Beware The Phaser's Maximum Setting

Star Trek helped introduce enemies getting vaporized thanks to their phasers and weaponry, but is the real thing much worse? Kyle has the disappearing details on this week's Because Science!
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Because Science every Thursday.
Learn more:
• SET PHASERS TO VAPORIZE: bit.ly/2N5MEyC
• STEAM EXPLOSION: bit.ly/2ORZfY1
• EXCERPTS FROM THE MAD SCIENTIST’S HANDBOOK: bit.ly/2Qd0QIk
• ENERGY WEAPON SIDEARMS: bit.ly/2NFaUwR
• PHASER: bit.ly/2R1R50A

[@ArthurEKing8472]

There is no way Kyle survives this episode... Look at the colour of his shirt!

[@alexixeno4223]

Weeeellllllll....

[@RedStrayHound]

Well spotted.

[@thomasingle8827]

I was thinking the same thing. :D

[@Franky_Sthein]

Nice one ^^

[@JonnyStarwind]

Although, based off of the references he was using, this would be the TNG version, so he has a higher survivability chance.

[@projectodemayhem]

8:19 Fry: so how many atmospheres can the ship withstand? Professor: well its a spaceship so I'd say anywhere between zero and one

[@douglasbillington8521]

Yeah, I miss Futurama too

[@jtjames79]

Funny but inaccurate. Max Q is way higher than that.

[@dickkickem329]

Doesn't that not make any sense because some planets have more atmosphere than earth? lmao

[@jtjames79]

@@dickkickem329 you would also need margin for safety, so you don't blow your seals if somebody sneezes and farts at the same time.

[@aarontrue5719]

You beat me to it! Well played.

[@davecrupel2817]

"like swatting a fly with _A_ *TANK* instead of a fly swatter." Im picturing somebody grabbing a tank by the gun, and swinging it at a fly to ultra-kill it. And im cracking myself up 😂

[@isaacbailey3681]

I was going to suggest trying to drive the tank and run the fly over, but then I realized that the fly would react and dodge that.

[@worbed]

Hulk smash!

[@FallenRingbearer]

Insert one of a vajillion "I saw a spider" memes here.

[@davecrupel2817]

@@worbed HURR GURR!! *slams tank on fly.* 🤣

[@janetskola9867]

Kung Fury ... the german guard segment does exactly this

[@GravisTKD]

"There. Are. FOUR. Elements" really made me happy.

[@lance862]

Damnit I didn't even catch that while watching LOL. There are FOUR LIGHTS!!!

[@TheSaneHatter]

"THERE . . . ARE . . . FOUR . . . elements." Well played, Kyle. Well played . . .

[@davecrupel2817]

I see 5 elements.

[@DougForce]

I see what he did there…..

[@niceguy60]

I would enjoy debating with you Kyle. You have a keen mind. It's up to you. A life of ease, of reflection and intellectual challenge, or this.

[@Diamerald]

@@davecrupel2817 plasma

[@ShawnJonesHellion]

Aether. But how bout the reality that created this one not being bound to any? Pretty much the aether again

[@Ger0]

I think I'll never get tired of the "Kyle-bursting-into-flames-when-igniting-his-light-saber" joke

[@JayColucci1]

LOL I know, hasn't gotten old yet!

[@phdtobe]

Except “phasers” on Star Trek apparently change the “phase” of the matter the beam encounters to one that is out of “sync” with normal matter. Meaning, the “phased” matter no longer interacts with normal matter. That’s why it disappears without blowing up stuff near it. And yes, this is a pseudo-science explanation for how those phasers work, but it’s consistent with the effects seen in the show even if it is not consistent with known physics.

[@nyetloki]

Then how does it do stun, kill, and phase shift from various power levels of the same weapon? That doesn't make sense.

[@harveyharbicht4959]

@@nyetloki I'd imagine a very tiny phase would knock you out and a larger one would short-circuit your entire nervous system causing death,

[@SuperCityscan]

That's a person-sized space need to be filled with air quickly, it causes an implosion, which is arguably still loud.

[@oligould8575]

I suspect when the first guy jumped out and shouted “stop or I’ll phase your matter” and the bad guys fell down laughing… they just decided to say “I’ll vaporise you” instead 😂

[@achtsekundenfurz7876]

IIRC, the original motivation was that a dead body on screen would have set a hard lower limit for the rating of a TV show at that time. (*) So they decided to give their "Western show _bUt iN sPaCe_ " hero a weapon which didn't leave a dead body. After ST:TOS there were plans to extend the show and run a more scientific "show named Star Trek: Phase II" -- and when they did the math, they found out what kind of energies would be involved in vaporization, so "Phase II" phasers were claimed to use a "nuclear disintegration effect" which removed part of the matter from existence with negligible energy release. The same was canon for ST:TNG phasers and basically any phaser shooting a solid beam from then on. (ST:VOY phasers are yet another story, probably done for visual effect.) To put things into perspective, 130,000,000 joules are ~36 kilowatt hours, or about the amount of energy a one _megawatt_ microwave would release in two minutes at full power. A scaled down test done with a consumer-grade microwave and a hot dog sausage revealed that the results would be -- using the scientific term here -- "messy." (*) That regulation is the origin of another trope, the "crime scene chalk outline" clichê. They could claim that (a) the body had already been documented and taken to the morgue, but (b) its original position was still clearly visible, to the detective and the viewer alike.

[@MrDbryer]

I always imagined the phasers sharing a portion of their technology with teleporters; only put to a more destructive purpose. So maybe being 'vaporised' means having each of your particles teleported to randomly different position over several cubic kilometres. I can even imagine Section 31 developing these weapons secretly alongside the civilian teleportation scientists as a way to dispose of pesky enemy spies without leaving evidence behind.

[@davidhoracek6758]

I agree. This should be canon: hand phasers on kill are dispersion transporters. (Ship phasers could still be energy beams.) Of course, if transporters disassemble particles, we have the same vaporization problem.

[@lfla0179]

Considering that teleportation is to change matter into energy and back... you could make it absorb the energy of the matter of the target. A gun that recharges itself. Vampiric teleportation gun that doesn't need to be recharged.

[@tweakfreq1982]

@@lfla0179 now you are on the verge of a Holtzman field awareness

[@armybrat101]

Duuuude that makes sence when you consider what happened during the romulan conference in deep space nine. When the section 31 spy looked like he was vaporized

[@armybrat101]

In another way i allways though that the phaser was a victim of being sci fi'd. I heard from a fellow trekker that it destroyed the bonds between the atomic structure useing the intense amount of gamma radiation emitted of a phaser set to kill. Now, the reason it's called a phaser is because it modulates the frequency of the condensed radiation to the point where it will target those molecular bonds. Basically radiation turns you into goop. They couldn't show that so the creators of star trek fibbed a little and turned it into vapor Basically radiation turns you into gas. So instead of seeing parts of red shirts body shluffing off like mud on a tire they just made him disappear. Neat fact: The stun setting and the settings between stun to kill was the em spectrum. With stun setting being mostly infrared while kill being exclusively gamma.

