond.


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## Aryeonos (May 19, 2008)

Right you can create ball lightnings in a microwave with a match (don't try this I might have it wrong, go look on Youtube though). Although the particle accelerator was around earlier than the seventies, it wasn't used as a weopon till much later. What I'm getting at is wheather or not even in theory I could use electrons to make a beam that would Ionize anything within...lets 1-- meters. It isnt practicle sounding now, but what I need is a weopon thats plausible and unique to Yuri. The story takes place in 2153, if I remember right, gotta get off the sims and back to writing. But with a ball lightning It would be more like a burst or, electric bullet? I'll have to go back to wikipedia to help myself better understand, but I do know that I'll have to work around the positrons in oxygen atoms, and argon helium hydrogen and an inumerable amount of other particulate matter floating in the air. The majority of the other weapons in my book are lasers (so cliche I hate it but haven't got a better Idea at the moment) Small but very strong railguns, those weird self propelled electricly activated bullets/ballistic missles, and good old fassion lead.


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## Nocturne (May 19, 2008)

The problem may come in when the victim observes the existence of a particle.  Just don't shoot Schroedinger.


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## WarMocK (May 19, 2008)

Hehe, add Gyrojet weapons as well, they are a lot of fun - and very messy. B)
Speaking of microwaves: how about adding something like a microwave gun? Imagine what a powerful blast of microwaves against a target covered by metal would do ... ;-)
I think I'm gonna search my old battletech books for the description of the good ol' PPC again. It's so much fun to read .... it's godlike.


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## LizardKing (May 20, 2008)

Some kind of strong ultrasound emitter that precisely matches the resonating frequency of a human skull would be fun. Maybe it could be adjustable for use against concrete, metal, whatever by changing the frequency. Or maybe it just wouldn't work at all, but I like the idea of it.

Edit: The intro to one of the songs in my playlist has a deep bass tone that makes the back of my wardrobe vibrate like crazy. The nails are quite loose now.


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## pitonpeludo (May 20, 2008)

Nocturne said:


> The problem may come in when the victim observes the existence of a particle.  Just don't shoot Schroedinger.



Oh noes! The infinity improbability that it might or might not be there! Is it a particle? A wave? DAMN IT!


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## Ceceil Felias (May 20, 2008)

WarMocK said:


> Hehe, add Gyrojet weapons as well, they are a lot of fun - and very messy. B)
> Speaking of microwaves: how about adding something like a microwave gun? Imagine what a powerful blast of microwaves against a target covered by metal would do ... ;-)
> I think I'm gonna search my old battletech books for the description of the good ol' PPC again. It's so much fun to read .... it's godlike.


For Microwave weaponry applied, see: Code Geass, Guren Type-2.

Pilots get fried inside their cockpits and their Knightmare Frames bubble out like cheap plastic on a hot stove before exploding.


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## Raul (May 20, 2008)

As a Chemist, I've done a lot of stuff with Electrons, and as it has been said before, an electron itself could only really work in a vacuum. Obviously electrons are transferred around in chemical reactions and electrochemical cells, but only a stream of just electrons is unlikely. A more feasible weapon would be a lightning gun.  For that to work, it would have to ionise a channel of air from a positive source to a negative source. Once these two points are connected, a electrical charge can travel down the channel of ionised air in the form of lightning. 

Once fired, if there was no wind, then it would be a straight line of electricity. If it was windy, then you'd get the classic lightning look. But anyway, an Electron firing gun is a bit more "sci-fi" that what you're asking.


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## WarMocK (May 20, 2008)

Ceceil Felias said:


> For Microwave weaponry applied, see: Code Geass, Guren Type-2.
> 
> Pilots get fried inside their cockpits and their Knightmare Frames bubble out like cheap plastic on a hot stove before exploding.


hehe, now You're talking my language ... }:->



			
				RAUL said:
			
		

> A more feasible weapon would be a lightning gun. For that to work, it would have to ionise a channel of air from a positive source to a negative source. Once these two points are connected, a electrical charge can travel down the channel of ionised air in the form of lightning.


The problem is: getting a single link to the target is easy. All you need is a weak laser beam just powerful enough to ionize the air. But you either need a second link to close the circuit, or you attach something to the target that functions as the necessary negative (or should I say: positive ;-)) source.


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## Chinook Steeves (May 22, 2008)

A rail gun would not work well, but a coilgun would. It fires projectiles though so without bullets its useless.
As for electrons, I think that they are used for everything from radio waves to x-rays.
Gamma rays are either photons or light. (btw photons and light are basically the same thing. Light is radiation and photons are a "particle" but they have no mass.)
For a lightning gun you would need to shield your character in an insulator and have the gun discharge static electricity. Problem is the electricity is very unpredictable and would very likely fry someone you don't want to.
For your purposes, I would recommend an anti-matter gun which would annihilate the target, or a gun that smashes antimatter with matter causing a nuclear reaction.
I personally would go with a Relativistic Bomb designed to fire a pulse of kinetic energy. Iron Man had a weapon similar to this.


