Northrop Grumman Markets Weaponized Laser System 246
stephencrane writes "Northrop Grumman is making available for sale the FIRESTRIKE weaponized laser system. The solid-state laser unit weighs over 400lbs, sends/receives instructions and data via an RJ-45 jack and can be synchronized with additional units to emit a 100 kW beam. It looks like some piece of stereophonic amplification equipment out of the '50s. Or Fallout 3. The press release suggests that FIRESTRIKE 'will form the backbone of future laser weapon systems.'"
In other news (Score:4, Funny)
Northrop is also working on a weaponized shark system.
Wayne Newton being held by the miliary (Score:4, Funny)
Re:In other news (Score:5, Funny)
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
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Now...what would I use to do that with.....?
Re:In other news (Score:5, Funny)
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I can guess how that board meeting went:
Engineer: *holds a model shark in one hand, a model of their laser system in another* "Behold!" *mashes two models together*
Cue large round of applause and back patting from board members.
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now sharks can have better table manners and cut their food into polite pieces. I always snip at my kids for not cutting their meat during dinner.
Of course even if they do achieve this will we know... after all, in the movies the sharks with frickin lasers (SWFL) always eat the engineers and scientists first.
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way too big and heavy for a shark's head
You need to do more shark research. At a mere 400 pounds, it wouldn't bother this shark [wikipedia.org] at all to carry several around.
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well, the "sharks with friggin-lasers on their heads" joke is already mentioned in the article (at the very end). so repeating a joke that's in the article can be considered redundant to some people. besides, it's a pretty old/tired joke that gets mentioned pretty much every day here.
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Actually, it's only been mentioned when either sharks or lasers are used as weapons, or when some really stupid, overly complicated and utterly useless weapon is being demonstrated.
Or in this case, when two of those come into play.
Yes but (Score:4, Funny)
We are gonna need a bigger shark.
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In other news, Northrop Grumman announces they have contracted InGen to clone C. Megaladon.
More details? (Score:5, Interesting)
Another bullet point is that TFA states that "The firm has said that at least eight of these can be linked up to get a proper 100 kilowatt beam" but how exactly would that be done? this [primezone.com] provides an idea, anybody "in the know" wanna chime in?
Re:More details? (Score:4, Informative)
from here: http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/m998.htm [fas.org]
Sounds like the Hummer can carry quite a FEW 400 pound laser packs. In fact, a light and fast platform like the HMMWV is IDEAL for a weapons system like this. I expect we'll see this deployed within 10 years.
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Re:More details? (Score:4, Informative)
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The hybrid drive train FCS family of tracked vehicles would have the ability to power and haul such gear, and this has been envisioned for many years.
https://www.fcs.army.mil/ [army.mil]
HMMWVs are merely light utility trucks.
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Actually, a quick bit of googling reveals that is in the works [engadget.com],
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Humvees drive the A/C from the alternator? Most cars do this with a dedicated belt with no conversion of mechanical energy to electricity as it's more efficient.
Built in power supply! (Score:2, Funny)
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It's also a cooling issue. 500 kW of input power gets turned into 400 kW of heat and some light, so you need a cooling system that can dissipate 400 kW in all conditions (including equatorial desert). If you want to run the laser continuously, you need a cooling system of the size used for 50-ton lorries. Bigger, in fact, since you need to dissipate 400 kW at standstill instead of being able to count on 50 mph winds, i.e. pretty big to fit on a HMMWV.
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Re:More details? (Score:4, Interesting)
The HMMWV is not ideal for mobility. It is a cheap light tactical truck.
Where a laser would be a good fit is in upcoming hybrid-drive FCS-type tracked vehicles. Tracks give far superior mobility, more usable interior space, and can carry more armor. The hybrid electric system offers plenty of electrical power.
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Each 'weapon' emits 15kw in one 'spot'. Put eight 'spots' on target and you get "a proper 100Kw". The 'synchronization' comes from being able to 'steer and fire' the weapons simultaneously. Oh, and don't forget the weight -1.5 tonnes ('nes' indicates metric)- and the efficiency -~20%- and total power requirements -~500Kw input power for ~100Kw out- means that this thing won't be mounted on a Humvee any time soon.
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I doubt they'll have some ultra-advanced ranging system combined with self-steerable beams to focus all of the beams onto a single point from variable distances.
More likely they made crude calculations based on the destructive power of the collective beams with respect to distance a
Pure Speculation (Score:3, Informative)
Mine.