[@WarlandWriter]

"Ahh, there's metal mist in my eyes."

[@kevinmacdonald3574]

How dare you mention the curse of the "red shirts." Lmao

[@jondw]

I would think the metal mist in the lungs would be a bit more pressing

[@WarlandWriter]

jon dw You'd probably die before it could really get in your lungs, as you are hit by a shockwave of literal 1000's of degrees (fahrenheit, kelvin, celsius, doesn't matter, it's 1000's of degrees in all of them). If the initial shock does not kill you, chances are your skin starts melting off. Do appreciate the pun though ;)

[@a-blivvy-yus]

Yeah I don't see much potential for someone actually getting out the words "ahhh, there's metal mist in my eyees" in that situation before the superheated metal mist burns its way through their bodies or the shockwave carrying it breaks their *everything* but it's still fun xD

[@sawyer7560]

What's funny is that the moment he spoke those words, I scrolled down and was so happy that this was the first comment I found. Im happy I found this already quoted.

[@caseytodd7632]

I really thought his opening tag would be: "Set phasers to fun." Missed opportunity, Hill.

[@applnokr743]

At least he had a whole ton of classic refrences that Star Trek fans probably giggled at... I know I did, good vid :)

[@lucbrien9237]

That might be a copyright/trademarked phrase, or close enough to one. They're very careful with the extraneous legal stuff on this channel, given they already talk about a lot of *definitely* copyright and trademarked terms.

[@drops2cents260]

@@applnokr743 > classic refrences that Star Trek "Yeah, veeery funny, Scotty. Now beam down my fucking clothes stat, before I have you court-martialed and thrown into space."

[@applnokr743]

2:18, stupid human, there are 5 elements!

[@josh0752]

Set phasers to hot pocket

[@erictaylor5462]

In an episode of Star Trek they speculated if a missing crew member had been "converted to energy" and I remember thinking, if that had happened, they would not wonder what had happened, because they all would have died. I did the math once and found out that the Hiroshima bomb converted 1/8th of 1 gram of matter into energy to produce the explosion. A 73 Kilogram (584000 1/8 grams) crew member would make an explosion they could see from Earth. The show would have been over.

[@RCAvhstape]

Assuming Little Boy was 15 kT, that makes your human yield at 8,760 megatons of TNT equivalent. Yeah, that's something.

[@Vastin]

You could convert the target to neutrinos rather than photons to avoid the effect being so insanely destructive. But even then it might well kill everyone on the ship. Even though the Sun's normal neutrino output is completely harmless to us (indeed hard to even detect), if it were to go supernova the neutrino shockwave alone would kill everyone on Earth before the sun even visibly 'exploded'. No idea how intense the neutrino shockwave of 70+ kilos of matter to energy would be but I sure as hell would not want to be anywhere near it.

[@erictaylor5462]

@@Vastin And how would you convert the target to neutrinos rather than photons? And would it matter? After all, I'm talking about converting matter into *ENERGY* not matter into photons. Energy is energy. It doesn't matter if it's photons or neutrinos or jelly doughnuts. Also, neutrinos are *NOT* completely harmless, they are, like humans, mostly harmless. (The entry of "humans" in the Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy was updated from "harmless" to "mostly harmless" shortly before they were rendered nearly extinct by the Vogon Constructor fleet.) Neutrinos do rarely interact with matter.

[@Vastin]

@@erictaylor5462 Most of the 'energy' in the universe is tied up as relative kinetic motion, potential gravitational energy, or photons. So when you say you're going to convert mass to energy, you need to specify what that energy is. Usually in sci-fi when we say that something is being converted to energy, it would be to radiant energy in the form of photons - probably very high energy ones, such as x-rays or gamma rays.

[@spvillano]

Following the math, 1 gram of matter-antimatter annihilation gives around 38 kilotons. That's twice and change the Nakasaki bomb yield. That'd be enough for a crewman to convert a WWII battleship into steel confetti.

[@Pooua]

I think I was in Seventh Grade when I complained to one of my peers about this very problem. He replied that "Star Trek's" phasors aren't vaporizing anything; they dematerialize objects, perhaps by using destructive harmonics to neutralize molecular forces.

[@nathanfisher6925]

Then you fight E=MC2, assuming you're changing the matter into energy. A LOT of energy. I think you're going to have a bomb regardless of how you go about it.

[@Pooua]

@@nathanfisher6925 What I described doesn't have anything to do with converting matter to energy. It's like shaking matter so much that it turns into dust.

[@spvillano]

Well, let's run with just neutralizing all of the chemical bonding that he's talking about, which is electromagnetic in nature. That's a loud blast - think a human sized block of high explosive loud, so you just shattered around a city block of earthquake hardened buildings. Go to strong force and that human goes to just particles, think hydrogen bomb - Tsar Bomba level, which was the biggest hydrogen bomb ever detonated and it was set off at 50% strength and gave a six mile fireball. Want to neutralize weak force, now we have electrons and quarks free to wander off? Think a crater where Europe once was - extending deep into Asia and the outer core exposed. So, a hand phaser would either be a stronger than WWII blockbuster bomb, as in earthquake bomb class or nastier than an antimatter bomb, at a range of a few meters to 100 meters. The cure now is a hell of a lot worse than the disease.

[@spvillano]

@@Pooua shaking adds energy, dismantling matter. So, you've turned a human sized mass into a WWII earthquake bomb. You'll stop the bad guy, but your weekend plans are perpetually on hold, as are folks for a quarter mile around.

[@Pooua]

@@spvillano I'd like to see you work out the math. I could drop a car into a shredding machine and turn the car into a pile of pellets in seconds without any explosion. I could chip a tree into sawdust in a wood chipper in minutes, again without any explosion. I could turn a few gallons of water into cool mist in seconds with a fan without destroying any buildings.

[@j-sant-animations8105]

Uh Kyle, you have a little Kyle vapor on your. . . . .everywhere.

[@doxodd6834]

He has a lil Kyle in him too... From breathing in the vapor. Not to mention the 3rd degree burns to his lungs.

[@Floodbait_117]

Mmmm tasty

[@tohanwi]

Ya but the carbon in us gasses at 5800k so a phaser puts out around the heat of a stellar core so I feel it's much much worse.

[@mattb9343]

Avatar: TLA reference???

[@RyanAlexanderBloom]

Really only the spot that got hit would vaporize because the explosion would blow the chunks out of vaporizing range immediately. So I think you’d actually get a small puff of steam and a huge splatter of guts and bones. Still dangerous and complete overkill.