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## Aryeonos (May 24, 2008)

Yes but Iron man wasn't as cool as a russian. K, so...I just need to Ionize the surrounding air molacules, in order to make a beam...But if its windy than that doesnt work, and for a lighting gun to work I gotta make my positive and negative points for it to shoot anything? What if I use something like a piton to attract the lightings? or would that work, I like the simplicity of just Electrons though. So what if I just find a way of Ionizing the air at the same time, or is that what your saying.

What about the ball lighting, could I use it as a bullet kinda thing? They do energy cacooning in starwars, for the proton torpedos, ya gotta read the books though not just the movies.


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## WarMocK (May 24, 2008)

Aryeonos said:


> What about the ball lighting, could I use it as a bullet kinda thing?


If you claim to use something that generates a powerful electromagnetic field, injects a heavy load of electrons into it (like an electron pump), and then manages to "stimulate" the electrons to create their own electromagnetic field holding them together and accelerate the result towards the enemy ... why not?
You would just do what happens in the air when a normal lightning occurs and the inner fluctuations cause one of its branches to form an u, and the electromagnetic field surrounding the lightning beam starts to interact with itself and creates a bubble trapping some of the lightning's energy. The result is the ball lightning (Ok, that's just a theory about the creation of ball lightnings, but atm it's the most plausible).


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## Aryeonos (May 24, 2008)

well what i'm starting to visualize is, DIGRESSION TIME, the gun thing you use in megaman X8 on the forest bamboo panda dude. All you see is a small muzzle flash and then at the point you aimed at theres a ball of electromagnetic energy, then it all ionizes to NOTHING!


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## WarMocK (May 24, 2008)

hehe ...
If something gets hit by a ball lightning and the containment field fails the electrons would hit the molecules of the target and cause them to vibrate so heavy that they likely lose their intermolecular bonds and fall apart. It would be like you raised their temperature up to 5000-6000 degrees Celsius, maybe more.
In other words: the center of the impact would be vaporized immediately, and the outer rim would melt away like an icecube thrown into a volcano. A lot of damage for just a few million subatomic particles. ;-)


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## Aryeonos (May 24, 2008)

Yeah thats what I was going for.


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## WarMocK (May 24, 2008)

Ok then, time for some important notes about a "ball lightning gun":
- It would need a relatively big barrel for a small "projectile2 because of the magnetic field.
- You will need capacitors for the huge amount of energy.
- The firing rate would be moderate to slow because the capacitors need to be charged before you can fire again, and this will take some time.
- A strong magnetic field near the projectile might distract it from it's course.
- Upon impact, the ball lightning will do a lot of spash damage in form of an EMP
- An impact on a metallic surface has a bigger AoE than on a rock
- Stay away from water! the projectile would dissipate immediately - and fry anything within a big area. Better than dynamite fishing, I guess. ;-)
- A ball lightning would have devastating effects on anything with a computer in it because of the EMP, as well as anybody using some kind of neuronal interface. He'd suffer a fatal aneurism.

That would be about it, I guess. ^^


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## Aryeonos (May 24, 2008)

well capacitors and stuff not a problem, there in the futur OOOOOOoooOOoooOo!
But the barrel isnt that big, the gun is only about 30 Cm in lengh, and only 5 in width, I think. I'll go back and read it again, I wrote it I should remember.


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## WarMocK (May 24, 2008)

30*5 cm ... that would be the size of a Desert Eagle. hmmm ....
Ok, you won' get through the armor of a heavy tank, but when facing some kind of battle armor, that weapons would do the trick. It' probably have the firepower of a modern .50 AT rifle, with explosive ammo. But without the recoil. ;-)


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## Chinook Steeves (May 28, 2008)

I just read about a hypothesis about ball lightning that makes more sense to me. Burning silicon. The computer chip kind of silicon. When lightning strikes a silia rich patch of soil, the silicon is vaporized and then burns away. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/01/070122-ball-lightning.html


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## WarMocK (May 28, 2008)

The trick is: there are several ways to create a ball lightning. While the EM field sounds more complicated, it was already proved about ten years ago. The burning silicon theory sounds plausible too, but on the other hand i have my doubts that you would find enough silicon in natural soil to vaporize and create a ball of superhot plasma. Furthermore I don't believe that these ball lightnings would be able to go through walls and doors, which was frequently reported by people seeing a ball lightning hitting their house.


