The Illusion of the Phaser Beam

Lucky · Post by **Lucky** » Wed Oct 10, 2012 6:01 am

Regeneration wrote: (Malcolm and Crewman Foster are test firing a phase rifle)  
REED: Increase power another five megajoules. Fire. Keep it going. Increase to seven megajoules. Try eight. Nine. The density's holding. Bring it up to ten. (it finally blasts a hole in the target) That should do it. We'll reach that transport in less than an hour. Let's modify as many of these as we can.

Return To Grace wrote: KIRA: This is a standard issue, Cardassian phase-disruptor rifle. It has a four point seven megajoule power capacity, three millisecond recharge two beam settings.  
ZIYAL: How do you know so much about Cardassian weapons?  
KIRA: We captured a lot of them during the occupation. It's a good weapon, solid, simple. You can drag it through the mud and it'll still fire. Now this. (Federation phaser rifle.) This is an entirely different animal. Federation standard issue. It's a little less powerful, but it's got a more options. Sixteen beam settings. Fully autonomous recharge, multiple target acquisition, gyro stabilised, the works. It's a little more complicated, so it's not as good a field weapon. Too many things can go wrong with it.

We all know that Phasers fire beams, and the characters speaking in the quotes above are confusing watts and joules? But, what if it all that wasn't true? What if Phasers fire pulses, and the characters are correct? But wait we always see a Phaser beam.

That line of thought is all well and good, but highly unrealistic and illogical. Take this video for example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrJ_lS_K1Jc. Notice how the Phalanx seems to be firing a Sci-fi type (one might even say Phaser like) beam when in reality it is firing lots of tracer rounds very quickly. Similarly when we slow down phase pistol fire we see that it is not in fact a beam: http://ent.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/ ... on_370.jpg
http://ent.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/ ... on_374.jpg
http://ent.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/ ... on_377.jpg
http://ent.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/ ... on_378.jpg
http://tng.trekcore.com/hd/albums/1x10/ ... hd_186.jpg
http://tng.trekcore.com/hd/albums/1x10/ ... hd_205.jpg
http://tng.trekcore.com/hd/albums/1x13/ ... hd_472.jpg
, but a series of bolts being fired so quickly it appears to be a single beam. If the beam is in fact a series of pulses fired in rapid succession then the character are not wrong, but it is you the viewer that who is wrong. Just because you saw something does not mean you know what you saw, or can identify it correctly.

Praeothmin · Post by **Praeothmin** » Wed Oct 10, 2012 2:00 pm

Interesting, but why are you posting this?

Lucky · Post by **Lucky** » Thu Oct 11, 2012 9:08 am

Praeothmin wrote:Interesting, but why are you posting this?

I've been kicking this theory around for a while, and then suddenly things just clicked, and I realized where to look for the evidence I needed to support the theory while reading something on ASVS.

Praeothmin · Post by **Praeothmin** » Thu Oct 11, 2012 12:57 pm

Ah, I see...
I do think it's interesting and does fit with visuals...

Mike DiCenso · Post by **Mike DiCenso** » Thu Oct 11, 2012 11:49 pm

The special effects most certainly demonstrate this in "Wrath of Khan":

You can clearly seen the pulse "breaks" on Reliant and Enterprise's phaser fire.
-Mike

Trinoya · Post by **Trinoya** » Fri Oct 12, 2012 2:40 am

I've always presumed the 'pulses' are the damaging aspect of phasers, and the beam is largely for both accuracy and efficient transmission of said pulses. Basically pulse phasers (such as those on the defiant) are just phasers with no beam and therefore are much less accurate or precise as it were.

Praeothmin · Post by **Praeothmin** » Fri Oct 12, 2012 12:08 pm

So, Trinoya, Phasers would act contrary to Turbolasers? :)

Trinoya · Post by **Trinoya** » Fri Oct 12, 2012 5:16 pm

Great scott... 0_0

Lucky · Post by **Lucky** » Sat Oct 13, 2012 5:44 am

Trinoya wrote:I've always presumed the 'pulses' are the damaging aspect of phasers, and the beam is largely for both accuracy and efficient transmission of said pulses. Basically pulse phasers (such as those on the defiant) are just phasers with no beam and therefore are much less accurate or precise as it were.

If pulse phasers are simply phasers that deliver all their energy in a single pulse then there is no reason to call them something different then what had come before.

You can modify a hand phaser into a force field generator as seen in "Extreme Rick". This would imply some common parts in both phasers and force field projectors, or possibly that phasers have force field generators built in.

There is possibly an invisible component to a Phaser beam that nearly killed Spock in "The Omega Glory". Spock was a bit too close to something that got disintegrated.

Then you have the ever so interesting use of phase weapons while at warp implying phasers are ftl...

Lucky · Post by **Lucky** » Sat Oct 13, 2012 6:45 am

359 · Post by **359** » Sat Oct 13, 2012 4:52 pm

Some screen caps from TNG: "Journey's End" show very distinct pulses:

Also in some dialog in TNG: "The Mind's Eye" LaForge refers to the phaser beam as a "rapid nadion pulse" which directly states that a phaser beam is a stream of pulses.

Data: Energy flow is within normal parameters, from the pre-fire chamber to the emission aperture.
LaForge: Rapid nadion pulse, right on target. Beam control assembly, safety interlock, both checked out. Beam width intensity controls also responding correctly.
Data: Energy cell usage remains constant at one point oh five megajoules per second. Curious. The efficiency reading on the discharge crystal is well above Starfleet specifications.

Mike DiCenso · Post by **Mike DiCenso** » Sat Oct 13, 2012 10:25 pm

In this clip here, you can see that each individual phaser pulse from Enterprise on Reliant does damage in a fraction of a second. Maybe in as little as 1/15th of a second. Vaporizing at least a cubic meter or more of hull each time from what we know of the refit Constitutions and presumably the Miranda class as discussed in this thread here.

Assuming only elemental iron, and 7,500 kg. At 7.6 megajoules per kg, a starting temperature of 200 Kelvin and a final temperature of 1853 K, that's 57 gigajoules per shot or 855 gigawatts. Since at least a least a dozen phaser pulses were fired at Reliant in under one second's time, there would be a combined 10.26 terawatts.

Just as a reminder, this is extremely low-ball since we know that the hulls of Federation starships are made of materials which have a much higher melt and vapor point than mere iron or steel does (at least 12,000 degrees C or 12,273 K), and are much denser. Not to mention, they have structural integrity and defense fields that strengthen and protect the hull, even when shields are not up.
-Mike

Starfleet Jedi

The Illusion of the Phaser Beam

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