[@johndoty4613]

Well couldn't the vaporizer not be a controlled beam but a cone shaped invisible laser or something like that so it hit all at once

[@ToabyToastbrot]

john doty in the case of a cone the "front" of the target would heat up, so the chunks would mainly fly away from you - which is nice!

[@jreddie92]

Similar to the guns from Psycho Pass.

[@kennethfinch4009]

I think he was referring to the troupe. TOS always shows the whole person vaporizing.

[@johndoty4613]

ToabyToastbrot Yes that's a good point

[@bobpeters61]

I never thought Leia's blaster vaporized the grate into the compactor. I always saw that as just blowing a big hole in it. Exploding away from the blaster and the woman firing it due to projectile inertia of the plasma bullet.

[@dangeary2134]

Projectile inertia of a laser beam? Even back then, being 14, I knew that blasters were a boosted laser, and not a phaser. With the analytical mind that I had I summarized that the energy from the beam would enter/touch/expend energy within whatever it hit and cause a portion of the target to superheat and expand violently. It would result in the explosion effect, and take out a portion of the grate or whatever else it would impact, with exception to very sturdy or armored/shielded items. I would also suppose that any material that was a superconductor would not suffer from that kind of damage, unless that item was taking so much energy in as to become overheated to the point of failure or melting.

[@mackenziebeeney3764]

I usually figure it was disintegration since it can leave cellular residue, and that phaser disrupt molecular cohesion (or something like that).

[@samuraispartan7000]

District 9 had a more realistic version of this. The battle suit that Wikus used had a lighting gun that made people explode like water balloons.

[@vampdan]

Probably would make the video rated R if they showed that.

[@sarahhaeger2010]

Yeah, exploding people and everything has blood on it now. Kyle probably couldn't show us this scene because of kids.

[@splo1nger909]

Splish

[@planexshifter]

Loved that movie!

[@prawnmikus]

This is true.

[@solanumtinkr8280]

A Phaser is a particle weapon that uses fictional Rapid Nadions. It was used due the variety of effects that could be obtained from them in a single device. Plasma is passed through a phase emitter which then emits nadion particles as a directed energy weapon. It could be modulated to provide varying effects, stun, heat, kill and disintegrate. A phaser does not in fact, vaporise, as that is only an adhoc description to or from a layman. It disintegrates. The weapons used other races were typically called disrupters, even though there wide variety of them, it is a cover all term. As a side note, if someone had been disintegrated by a phaser, traces of nadion particles could be found in the vicinity from quiet some time awards, as a form of nadion radiation. So no, phaser do not vaporise, even though they can be set to "heat" things, they disintegrate.

[@G3HP]

Sure, and disintegration would be less gross, but it would be just as destructive if not more so. You are ripping molecules apart, possibly even atoms if you are completely disintegrating it. At the least you need way more energy than vapourising water to completely atomize the material, and you would have to deal with the now gaseous atomized dust you left behind, which would probably cause you as many pressure problems as the steam would, except now with added energy. If you're ripping atoms apart, well you're now talking nuclear fission, which would create a lot of undirected energy that will probably take the form of an explosion. Probably not a radioactive one as the products should be stable, but that initial energy has to go somewhere, and that somewhere is the surrounding area. Edit: Spelling

[@solanumtinkr8280]

Th4tGuyII It depends on how it does it, if the nadion particle interferes with how atoms bond, then I;d worry more about the noxious chemicals and highly charge ions that would suddenly be in the air,as they would probably be ripping electrons off or trying to bond anything that some into contact. And if the water has fallen apart as well, then you have to worry about highly combustible gas mixtures and a high power energy source being aimed directly at it. While you may not get an explosion, you may get a fireball and a burning pile of.... stuff....

[@solanumtinkr8280]

Oh, and an unhealthy dose of ionising radiation, maybe?

[@climbmountainsblog]

What about converting all particles into neutrino particles?

[@solanumtinkr8280]

Christian Schick I suppose if it could force a conversion to something neutrino like, even temporarily, then you'd be left with little evidence of it afterward. Planets and spahips do not sit still after all, and I'd think such a temporary state would not be sitting still either. If it was no longer gravitationally bound and expanding it would be shooting off in a straight line and diverge from its original path/orbit. It would still be a McGuffin but at least it would explain why so little seems to be left behind.

[@jessebeach6582]

There Are FOUR Lights! - Captain Jean-Luc Picard

[@cb-gz1vl]

Also there was some cannon changes in which the TOS era phasers didn't use Nadion particles anymore (deemed too dangerous).

[@laurenceperkins7468]

And that's why, last time I looked, the technical name of the setting on a Star Trek phaser was "disintegrate" not "vaporize". Specifically they are generally set to disrupt carbon bonds (since that is what most life is apparently based on) but there is at least one reference to them being "set for silicon" and presumably they can be set for other things as well for when they want to cut through metals and whatnot. The "stun" setting seems to be set to cause resonance that disrupts most nervous systems without significant physical damage, much like a taser... Since there's no pile of dust on the ground afterward, maybe "aerosolize" would be a better term... So... What would be the effects if you spontaneously disrupted all the carbon bonds in a person with enough force to keep them from recombining for at least a couple of seconds?

[@mikespangler98]

Gravy soaked skeleton. What a mess.

[@Vastin]

The problem is that you're still releasing all the energy stored in those carbon bonds instantly - which is kind of a lot. The only way a disintegrator is going to not create some pretty dire side effects is if it is somehow able to disperse some percentage of of the target's mass as effectively non-interactive particles such as neutrinos - and even then I don't know that I'd want to be standing near that event - neutrinos are only MOSTLY non-interactive.

[@johndododoe1411]

@@Vastin What if the target is turned into a mist of frozen particles, mostly ice crystals from the water. Freezing removes energy instead of adding it, so the weapon needs little energy of its own. The net energy released by turning water into ice crystals could be used to reform other molecules into less problematic substances such as volatile organic compounds on the surface of the microscopic ice crystals. If the oxygen and hydrogen in the VOCs consume most of the water, we are left with a smelly vapor.

[@Vastin]

@@johndododoe1411 Not sure how you'd physically accomplish that. Basically you need to trick most of the molecules in the target into swapping to different arrangements with similar energy states but that breaks up the structural binding factors that makes us 'solid' - basically all the structures that make up cellular membranes. This wouldn't turn us into mist btw, but a muddy organic slush that would just collapse under its own weight.

[@johndododoe1411]

@@Vastin Hypothetical idea would be to redistribute energy between molecules, so some become low temperature ice crystals, some become volatile stuff that is vapor even at room temperature, and some become fine dust. This redistribution would also involve the different binding energies within molecules.