7.62NATO (used in the old Phalanx Anti Missle System's miniguns) delivers about 400 joules at 500m. This laser needs about 27ms of on point contact to do that. Of course I'm assuming that the laser isn't affected much by water vapor in the air. And that heat is as effective as kinetic energy.
75kW Generators (TFA says it's 20% efficient) are basicly small trailer/pick-up bed sized. But that includes a 4L Diesel engine and a fuel tank. Share the vehicles motor and add some energy storage like a bank of c
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Phalanx doesn't use 7.62 NATO. It uses a 20mm cannon, not a minigun.
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Doh! you're right!
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75kW Generators (TFA says it's 20% efficient)
No... a 100kW laser powered by a 75kW source would be 125% efficient. This thing is going to need 500kW. It would probably work on a a large tank or a ship, but I see no reason why you'd want to.
Well, I'd want to, but that's just because lasers are cool, and natoinal defence isn't my job.
BattleTech. (Score:2)
"Northrop Grumman is making available for sale the FIRESTRIKE weaponized laser system. The solid-state laser unit weighs over 400lbs, sends/receives instructions and data via an RJ-45 jack and can be synchronized with additional units to emit a 100 kW beam."
Now you can see why DARPA's working on exoskeletons.
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It is also available in units that weigh more then 300 pounds~
Actually, no... (Score:2)
defense (Score:3, Interesting)
So what exactly happens when they point the laser at a tank with a bunch of large corner cube reflectors mounted on it? I mean, if even a fraction of the laser energy comes back I could see this being a real problem.
Only the good guys will be allowed one. (Score:2, Insightful)
So what happens if it is mounted in a suitable high office in New York. You could cripple the city for a while. Drawing the curtains will not help. And the good news is, the operators do not have to commit suicide. The targets are stationary and keep office hours. It could be programmed and left. Visual Basic sounds appropriate.
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Nope. Frying eyeballs is against the laws of War. And believe it or not, the US Military *does* believe in them.
This is for tactical operations, most likely mounted in an AC-130 or some form of chopper. Think of situations where you want to take out enemy targets, but conventional weapons won't work (i.e. in an urban area with civilians around, dropping a bomb might release toxic or NBC materials, target is right next to a culturally significant building/object).
Or even a situation where none of those o
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Nope. Frying eyeballs is against the laws of War. And believe it or not, the US Military *does* believe in them.
As in, "shock and awe" ( == "maximize civilian casualties")?
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I dislike Bush as much as the next guy, but "Shock and Awe" was not about maximizing civilian casualties. It was to dishearten the Iraqi regular army. Looked at from that POV, it was a success.
I love the knee-jerk "US Army bad". Have you ever dealt with any of the US military? I have. Without exception, they have all been intelligent, capabable, and professional.
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Lasers, reflectors?
God damnit, now I want to go grab a few of my old friends and play a RIFTS [wikipedia.org]® campaign. Never got around to playing a Glitter Boy [nationmaster.com].
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I'm not a physicist, but as I understand it...
The large corner cube reflectors would be destroyed. Reflection involves absorption and then re-emission. With normal light it's not a problem, but with powerful laser beams the energy will heat up the reflection surface and then destroy it.
As long as it's aimed so it doesn't reflect straight back there shouldn't be much of a problem.
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As long as it's aimed so it doesn't reflect straight back there shouldn't be much of a problem.
Well, the thing about retroreflectors [wikipedia.org] is that they always reflect straight back...
The target would still be dead, but I think the whole 'what if some of it bounces back' dilemma might have some merit. I imagine a few calculations would show the return bounce would be minimal, though.
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"Just hit the tank with a conventional missile first."
After which it won't need lasing. The reflectors would make a nice sparkly target. :)
so what next ? (Score:4, Interesting)
ok for christmas I get my brand new 15kw or later my 100kw laser gun.
but what can i do with that ?
explode a potato in a 10 minutes static shot ? or melt aircraft wing in 1 second ?
also laser is light, therefore someone just needs to diffract or reflect the stream to be protected ? is that right ?
Re:so what next ? (Score:4, Interesting)
The explanation I've heard is that even though you see the light being diffracted or reflected, it's still being absorbed and re-emitted at the photon level. The material has to be able to stand up to the energy of the beam. Most mirror surfaces would quickly decompose.
