Set Phasers to Stun (1 Viewer)

[Gwon Chang]

No. What happened? Aside from what I've seen at home (a mini-fireworks display), I'm curious to know what else happened.

 

[Rob Gardiner]

My dad put a loaf of bread with one of those wire-covered-in-paper twist-ties on the end into the microwave. Sparks did fly.

 

[Rob Gardiner]

Another potential application: SECURITY DETECTOR

If the person simply screams in agony, let them through. If actual sparks fly off the body, search them for weapons!

 

[Don Black]

"heating the water molecules in their skin with microwave energy"

Heat + Water = Boiling

Maybe you should follow your own advice with a re-read of the article? :rolleyes

 

[Rob Gardiner]

Yeah but if you WATCH your skin then the blood will NEVER boil.

 

[Malcolm R]

Last time I checked, water molecules in your skin were quite different from blood.

 

[Holadem]

Are they? Blood happens to be mostly water. Like pretty much everything else in the body.
Nitpick: 100+ dec C heat + water = boiling.

--
H - ignoring pressure of course, need we say that?

 

[Don Black]

Rob: Lol!

 

[David Brown Eyes]

Wow the military made something to hurt people.

Newsflash people that is their job, they do not make items to tickle you or make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

well in this case not fuzzy.

 

[Mike Wladyka]

I think he is trying to say, (sorry if i am putting words in your mouth Malcolm) that there are water molecules in both your skin and your blood. So heating water molecules in your skin is not actually boiling your blood.

 

[Ryan Tsang]

I thought you were refering to a song on the new album by Taking Back Sunday. My new fave band BTW.

 

[Randy Tennison]

[sarcasm]You're right. This is much to dangerous. Let's give the soldiers their bullets back! This heat ray might hurt someone.[/sarcasm]

All less than lethal weapons have a possibility that they can cause injury. Pepperspray, tazer, stun gun, bean bag shotgun, rubber bullets, nightsticks, PR24's all can injure, if misused.

Face it, there is no absolutely safe way to stop someone intent on harming you. But the alternative of these "less than lethal" methods is death.

 

[Seth Paxton]

David, I agree with your point. I think any debate here was focused more on the angle of the researcher that this was NOT going to hurt anyone. Some of us don't exactly buy it that easy.

Their version, sans glitches, is probably just fine and mild. The broken or abused version, not so fuzzy I'll bet. I'd also bet that right now those same researchers are working on the most abusive version themselves.

 

[Seth Paxton]

First of all, the "give the soldiers their bullets back" is a straw man. No one is suggesting that guns are necessarily safer. No one is really questioning the safety of traditional guns (or other weapons) at all.

The topic at hand is ONLY if THIS MICROWAVE WEAPON is really the feel-good weapon they make it out to be.

Secondly, your sarcasm in response to quoting me (same quote I listed above) suggests that you DO THINK that people questioning the safety of THIS DEVICE are crazy. If I can retort with sarcasm of my own, what a reasonable opinion you have.



edit - while microwaves typically describe the next shortest wavelength band past radio waves (both part of the EM wave spectrum), microwave frequency (2.4 GHz) is used for things like cell phones and wireless routers. The lack of effect by these devices is due to a lower intensity.

 

[Seth Paxton]

I also found this


At this site

 

[Mike Wladyka]

1. http://health.discovery.com/encyclopedias/98.html

"Dry skin occurs when the moisture, or water, content of the skin is decreased for any reason.

What is going on in the body?

The surface of the skin holds a certain amount of water. When the water content decreases, the skin becomes dry, itchy, and uncomfortable. "




2. http://ehsrms.uaa.alaska.edu/RadioPADS.htm

"When microwaves or radiowaves are absorbed by body tissues, localized or spot heating can occur"


EDIT: number 2 was sort of in response to your commment about how you feel sorry for someone who thinks radiowaves are closer to microwaves than xrays

 

[Seth Paxton]

Mike,

You are correct. I should feel sorry for myself at this point.

I was wrong about the similarity between X-Rays and Microwaves. X-Rays are ionizing wavelengths that actually breakdown the molecule. Microwaves simply induce molecules like H2O to twist under the effect of varying electric polarity, and this twisting causes the molecules to rub against each other. This allows for a transfer from micro energy to thermal energy thanks to friction.

For the same reason gases don't heat up because the molecules aren't close enough together to rub, although they still twist.

Microwaves are closer to radio waves because neither cause ionic breakdowns like X-rays do.

Obviously as I researched my own points I was forced to edit my comments because several of them were either wrong or implied things that were wrong.



However, with regards to the skin and the effect of this device. 2.4 GHz was chosen not because it reacts best to water but because it penetrates well while still inducing pretty good heat. The point is to cook the INSIDE of foods that normally are cooked last by convection (physical heat transfer from air to outer food to inner food).

So microwaves are not going to stop on the surface of the skin, but will apparently do quite well in going deep into the body. That would involve the blood that circulates to the skin, not just the other water in the skin tissue.

If you were subjected to this beam for a period of time, maybe 10, 20, 30 seconds, you could sustain serious burn injuries. Also, cellular structures like the cornea are very poor at dissappating heat and would suffer damage much more quickly.

And there is the effect on electric devices like pacemakers that can be damaged by the induced current flow, arc, or even burn up from excessive current flow. Jewelry with pointy edges could arc, for example. Any thin wire on a person (like part of a necklace) might heat up giving a current it couldn't handle, burning you as it burns itself.


Also, it would appear that you could increase the intensity to induce quicker heating so that burn levels of heat damage could quickly occur.

The beam could also be constant (I assume it is while the "trigger" is pulled) which is a lot different than even automatic guns that "pulse" bullets.


I don't deny that controlled use of microwaves can be safely applied. I just think that the "hey, this is safe and fun" attitude of the researcher is quite valid either.

Yes I would rather get hit with this than a bullet, or a knife, or whatever. But that doesn't make it harmless, as they suggest.


And if we see some results that suggest that so much absorbtion occurs with the near-surface water/fats/sugars that the waves die before real penetration and that no matter what reasonable intensity is used burn damage won't occur for a reasonable amount of time (say 20 seconds, I don't know), then I will admit that the safety of the device is there.

But the whole point of micros is to heat water to the point that it would have a burning/cooking effect. That doesn't take very long. When a person pulls away (and it able to pull away) from the beam right away then damage is avoided. What if they can't, like in a tight crowd, or if they are too drunk/high to pay attention to the effect?

What if someone kept intentionally aiming at the same spot even as you moved to avoid the pain?

 

[Mike Wladyka]

That was quoted from the original article about the weapon. While, I don't know how credible Col. Roach is, his statement leads me to believe that they have at least thought about the effects of the deep penetrating microwaves into the body, and why I took a little offense to the blood boiling comments. I could be wrong, but that was my original thinking. Plus, I wondered about the power and range of this weapon, I think I even posted such an inquiry. I would hope, but I don't know for sure, that the developers realized that a person will jerk his or her hand off of something hot quite rapidly around 150F, and they would have design the power accordingly, and at those temperatures no boiling would occur, but I guess that is the optimistic part of me thinking.

 

[Chris Moe]

More information http://www.de.afrl.af.mil/Factsheets/ActiveDenial.html

according to the above it penetrates the skin to a depth of less than 1/64th of an inch. It is also operates at a frequency of 95Ghz.

 

[Mike Wladyka]

Thanks for the link Chris.

BTW, awesome theater