[@gonzotown9438]

I always assumed that vaporizers worked by disrupting the molecular bonds of the target. It never looked like a pure heat thing

[@schwarzerritter5724]

Although heat is a possible setting of phasers.

[@spvillano]

Consider that a 500 pound iron bomb has basically the mass of an adult man in high explosive inside of it and only a fraction of that mass gets chemically broken down, as the warhead is a mixture of high explosive like TNT and the rest powdered aluminum and an oxidizer. Doing that entirely to a human mass, think earthquake bomb from WWII. Undo bonds from the strong or weak force, things get even louder, nuke to continent erasing explosions that'd literally expose the outer core. Stargate performed similar antics with 3 shots from a zat, which otherwise behaved like a wireless taser. Sounds like a great defensive weapon - right up there with nuclear hand grenades.

[@trumpisthemessiah7017]

heat and energy are basically the same thing. Heat is a form of energy. And high energy always includes high heat.

[@spvillano]

@@trumpisthemessiah7017 not quite. Radio waves are energy, but not hot. Gamma radiation is high energy, but definitely not hot. Heat is fairly low on the spectrum, when talking electromagnetism, infrared. Thank radio waves in the subbasement, gamma in the rafters. Now, as energy distributes from say, gamma, such as inside of a star or nuclear fireball, it goes down in a ladder like progression, ending up as heat. There's a brief pause as the heat and shockwave catch up with the initial fireball, giving the distinctive double flash of a nuclear detonation. The x-ray and gamma making the oxygen ionized and opaque initially to those bands of radiation. Once the fireball expands, inverse square comes into play and the x-ray and gamma convert to heat (massively simplified there). All, with loads of headache inducing math...

[@mattaaron6142]

Romulan disruptor is that..

[@ZacksRockingLifestyle]

I always assumed that when Leia shot the grate in the detention area, it simply assumed it caused an explosion on impact that directed the blast away from them. But thinking about it, too bad for the rebellion lol

[@rogermwilcox]

I assumed it didn't make the metal EXPLODE, it just broke it open with kinetic force, like shooting a door lock with a gun. The small amount of pyrotechnics we saw were a side effect.

[@russlehman2070]

Not all that different from what an artillery shell does.

[@comcastjohn]

As always, I have learned something, even though most of the math is over my head. You and your staff are great and thank you for what you do. 👍

[@ddxinthehouse]

....district 9 showed how brutal vaporizing someone is...

[@Bacopa68]

Yeah, it seems the D9 people read the Atomic Rockets website. There's a discussion about how a pulsed laser beam of very short duration could tunnel into a human body through a tiny series of steam explosions until it got deep enough to make a steam pocket inside the body.

[@davecrupel2817]

Sort of. The shockwave wasnt as brutal. But the mess was. Fantastic movie.

[@Gyrfalcon312]

My first thought exactly when I saw the title of this video.

[@robinfalkner-wedge824]

I doupt a space ship would actually be delicate, especially if some intergalactic war was going on. You need to be able to soak up some hits.

[@clefsan]

armored against damage from the outside is not the same as protected against damage from the inside ^_^

[@robinfalkner-wedge824]

@@clefsan true, but you wouldn't have to worry much about tearing a hole in the outer armour and being sucked out into space.

[@rudolfschrenk9411]

Actually a real space ship would need a real thick hull to protect the crew from radiation, it also would need to rotate around one axis to create gravitation. So yes, it would be a REAL massive thing and would need a couple of thousend years to get to the next star system.

[@nyetloki]

@@rudolfschrenk9411 except you forget gravity plating and transparent aluminum.

[@rudolfschrenk9411]

@@nyetloki , I believe in gravity plating when I can touch it :-)

[@pezzleysnipes8110]

They'd make an excellent long range anti-infantry weapon then. I mean super over-powered, but incredibly effective, vapourise one soldier, potentially kill multiple others at the same time or atleast disable them, and the hit morale would take from just seeing that would be massive.

[@dogf421]

i feel like if you see that you might end up blind because it would be so bright

[@fistpunder]

This is now my most favorite episode from Kyle. I wondered about this very same subject for years. Thank you Kyle for satisfying my morbid curiosity.

[@ericcarrington4936]

Love the subtle “there are.... FOUR LIGHTS!!!” reference there...TNG rules 🤙🏻

[@knorris908]

Glad to see that others got that reference... Was wondering if I was reaching for it.

[@SlipSpace2]

But then the dude just threw away Picard's flute, so... ya know.

[@ericcarrington4936]

Chinedu Opara Season 6 Chain of Command 🙃

[@That80sGuy1972]

I ran a science fiction RPG. I had some Trekkies in my group who kept whining about not being able to get phasers so they can just vaporize the bad guys. I was a physics student in high school and I learned about what happens when water is instantly vaporized. Boom. I had the party discover a super-tech ancient ruin. Nothing worked and little insights could be gained other than data they could feed their translators. They found one intact weapon, their energy weapon. It was fully charged and seemed to have relatively limitless power. The power source would explode any technology the players had if put in anything but the found weapon and would probably detonate upon its removal. The Trekkies were thrilled "We have a phaser." Most of the writings show that disintegration is frowned upon and warned against the maximum setting as it would vaporize typical targets and it is meant to be used against shielded armored units. It wasn't long before one chose to set it to the maximum setting "vaporize" a bad guy. There was an explosive in my campaign that was super-powerful in concussive and thermal force because it completely vaporized when detonated. I treated the bad guy as a bomb made completely of that explosive. The base they were in, as well as the whole party, was wiped out by the boom. The detonating power cell of that weapon had a secondary explosion equal to a nuclear missile strike (starship torpedo). The Trekkies whined and I showed them my physics homework. "You should have stuck with disintegrate. Leaving goo and dust would have been not so bad." They left my gaming group.

[@psychowolf5552]

Nice

[@aspie182]

Sounds to me like you got rid of the right people from that group.

[@MrLiquidscar]

Epic

[@cmsmiley13]

i probably would have been one of those people until i saw this video or some thing like it

[@lucbrien9237]

I am borrowing this for any future RPGs I run!

[@quaesitumspatium7751]

"Ahhh, there's metal mist in my eyes." XD

[@daviddiebold7357]

It’s mainly a body count remover. In the tech manual for stng type 2 phasers “phased partical projection “ and max setting can excavate 10 or 100 cubic meters of dirt I forget it’s been a long time since I read the book.