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## Chinook Steeves (May 29, 2008)

I can see it. Sort of. Different types of radiation have different wavelengths. Large wavelengths can bend and be manipulated easily. The part that doesn't work is light has a very tiny wavelength so it is hard to manipulate. And no I don't believe that burning silicon could go through a solid. Maybe theres more than one way that ball lightning is formed and they all act differently.


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## An Sionnach Rua (May 30, 2008)

You know, you could just use a pistol.


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## Aurali (May 30, 2008)

something tells me a lot of us are missing the obvious...

why not just use a laser? :3 they exist already. and all you gotta do is miniaturize it.


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## WarMocK (May 30, 2008)

Eli said:


> something tells me a lot of us are missing the obvious...
> why not just use a laser? :3 they exist already. and all you gotta do is miniaturize it.


Because the threat starter wants a weapon that is UNCOMMON. Slugthrowers and lasers are in almost every 08/15 comic, lightning guns are more uncommon. A ball lightning gun would be almost unique (the only thing that is similar is the PPC in battletech).


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## Aurali (May 30, 2008)

Anything you can think of has been used.. and if your drawing a comic.. then a simple adjustment to the way it looks will make it not only uncommon, but awesome...


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## WarMocK (May 30, 2008)

Eli said:


> Anything you can think of has been used..


Which doesn't make it any better, especially if you consider how a laser works as a weapon. You burn a little hole in the target ... BUFF! ... show's over. How exciting ... -.-
A target being hit by a load of electrons could melt, vaporize, or maybe simply fall apart, small lightnings might cover the area you hit, computer systems (or a nervous system) might fail, resulting in a funny behavior of the target (dance baby, dance! ). There are many things that could happen and be plausible, making the whole scenery more interesting and exciting for the audience - and raises the whole story high above the average comic you never finish reading because you feel you've already read it.


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## Aurali (May 31, 2008)

You have no imagination my friend^^


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## WarMocK (May 31, 2008)

Eli said:


> You have no imagination my friend^^


Oh, I have a lot of imagination, but I also know the facts (I'm an engineer when I'm done with studying. B-)). And since almost EVERY Sci-Fi story contains a laser weapon, it would be nice to see something different. ^^


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## Aurali (May 31, 2008)

:3 yes. but electrons? that's so... well doable..  how bout a weapon that actually causes awesomeness... like a bomb that compresses an area into a singularity :3 or a weapon that focuses the power of the sun onto a single point on the planet, eradicating everything near it.. or maybe use something like a positron beam, protected by a polar ray surrounding it to tear apart the molecular structure of the enemy

or something using techniques that are not so near future sci fi o.o; 

though.. if you wanna use electrons..; try something based off a taser... a device that bounces massive amounts of electrons off of particles of air..


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## Krystalynn (May 31, 2008)

A railgun that fires a compressed 100 megaton hydrogen bomb. And is double barreled. It's like nuclear winter that fits in your pocket.


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## WarMocK (May 31, 2008)

Eli said:


> how bout a weapon that actually causes awesomeness...
> 
> or maybe use something like a positron beam, protected by a polar ray surrounding it to tear apart the molecular structure of the enemy


LOL, guess what effect the impact of a load of electrons has ....
It's like an overpowered klingon disruptor!
The electrons would scatter the molecular structure of the target, causing parts of it to be vaporized, blowing other parts off the surface like a grenade, and electrical discharges all around the impact mark, causing even more damage. That would be quite a lot for a tiny little hand weapon. ;-)


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## WarMocK (May 31, 2008)

Krystalynn said:


> A railgun that fires a compressed 100 megaton hydrogen bomb. And is double barreled. It's like nuclear winter that fits in your pocket.


And people say I would create overpowered weapons ... LOL


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## Ceceil Felias (May 31, 2008)

Krystalynn said:


> A railgun that fires a compressed 100 megaton hydrogen bomb. And is double barreled. It's like nuclear winter that fits in your pocket.



That'll put a hole in your pocket from the mass being so dense as to put a massive amount of weight on a single tiny point.


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## Chinook Steeves (Jun 22, 2008)

Eli said:


> Anything you can think of has been used..



Bull! I got an idea for a furry superhero from thinking about the feasibility of IronMan. In physics, all the different types of energy are able to be converted from one form to another. Thats what my hero does. I think I'm going to make it so he needs his technology to do it.


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## Draco_2k (Jun 25, 2008)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railgun
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coilgun

Possible and already done. If you want to shoot out high-energy particles however, good old Laser is the way to go.

Railgun principle can be used to accelerate projectiles and bits of dust all the same. The result should be that of the speeding bullet times a few dozen to few hundred, for same-size projectile. No, you can't block either with anything short of actual armour.


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