Re:so what next ? (Score:4, Informative)
Not quite... a reflecting surface has to absorb all the energy and then re-emit it when it is reflected. With a regular mirror, it's a piece of glass with a silvered back. This would rapidly heat up and destroy the glass, and the silvering. With a highly reflective metal surface, it would still heat it up and destroy its reflective properties with hasty abandon. Do a google search for anti-missile lasers to read how a laser weapon actually works.
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Not quite... a reflecting surface has to absorb all the energy and then re-emit it when it is reflected.
How's that again?
A mirror doesn't "absorb all the energy and then re-emit it", at least not in any meaningful sense. What it does do is reflect 90% or 97% or 99% of the incident light, and convert the rest to heat. 10% of 15KW is 1.5KW, which (when deposited in a thin optical coating) will heat things up pretty quickly. And god help you if your mirror has gotten dusty, or smeared, or fingerprinted. (Think about the dire warnings about fingerprints on a mere 300-watt halogen bulb.)
Re:so what next ? (Score:4, Informative)
Check your quantum physics. In fact, there are only a couple of ways that photons interact with matter... if there's no interaction at all, the photons pass right through. That's "transparency". There's also the photoelectric effect, where photons interact with electrons, which rise to higher energy states, absorbing the photons. The new configurations aren't stable, so the electrons rapidly fall back to their original state, which emits a new photon. On a reflective surface, the atoms are aligned in such a way that the new photons are lined up very precisely, such that they match the photons that were absorbed. Otherwise, you might get a spectral reflection (i.e. shiny), but not coherent. In non-reflective surfaces, the photons are absorbed and the electrons either remain in their excited state, or photons are emitted that are different than the photons that were absorbed (for example, when you shine a black light on a white surface, the emitted photons are at a different wavelength than the absorbed photons). Either way, the entropy of the material is increased (i.e. it is heated), though the entropy is obviously greater when no new photon is re-emitted. There are other quantum interactions possible at higher energies, but the idea is the same.
There's a good layman's explanation here [asu.edu], and a more comprehensive look in Dick Feynman's book [wikipedia.org].
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Instead of saying "in any meaningful sense", perhaps I should have said "in the way that you're implying". And instead of saying "all the energy", perhaps you should have said "all the power".
When you say "absorb all the energy and then re-emit it", it does strongly imply processes like fluorescence, or phosphorescence, or even heating and black-body radiation. Simple reflection is very different -- the period over which radiation is accumulated before being re-emitted is effectively zero.
Absent higher-or
Not so. (Score:3, Interesting)
Assuming that is true... that a reflective surface must absorb the light before re-
Re:so what next ? (Score:5, Interesting)
ok for christmas I get my brand new 15kw or later my 100kw laser gun. ... but what can i do with that ?
To provide a sense of scale, industrial laser cutters (CO2) tend to run from 100 W to 3000 W. The smaller of these lasers is five times more powerful. I imagine it could cut through an aircraft's wing in milliseconds at most; due to weight limits they aren't very thick. Of course, you'd need to do more than just bore a hole through the wing to bring down a plane.
It's worth noting that a sufficiently powerful laser will actually vaporize the surface, rather than just melting it. It can essentially cause the surface to explode from the sudden influx of heat, resulting in far greater damage than a simple cut.
also laser is light, therefore someone just needs to diffract or reflect the stream to be protected ? is that right ?
At these power levels even an optics-quality mirror tends to absorb too much energy to remain effective. Even if it's just 0.1%, that's still 150 W to 1 kW being absorbed, which will quickly heat the mirror to the point where it becomes opaque.
If you could make it work, though, a retroreflector [wikipedia.org] would be even better than a mirror, since it would redirect the laser back at the source.
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Distance is the problem.
Focusing a 'low' power industrial laser 2 inches away is 'easy' (given ten years of experience). If I remember right: the electromagnetic field of a high power laser makes focusing impossible at some distance (>>2 inches). As for mirrors, I have an Ikea mirror that can reflect most of an unfocussed 1kW fased or unfased light beam without any problems.
Cool, now can I mount it on my flying car? (Score:3, Funny)
Now if I could get this mounted on my flying car (http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/15/007225), like, that would be totally awesome.
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Why.....won't we civilians get laser rifles too?
Re:Well (Score:4, Funny)
Your right to bear arms only includes the types known to the Founding Fathers, therefore you shall only be allowed to bear laser muskets.
