"I think perhaps you are assuming perfect collimation. Which most lasers (and certainly laser pointers) lack. So there would be some spread giving a coherent hooligan, say, a 1 meter diameter beam at, say, 4 km."
Well, sure. But, at that point, it's hardly a "laser beam" in any meaningful sense, is it? More like a flashlight, I would think.
Or not. I don't really know the intimate details of radiation-emission-based stimulation of light amplification, personally.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Is it feasible/possible to have any sort of visible 'beam' weapon like a phaser or a laser-blaster... I mean we have lasers now but you have to have dust or smoke etc to see it.
-------------------- "Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica." - Jim Halpert. (The Office)
posted
If there's no dust reflecting the light, then no, you're not going to see anything along the beam. In order to see it, you have to have something emitting light, and that implies something other than a pure light beam. If you could somehow spray a beam of charged plasma, I'm sure that could fit the bill.
Da_bang80
A few sectors short of an Empire
Member # 528
posted
"But I doubt it would cause serious eye damage. It would likely just be really irritating and distracting."
Still if whoever was being irritated and distracted...say oh a pilot on final aproach (sp) who needed to concentrate a lot... While I do admit that using a handheld laser pointer probably wouldn't do much, what about a more powerful laser like a surveyers laser tripod thingamajig. or maybe even just use a pair of old WW2 Searchlights at the end of the runway and face them at the cockpit. I'm sure if those terrorists had any form of ingenuity and imagination other than bombs and guns. They could do alot of damage. I'd go into detail but the CIA's probly has tabs on this site. And I've already hinted at killing the president so they're probably just waiting for me to step outside my apartment to take me off and reprogram me to love the president or something.
-------------------- Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. The courage to change the things I cannot accept. And the wisdom to hide the bodies of all the people I had to kill today because they pissed me off.
posted
Surely keeping a laser pointed at a man's eyes while he flies a plane would be nearly impossible. It'd be hard enough keeping a laser pointed on someone's eyes if he was running fast, but on a vehicle travelling as fast as an aircraft? Impossible I would have thought.
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
And FWIW, a surveyor's laser tripod thingamajig as you put it only works in pulses when you're measuring distance.
-------------------- I haul cardboard and cardboard accessories
Registered: Mar 1999
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Da_bang80
A few sectors short of an Empire
Member # 528
posted
Would it still blind someone if they were looking straight at it? I'd think a pulsing laser light would be even more annoying and distracting than a regular beam.
-------------------- Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. The courage to change the things I cannot accept. And the wisdom to hide the bodies of all the people I had to kill today because they pissed me off.
posted
It only sends a pulse when you tell it to measure the distance. And it doesn't send a visible laser, I don't think. I've used the total station and held the reflector, and I don't remember seeing a red light or anything.
-------------------- I haul cardboard and cardboard accessories
Registered: Mar 1999
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quote:Originally posted by Da_bang80: I'd go into detail but the CIA's probly has tabs on this site. And I've already hinted at killing the president so they're probably just waiting for me to step outside my apartment to take me off and reprogram me to love the president or something.
Heheheh, Re-Neducation?
Registered: Mar 1999
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WizArtist II
"How can you have a yellow alert in Spacedock? "
Member # 1425
posted
quote:Originally posted by PsyLiam: Surely keeping a laser pointed at a man's eyes while he flies a plane would be nearly impossible. It'd be hard enough keeping a laser pointed on someone's eyes if he was running fast, but on a vehicle travelling as fast as an aircraft? Impossible I would have thought.
Distance and angle would play a major part.
-------------------- There are 10 types of people in the world...those that understand Binary and those that don't.
Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
Could also be a slit beam thing- like for lightshows.
I think thay're just making an example of this bozo. Still, imagine all the prep work he had to do to get the beam into the cockpit- then to keep adjusting to keep it there...
I wont cry if he gets a legal smack for his stupidity.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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