[@Unonomis]

There is an event in real life that is pretty close to a "vaporizing" of us squishy things. When the atomic bomb went off at Nagasaki it did actual vaporize or disintegrate people to the point where only there carbon shadow was left on things like walls and even the famous set of stairs where an old man with a cane was imprinted on. It didn't vaporize the buildings completely though but more or less it did the people closest to the blast. So vaporizing someone would either take the energy of an atomic or hydrogen bomb or it would produce the explosive power of a small nuke due to water expanding 1000 times its volume when it is instantly turned into a gas like you point out. Great show, been here since day one. You are my favorite SUPER NERD *WAAAHAAA

[@csdn4483]

Actually, it wasn't a shadow of carbon left, it was the outline of the person with respect to where the center of the bomb explosion was where their bodies absorbed most of the incoming radiation. The "shadows" weren't black on the buildings and sidewalks, they were unaffected areas of the buildings and sidewalks, so more of a "bleaching" of the buildings and sidewalks (ie, the outline of the person was unblemished on the concrete of the sidewalk where as the area around the outline of the person was bleached due to burn/damage). Likewise, it isn't vaporization in the same way that Kyle is talking about. This is incinerations then hit by the blast wave. Remember, the actual pressure wave from a nuclear detonation is still much, much slower than the actual EM being released (gamma rays, x-rays, visible light, infrared, etc) along with the various radiation and materials (neutrons, alphas, betas) from the bomb. The people killed in the detonations at both Hiroshima and Nagasaki that were "vaporized" were incinerated and then the pressure wave spread their ashes everywhere (think something akin to Terminator 2 in the playground detonation scene). And Kyle really didn't get into the nastiness of how a phaser would vaporize you. Think about it this way, the phaser would hit you and the area it hit first would be the first bit to vaporize. You're entire body wouldn't vaporize all at once, it would go in stages as the energy was deposited into your soon to be discorporated body. The area where the beam hits first would vaporize, then the area around that, spreading outwards from there. More than likely, what would actually happen is that you would explode outward (by way of steam explosion) from where the phaser hit you first and there would be more likely chunks of you everywhere than you totally being converted to a gas.

[@Otokichi786]

@@csdn4483 In "Star Trek III: The Search For Spock," a gunner on Klingon Capt. Kruge's Bird of Prey destroyed the U.S.S. Grissom. Kruge, miffed that his order to "damage/incapacitate" the ship had been disobeyed, fired his Disrupter at the boastful gunner. He "burned from the inside out" before bits scattered away.

[@deezpotatoes7410]

"That's a lot of damage!"

[@TheCrow2483]

Flex tape will sort that

[@bethanygee6939]

This guy's videos are pure freaking CHAOS and I can't get enough.

[@dogf421]

reminds me a bit of what the ultrakill rocket launcher does (it reacts with blood to create an explosion on impact with an enemy, but only creates an airblast when it hits a surface) except a full vaporization would look a lot more like a core eject nuke

[@nilok7]

This is why I prefer Gundam beam weapons and Necron Gauss Flayers weapons. Gundam beam weapons and mega particle cannons fire degenerative matter which rips the target apart at the atomic level on contact, but instead of phasers, they are dedicated anti-corvette to capital ship weapons, human scale still uses tradition firearms because they work. Necron Gauss Flayers are similar in end result, but act like millions to trillions (depending on the grade of the weapon) of tractor beams that grab atoms and rip them off of the target disintegrating them without having to change their state.

[@nts3208]

Too bad degenerative matter and tractor beams aren't real things.

[@nyetloki]

Gundam beam weapons also require nuclear reactors so that's the real reason humans use guns. And some gundam use guns.

[@CH-bd6jg]

​@@nts3208 Degenerative matter is a real thing, actually, since it's just matter condensed to the point that the forces can't keep things apart. Electron Degenerate Matter can form ,though it disperses later, in a supernova when the electromagnetic force can't keep up with the pressure, and Neutron Degenerate Matter is what makes up Neutron Stars, the densest material that's outside the schwarzschild radius

[@bradywells1293]

Awesome episode, but I died a little inside when he said 'Earl grey!' instead of "Tea. Earl Grey. Hot."

[@evknucklehead]

He couldn't ask for Hot, as he was planning on heating it up himself. Still, should have asked for "Tea. Earl Grey."

[@ProfessorJayTee]

Looking back in time from 2022, here. This channel has REALLY changed for the better over the past four years.

[@TechDeals]

Turning a human into water vapor would indeed be gross. Of course that's not what phasers do, but I get your point. Phasers actually have a Nuclear Disruption Force when set to very high levels, they break the atomic bonds between atoms. Matter is 99.9% empty space, if you remove all the force holding atoms together, you'd end up with... mostly nothing. But you have to do it at the atomic level. Now, could you really get that much power into a handheld device that is safe to fire, and how does it not destroy the air around you when you shoot it? It's sci-fi. :)

[@aliozanerbektas]

One shot: Stuns Two shot: Kills Three shot: Disintegrates 😏

[@meganofsherwood3665]

Lol! Love to see Kyle do some Stargate - so much opportunity with the gates alone

[@theldraspneumonoultramicro405]

the actors find that rule kinda stupid, it was just a plot point created on the spot for that episode where they go back in time thru the stargate and then had to stick to it for continuity, they never established a timeframe for the shots either, it just applied when convinient, allso, people was quick to point out that the zats look like dicks, and the actors actualy agree on that one, they realy do look like dicks.

[@cotton1983]

Disintegration is just a way to save on extras and strong over people. As well as murder hobo main characters.

[@psychowolf5552]

Just like the zat gun in sg1

[@eparhas9162]

NO @Ozan...Its not a Zat :-)

[@WarlandWriter]