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I'm going to predict ... (Score:2, Insightful)
Multiple lasers is the key (Score:3, Interesting)
Using multiple such things, each of them too wimpy to cause much damage seems important. First, it makes it much harder for the enemy to knock them off — hitting one unit disables a small fraction of the whole. Second, the power can be concentrated at different targets depending on the need (soldiers, a missile, an artillery shell, a plane) — rather than the all-or-nothing of a single giant laser. And third, an errant device will not be as harmful — for example, if, when the network of these are shooting at an incoming missile, one of them hits a civilian plane or some other unintended object. No problem — a single beam is too weak to be really harmful.
Now, of course, they would need to be very precisely targeted and coordinated. Fortunately, we have GPS and powerful computers...
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Now, of course, they would need to be very precisely targeted and coordinated. Fortunately, we have GPS and powerful computers...
And military contractors looking forward to the next major cost overrun rather than shipping a working system.
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This is such a generic canned response, it can be used to put down any conversation about weapons without delving into a particular system's details. You are failing the Turing Test, in other words...
Can it make popcorn? (Score:4, Funny)
Can it blow up a house using a giant jiffypop container?
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Yes, but you'd need a tracking system, and a large spinning mirror.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is a historic day (Score:4, Funny)
Since before the dawn of time, Man has dreamed of the laser cannon - even when Woman said it was dumb and that the costumes on Star Trek were ridiculous.
The ancient Hebrews called it "Uriel" - "the flame of God". The Romans had an entire god (Apollo) devoted to the laser cannon and its many uses. The Greeks dreamed of Prometheus stealing the laser cannon of Zeus and giving it to mortals. In Norse mythology, the end of Ragnarok is marked by the wolf Skoll consuming the last remaining laser cannon and condemning the world to a laser cannon-less eternal night.
Today, the laser cannon is at last ours. Thank you, Northrop-Grumman, and thank you, US military-industrial complex. The spirits of countless millennia stand in silent awe at what you have wrought.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is biblical prophesy (Score:2)
You joke but it's developments like this that put Revelations in a new light (no pun intended).
and i saw a pale horse... again... (Score:2)
Oh Christ, not the end-times again?!
I'm not even 30, and as far as I've kept track, I must have been through at least four of those bloody things. Let's see, just off the top of my head: Gorbachev's birthmark made him the 666; and I suppose that means he must have invented RFID too at some point; Iran was supposed to nuke the world sometime last year. Hmm, I know there've been more. Oh yeah, the formation of the European Union was supposed to be curtains for sure, but unless they plan to end the world throu
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You joke but it's developments like this that put Revelations in a new light (no pun intended).
The same light ... it's just more coherent.
15kW is not very much. (Score:2, Interesting)
I guess it is on the verge of being practical. But not much more, yet.
Re:15kW is not very much. (Score:5, Informative)
Unless it is a pencil-thin or smaller beam, 15kW is just plain not very much. I mean, it's a lot of energy, I wouldn't want it pointed at my couch... but it is only about as much as you would get out of 150 light bulbs. Maybe even less, considering the conversion factor.
I guess it is on the verge of being practical. But not much more, yet.
Well, lessee...a 100mW (20dBm or 0.1W) collimated burning laser [google.com] will pop ballons and burn dark objects such as electrical tape. This one is 15KW (~72dBm) so that's ~72-20=52dB times the power, or about 15KW/0.1W=150,000 "burning lasers", assuming Northrop-Grumman can collimate a laser as well as some guy on Instructables.
Re:15kW is not very much. (Score:4, Informative)
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I guess you haven't worked with lasers much. A 3 Watt CO2 laser will burn paper in less than a second or so. Light bulbs put out a lot of power. If you hold on to a light bulb that's on, your hand won't last very long. Nevertheless, the destructive power is small compared to conventional weapons. The advantage here is accuracy.
Accuracy as well as time-on-target.
More to the point, the coherent light from a laser causes much higher peak temperatures than a simple collimated beam of the same average power. The issue, it seems to me, is going to be this: does the laser have a coherency length sufficient to deliver coherent light to the target? Otherwise it's just going to be a bright light.
You think I am stupid? (Score:2)
I also know of people who have home-built 50KW nitrogen lasers. (Yes, that was 50KW, and yes, no mistake, that was nitrogen!) And they are powered by relatively small batteries or wall power supplies. But they are large, and very short-burst, and so need serious lens work to burn anything.
Which br
To low-rated poster: (Score:2)
Everybody here so far has been confusing power with energy, and that is a pretty big goddamned mistake.
