Re: OT - US military unveils heat-ray gun



OM wrote:

...The key here is why 130F is the target temp.

I don't know that it is; that was a guess on my part based on what would really hurt but not do permanent damage.
Here's a description of it from 2001 when it was first revealed:
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn1470
That says 50 degrees C. which is 122 deg F, so I was in the ballpark.
As an experiment, I just took a pan full of hot water at 122 F and stuck my hand in it; it's indeed uncomfortable, but the pain ceases within a couple of seconds after you take your hand out of the water, so there's no permanent harm done.
I'm not going to pour it in my eyes though. :-)
According to this the device generates a (I kid you not) Gyrotron Energy Beam: http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn1470 which sounds like something Duck Dodgers ship would be armed with, and the description makes it sound like the things the Ghostbusters carry on their backs.
So here's the straight poop on gyrotrons: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyrotron
In a fluky coincidence, guess what the History Channel just started running a program on? Yup, non-lethal weapons, including the heat beam.

Pat
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