So, exactly how deadly would instantly vaporising a human being be? (Don't worry, that's a rethorical question. I added the whole calculation for whomever cares, but there is a summary/ conclusion at the end if you don't.) Let's assume that we are standing on an unobstructed, flat field, at a distance r from the centre of a hemisphere of water with V0=.049 m^3 (65% of 75 L). This water is vaporised instantly, so we assume the water vaporises first and then starts expanding adiabatically. First of all, because the steam expands adiabatically, the gas cools down whilst expanding. Thus we need to know the initial temperature of the gas to make sure that it is above 373 K when we measure the pressure. (You can also use 373 K, but that would be boring and unrealistic. (Says the guy who assumes you can instantly turn 42 L of water into steam.)) To do this, we use the fact that in an adiabatic expansion T*V^(y-1) = constant (With T the temperature, V the volume, and y (usually we use gamma) the adiabatic index of water, 1.117) Thus, the initial temperature and volume should relate to the temperature and volume at a distance r by T0*V0^(0.117)=Tr*Vr^(0.117) Filling in that V0 = 0.049 m^3, Tr = 373 K and Vr = 2/3*pi*r^3 (volume of a hemisphere with radius r), gives that T0 = 578*r^0.351 (Yes, that does mean that the initial temperature is dependent of the radius at which you want to destroy something.) To calculate then the pressure at a distance r from the centre of the hemisphere, we use a similar principle as for the temperature: p*V^y = constant (For an adiabatic expansion or compression. p is the pressure.) Again comparing the initial and final pressure and volume as we did before: p0*v0^1.117=pr*vr^1.117 The initial pressure can be found using the ideal gas law: p0=n*R*T0/V0 (Wherein n is the number of moles of expanding gas, 2708, R the universal gas constant, and T0 and V0 as calculated) p0=265,700,000*r^.351 Inserting this, combined with V0=0.049 m^3 and Vr=2/3*pi*r^3 into the pressure and volume formula for the expansion gives: pr=p0*(v0/vr)^1.117 = 4,037,000*1/r^3 Pa. I found measures for the damage from overpressure on wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overpressure#Effects_of_overpressure To get a formula for the radius as a function of the overpressure (to allow us to fill in a certain pressure and determine at what distance you'd experience that), we rewrite the last formula: r=(4,037,000/pr)^(1/3)=159/pr^(1/3). CONCLUSION (thanks, all who skipped the math, for rejoining us) This means that at 6.6 m, you experience 14 kPa of overpressure on your body, causing common injuries, possible fatality and the collapse of residential structures. At 5.2 m, fatalities will occur and most buildings except concrete will collapse. At 3.9 m, you will start losing limbs and reinforced concrete buildings will be severely damaged. That is assuming there is nothing blocking the expansion of the gas. You are in an open field, not a narrow spaceship hall. In reality, the damage would be much greater. (Assuming, as Kyle already mentioned, that the spaceship can withstand such forces.) P.S. If you don't want to use the adaptive T0, doing the same math you will find that r=81.6/pr^(1/3.351). It would be much less destructive; 4.7 m, 3.8 m and 2.9 m respectively would give the same effects.

[@contown731]

I skipped the math.

[@CountDoucheula]

I skipped the everything.

[@ThunderbirdAnthares]

i tried to understand the math, but my eyes glazed over but thanks :-) i guess ill just stick to my favorite "mass drivers"

[@GladiusYTR]

So basically hoomans are walking water bombs waiting for an alien race with a microwave gun to blow up the planet...

[@WarlandWriter]

@@GladiusYTR I think it would be easier to blow up the planet itself entirely than to blow up just the humans walking on it, but yeah, should aliens choose cinematic over efficient, we'd be squirting hot steam all over the planet like nobody's business

[@martok2112]

Kyle, this was another great presentation, which got me thinking about another sci-fi and one of its primary focuses, which is water...that being Dune, several subjects of which you have covered. In Dune, when a Fremen dies, his/her water is reclaimed by their sietch community...and is usually done through a "deathstill" which renders a dead Fremen down to water. (The expanded cut of the 1984 film version of Dune even has a scene depicting this.) I was wondering if you'd be interested in covering something like this? Also, could a stillsuit work as described in the novel and movie/miniseries?

[@dpsamu2000]

A still suit would work on reverse osmosis. The typical pump is more efficient than any I conceive in a still suit form factor where walking, and moving provides the pumping. In principle it could work if you figure out the right pump. The real problem in principle is if the sweat doesn't evaporate you overheat.

[@Garenzo314]

I appreciate your four lights reference. My favorite episode of the show!

[@falconfira]

So, on electrical substations I've been aware by family that scary things can happen. Electricity going out of control is a fantastical thing to witness. One instance that I'll share was a 40,000 ampere arc that turned a steel and reinforced concrete barrier to dust.

[@nathanloxton9175]

"I store a happier version of myself in here... awhile ago." Hey Kyle, you doing ok man?

[@ajn465]

Really really well done. You’re a smart dude and you can communicate. Best of luck!

[@WilliamLHart]

Its a phaser not a vaporizer. The phaser is supposed to de-phaze the atoms separating the atoms into its constituent parts and pushes them into a different dimension. The vaporizer just clears your sinuses.

[@eisas1306]

Yes. Or rather vaporization would be the result of a plasma weapon (which exist in star trek). Although a real plasma weapon would either be in the form of a ionized arc or a projectile bomb, and would be seen as a bright white light as the vaporization would occur. This is different than the small projectile that star trek's plasma weapons deliver, or perhaps what you see on romulan ships. like you said, phasers or disruptors separate the atoms , although the phasers were considered more ethical despite doing basically the same thing.

[@brianbyles3737]

Metal mist in my eyes sounds like a song about a sad robot

[@whalecat8049]

That sounds like a depressing song

[@Pro_Butcher_Amateur_Human]

It does sound like a song lyric from Steam Powered Giraffe.

[@TrimutiusToo]

Now that you said it... I just think that the biggest problem is that they use word "vaporization" instead of "disintegration". But on the other hand, what disintegration does isn't much better. Matter doesn't just disappear, like in that grate in compactor example, even if all that metal got disintegrated, you would still have problem, it might not be steaming hot, but probably would still be extremely toxic. Actually how does breaking bonds between atoms and/or molecules instantaneously would behave is also a consideration. It would be similar gas dynamics problem, just at lower temperatures. Though I'm not sure about low temperature part, because actually breaking forcefully those bonds would require at least as much energy if not more as vaporization, and energy never just disappears...

[@JamesSchriever]

Breaking some chemical bonds would release energy and others would take energy. Water which your body is mostly made of would take a lot of energy to break. The most common way we currently break water into oxygen and hydrogen is using electricity called electrolysis. It would be interesting to see an analysis of disintegration vs vaporization, since they both have almost the same end result. Which one is less messy?

[@TrimutiusToo]

James Schriever If you disintegrate to atoms, then yeah there are some variables, if it is just down to molecules then it is very similar to vaporization and would require similar energy output to break the bonds. But even if they take energy you need to input some energy into system first to start the process so the disintegration itself requires at least same or more energy. But yes endothermic reactions can absorb some of the heat, so lower temperature is a possibility but doing proper calculation is hard.

[@ronaldlebeck9577]

That's why I have disruptor style weapons that disrupt the atomic bonds in my sci-fi story series, or other energy weapons the burn holes through objects. However, I have one that is used for ship-to-ship or ship-to-ground fighting that would do the type of damage you talked about, though at a distance. The only time something gets vaporized if it gets tossed into a star..

[@roguewxves5534]

Good video as usual, id love to see a video about the weapons on district 9:))

[@ConnorG.1]

The last time I was this early, star trek didn't have a get out of jail free card in the form Kahn blood being able to resurrect people. And then subsequently having to retcon it so that there was at least a slight threat of people dying

[@BeCurieUs]

Props for the "there are four" line :D

[@evknucklehead]

I was kinda wondering why he didn't include Calcium or an Other Elements section in that scene. Completely missed this reference until some people pointed it out in the comments.

[@DramaticPaws]

There.. are.. four.. lights!

[@NathanTarantlawriter]

This was great. I've always imagined the residue from a full-force "phaser" blast would be quite conspicuous and not at all as clean as the fx in TOS made it. Lower decks would be doing a lot of cleaning duty.