FIRESTRIKE? Watch out for Smokey (Score:3, Funny)
Smokey says "Only YOU can prevent huge frickin' weaponized lasers!"
The future! (Score:5, Funny)
The top two articles at the moment on Slashdot:
>Northrop Grumman Markets Weaponized Laser System
>Pentagon Clears Flying-Car Project For Takeoff
Has the future finally arrived?
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In fact, the future arrived yesterday.
Indeed - that's how it looked yesterday. But when I woke up this morning I was disappointed to learn today was still the present.
Ah well. There's always tomorrow!
Power? (Score:3, Funny)
So, if I buy this new toy, how many C-Cell or 9V batteries do I need? The companies are usually to cheap to put them in the box.
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You only need one. But you have to replace it every 2.5 milliseconds.
Can't... resist... (Score:3, Funny)
FIRESTRIKEâs can be linked together to get a more powerful beam
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of sharks with laser beams attached to their heads!
Someone's gonna have to change their name (Score:2)
My Right to Bear This Laser! (Score:2)
This is what the right to bear arms is all about! I want that laser for self-protection!!
Here's my favorite part, from another article: (Score:3, Insightful)
Low Power Setting Provides nominally 100 watt alignment beam
Article is here. [irconnect.com]
"Alignment beams" are normally low-power (a few milliwatts) visible beams used to indicate the path of an invisible beam. I guess with this one you'd point the alignment beam, move the glowing/smoking spot to your intended target, then hit the big switch.
Ethernet? (Score:4, Funny)
100 kW combined? (Score:2)
Fuck that.
I want 5 megawatts by mid-May.
Re:That's no home stereo... (Score:4, Insightful)
sends/receives instructions and data via an RJ-45 jack
Don't worry guys, the TSA is working hard on updating their "do not mix with aircraft" list to accommodate this.
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You haven't seen how the US handles casualties of war [washingtonpost.com], have you?
Eye patches and canes, maybe a dog for officers. You can't make an omelet without breaking legs.
As for civilians, well. . .
Re:Blind soldiers (Score:4, Insightful)
If you're being shot in the face with a 15KW laser, I think blindness is the least of your worries. A direct shot from something like this will lead to blindness in the same way a bullet in your eye leads to blindness. The unit is a weapon and will be treated like one, I doubt they'll be waving it around as a joke any more than they shoot people with real bullets for a joke.
More interesting is the question of backscatter - lasers can be reflected. In fact, it would see the primary means of protection against laser fire would be a mirrored surface. On any kind of complex surface that will indeed produce a lot of scattered rays of lesser, but still blinding, power.
I would assume that the primary envisaged use case of this thing, right now at least, is anti-missile, especially at sea. Anti-ship missiles typically have a curved, if not spherical, tip, which in future will presumably be covered by a mirrored coating as a counter to the existence of laser defense systems. At least some of the laser light, then, will likely reflect back at the ship, with unpredictable intensity.
The advent of this kind of thing may indeed precipitate an interesting change in how military personnel dress and expose themselves in combat situations. Mirrored helmets for everyone who could possibly be in range would seem a likely first step ...
Disclaimer: I know nothing about laser warfare that I didn't learn from Culture novels!
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There's a material out there, google for it, that can go from a transparent material to a mirrored material in around 11 seconds when current is applied to it. I could see that being used as a windshield for whatever vehicle carries these devices, and activated before firing the weapon.
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"The advent of this kind of thing may indeed precipitate an interesting change in how military personnel dress and expose themselves in combat situations. Mirrored helmets for everyone who could possibly be in range would seem a likely first step ..."
Mirrored helmets are sniper bait, but a full-face combat helmet system with auto-darkening lenses would reduce eye damage from reflections. Auto-darkening welding lenses are cheap to produce.
http://www.millerwelds.com/products/weldinghelmets/ [millerwelds.com]
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Ah, another fan : )
Well, I agree with everything you say, and am not really qualified to add anything to your analysis. However, bear in mind that yesterday's magic is today's research project and tomorrow's $100 gadget.
I am an utter layman, and do not pretend otherwise - everyone has to specialise in something, and no-one can know everything. But I learn what I can in the time that I have, and one of the things I am most interested in is Quantum Field Theory. I suggest looking into it if you want some (ver
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How much ya wanna bet the Army/Navy will weld a handle on the bloody contraption and call it portable?
At which point there will be a new Scwarzenegger movie where he carries two of the things and blasts anything that moves, all the while exclaiming, "You've just been lased!"
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