[@redneckgaijin]

One thing overlooked by this video: even if your ship can withstand the sudden gas expansion, even if your crew avoids the splash damage from the victim, all the heat energy required to turn a person into vapor doesn't just go away. Jimbo may be vaporized, but everybody else in the area will be literally cooked, inside and out, from trying to breathe 100 deg C air.

[@elevatordancer]

As Spock once said, “Fascinating”. 🖖

[@transtubular]

Excellent video! Loved it. But I have always kind of gone with the idea that when they say vaporized they are truly meaning that it/they were disintegrated since that term was used interchangeably with dematerialized to describe the effect of using the high setting of a phaser on an object or being. Kind of the way most people nowadays sometimes use the verb "nuke" to describe heating something in a microwave oven. Phasers and their myriad of effects are just so common that people in the Star Trek universe long ago started using generalizations to describe what it did to the object or being. After all, people don't actually get their heads "blown clean off" by handgun bullets...not even a .44 magnum.

[@pljdavies]

i could watch you all day; i basically want to take you for a beer (or lots) and ask questions

[@owenmcphee-keath3388]

Technically, phasers launch nadion particles, which distrupt the bonds of the atoms of the target, but nice video!

[@Kalecism]

We need some numbers on how many Kyle Hills died to this day for science. And what is he really? A clone? A machine?

[@arrow2k129]

He is actually a hologram like the doctor from star trek voyager

[@zeekeno823]

I thought he was the manifestation of the void he inhabits.

[@Napoleonic_S]

Kyle is the real Thor XD

[@becausescience]

I'd like to know as well. Getting confusing trying to remember who I was -- KH

[@biohazard724]

The entity known as Kyle "stop calling me Thor" Hill is a projection of the Void's own sentience.

[@splo1nger909]

”We come in peace, shoot to kill!”

[@philipcollier4883]

Boldy going forward, cause we cant find reverse 😁

[@MKDumas1981]

It's vaporization, but, not as you know it, not as you know it, not as you know it.

[@Teraphas]

It's worse than that he's dead Jim dead Jim dead Jim. Its worse that he's dead Jim dead Jim dead

[@gtspaceii]

Ye cannae change the laws of physics, laws of physics, laws of physics; ye cannae change the laws of physics, laws of physics, Jim.

[@happybadger806]

Theres Klingons off the starboard bow, starboard bow, starboard bow, scrape them off Kyle !

[@STSWB5SG1FAN]

That's why in Star Trek VI phasers changed from 'vaporize' to 'punchur'. Klingon weapons still vaporize.

[@GenScinmore]

District 9 has a pretty good representation

[@davidgallego1652]

Hey, Kyle. Love the show. Does a blade exist that is sharp enough to cleanly slice through a porcelain sink like Wolverine does in the awful X-men Origins movie?

[@Daniel-mr3bi]

Asking the real questions

[@JonnyStarwind]

He did an episode on Wolverine's claws.

[@badluckpoppy]

Obsidium makes the sharpest blades but it's rather fragile. There can already be swords that near the sharpness of obsidium(10nm). The real question is if a blade would be durable enough to cut through a porcelain sink and retain the edge to finish the task.

[@limiv5272]

The question is about an existing blade, like in real life. You know, that stuff that happens outside your computer/tablet/cell phone

[@bigbearbrads1024]

Good question

[@wyattrose5511]

Wouldn’t a weapon with that energy, focused into a beam, just go right through the person cauterizing the wound and stopping the boiling? Also, the heat energy amounted from the firing of the phaser would just burn the person’s hand off and/or give the person massive burns from the heating of the air around them, also expanding the air and blowing out any space ship they are on.

[@bobleonheart9600]

not if you had some form of force field technology to contain the energy. I always believed this was the ccase as in most episodes you see the body of a person within a surrounding field which emanates from the phaser. I always kind of thought this made sense if it was a force field copntaining both beam and target.

[@NextLevelCode]

@@bobleonheart9600 but if that were true then the gun should have a trap in force field setting. Also it should be able to create shields at will. It would make much more sense if the gun just does some kind of matter energy conversation like a teleporter. It could double to recharge the gun.

[@bobleonheart9600]

@Next Level Code I actually wrote a comment similar to that elsewhere on this video.. My assumption was that teleporter tech could be used to convert the energy but I also assumed that they use some force field tech as part of teleporter tech to seperate what's being teleported from what's not. Also I think energy wise it seems more efficient to simply use the stun setting than using the phaser as a trap field.

[@dunn0r]

Matter-Energy-Conversion? Antimatter Level explosive force in Hand-to-hand combat? That's probably not a very good idea

[@Fongletto]

You just have to kinda ignore that the channel masquerades itself as what would "realistically" happen. And look it more as what would "worst case" happen.

[@patrickcanter2831]

Great cideo. Rhanks.

[@niceguy60]

4:08, A Terminator on screen had a giant vat of molten metal poured on it and still was fully operational

[@hiroshiscorer]

I don't remember where I read/heard of this, or if it is cannon (and also I'm aware of the video's focus), but I thought the phaser did some kind of subatomic mess to turn stable molecules into loose particles. Something similar to "removing molecular cohesion". Which would also be fun to think about, as it would probably make some strange self-killing side effects. Also, to be more precise, in any of the interpretations, why would the phaser beam conviniently and selectibly destroy a single piece of prop/living beam. Either it would make a hole through and keep destroying whatever there is behind, or the reaction would also vaporize any other object touching the target, and maybe the air itself. I don't know. Seems even messier like this. Greetings from Mexico!

[@NinjoXEnlightened]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if these formulas are accurate, and I believe they might be, wouldn't this give much more reason to use the stun setting than just leaving the target alive? After all, phaser "stuns" have always had similar reactions to ordinary gunshots as seen in "The Big Goodbye"". Though, perhaps then, this excessive force, while unfortunate, may actually be necessary since medical technology in Star Trek has become advanced enough to treat almost any wound, like how they were able to replace Jean luc picard's heart after it was stabbed with a knife in "Tapestry". You may notice that even then, from "The Next Generation" onward, pretty much only crazy people or people battling creatures like the Borg ever set phasers to maximum settings. Anyways, all I'm trying to say is that if they can replace a stabbed heart before the victim dies, maybe total annihilation is the only way to guarantee someone to stay dead. After doing some research on cardiac pumps I have since realized that the heart isn't the best example, though there are countless other medical miracles throughout the entire series to back my above argument. A small correction however, with the shielding technology in place as well as ablative hull one would think that popping a person like a balloon on the deck of a Starfleet vessel wouldn't "doom an entire section of the ship and crew". While it would undoubtedly damage the person who fired the phaser and possibly harm their entire platoon, the above mentioned medical miracles as well as counter measures seen throughout the series in the form of internal shielding would save all if not most of the people within the area of impact. It would still be super gross, but not nearly as dangerous as you have insinuated. Love the show dude. And keep those Phasers set to stun, "Dammit Jim I'm a doctor, not a janitor!"

[@ronhutcherson9845]

Kyle makes a great point about phasers. In the show, they’re really doing some sort of disintegration when someone is “vaporized”, but otherwise it usually acts like a heat ray. Scotty never mentioned that in Star Trek because he didn’t want to anger the writers.

[@OscarPlymouth]

Very good, thanks.

[@ninjahombrepalito1721]

Mr. Hill, love the show! Great video, as always. But you made one mistake. You are assuming that the vaporizer would instantly turn all of the H2O inside a human being into water vapor, when more consistently it is shown that it takes around 3 seconds to vaporize a person. If that is the case, a person would not explode (in the case that all water were evaporated uniformally), but rather the eyes would melt as steam shoots out of every hole in the body, even scalding and tearing apart the flesh, until nothing is left behind except a badly torn dehydrated mummy that used to be a person.

[@Citrakite]

They would still explode from the massive build up of pressure like a balloon. We're 70% water so Average person of 75 kg being vaporized would still have 52.5 L of water trying to expand as it became steam over those three seconds. The eyes don't melt, they explode as the steam has no way out. As the walls of their organs swell they'd rupture and the person would violently expel blood and chunks of his flesh out their offices and nose before he then explodes. It makes it even worse then just exploding.

[@Paveway-chan]

So the person would start to leak steam from pretty much everywhere, bulge grotesquely for about a friction of a second, and then explode with a sickening, wet and loud pop?

[@ninjahombrepalito1721]

Erik Bergström see, that's the mistake people are making. For a friction of a second. Wait, I don't mean the grammar mistake. Fir a fraction of a second. Everyone is turning water to vapor in a fraction of a second instead of over the span of 3 seconds.

[@jamesroad316]

i don't think that makes it any better

[@ninjahombrepalito1721]

jamesroad316 well, no explosion (or possibly a smaller one).

[@GeorgeSladkovsky]

I would assume that phaser was designed to be so powerful because you never know what you encounter during your exploration missions. Of course, if you use it on max settings on normal human, it will be a crazy overkill. But if you encounter something unknown that has very dense skin/carapace, high tech shields or other type of protection, you will be thankful that you have this insane power in your arsenal.

[@ToabyToastbrot]

but imagine this power in your hand has a malfunction, I personally wouldn't like to get vaporised...

[@GeorgeSladkovsky]

ToabyToastbrot same thing with antimatter reactor and warp drive. If it malfunctions... bad day for everyone.

[@ToabyToastbrot]

George Sladkovsky true that, but at least those bigger things can have more safety stuff...

[@SuperGamefreak18]

@@GeorgeSladkovsky you mean warp core breeches

[@SuperGamefreak18]

And lets not forget that after tos vaporization wasnt as common as they actually used the kill and stuns...unless they didn't fall oh and riker talking about one of the higher settings saying they could take out a city block

[@CostlyFiddle]

Karate chopping yourself was the funniest thing I've seen in a long time. I watched it 5 times!

[@lantastic1]

Cool visual effect. You have my attention.

[@ThrottleKitty]

I always felt if you vaporized a person, they would be left as skeletons. Vaporizing bone is a LOT harder than vaporizing what is essentially just chunky water in the rest of your body. Like the Daleks from Doctor Who. Well, sometimes, Doctor Who is inconsistent.

[@benwarman5202]

Throttle Kitty I’ve never heard the body described as “chunky water” before

[@ThrottleKitty]

haha!

[@sleuthbear9617]

apparently bones are 31% water, so, after your chunky water exploded, perhaps bone fragments would fire off like a fragmentation grenade?

[@ThrottleKitty]

I suppose it might, it depends on if there was enough heat pumped into the body. They would have a much higher vaporization temperature because bones tend to be tricky to burn during cremation, despite their make-up. But yeah, it would likely be sort of like a fragmentation grenade, as splintered would fly everywhere. Just, a lot less dangerous than metal.

[@AnDream109]

Like uncle Owen and aunt Beru

[@TheBetterVersion]

Hi Kyle When you mention that the pressure from the explosion (1.7*10³ atm) is 50% higher than at the bottom of the Mariana Trench (1.07*10³ atm) but it's about 59%, which is closer to 60%

[@becausescience]

C'mon now -- KH

[@philiptite1082]

I know this is an older video and Kyle (I think) has moved on (alas, love his videos), but I just watched this one and had an idea I wanted to float by. If the "vaporization" beam was designed to also create an energy containment bubble around the target, would that result in the exploding/expanding force to implode onto the target (or where the target used to be)? Would that implosion of energy result in an even greater force of some sort? I'm curious about the science here if the phaser was designed with such a containment function. Because, you know, science. :)

[@James-rm7sr]

Well, if we take the shows and movies for subject matter. They always seem to be lit up like being covered in a field. So it would explain well enough why we don't see such destruction.

[@blumatrix1960]

Ok the '4 elements' nod to one of the best trek episodes of all time was pretty smooth. Lol I finally figured out who you remind me of, Jewel Staite as Dr Keller on Stargate Atlantis.

[@akizeta]

'Decimate' has a real meaning, too, but no-one ever uses it properly. I think we can let people use 'vaporise' wrong.

[@philipcollier4883]

Decimate comes from the practice in ancient rome where if a legion was guilty of insubordination the general would execute every 10th man as punishment. Modern usage defines it as simply losing "a big chunk" of your forces/resouorces at one time. Not a lot of call for the first version...

[@becausescience]

You can. I NEVER WILL -- KH

[@DeaconTaylor]

they used it right once in doctor who when the master killed 1/10th of the population. i was happy to hear him say that.

[@MAJ0ROCEL0T]

I was just saying on the last footnotes we were overdue for a SURPRISE LIGHTSABER

[@eparhas9162]

I love all the star trek references. You should do more on trek. TREK IS LIFE

[@drizzlingrose]

the jokes in this episode is ON POINT! i laughed out loud quite a few times :3

[@KrisTheLVN]

I think a video comparing the major Sci-fi weapons and concluding the most feasible is in order. I've always figured the concept of future weapons will depend on the state of personal shielding(armor) and the most common environment of operation. Firearms are still used in Cowboy Bebop because with the exception of Mad Pierrot's shield everyone is limited Kevlar/ceramic body armor and there is little to no personal combat in zero-g.(Although the scene where Spike uses his gun to propel himself was pretty cool) While a phaser or laser type weapon might be effective in that the lack of or little recoil would be needed in zero-g, by that time the technology to ablate or deflect the oncoming shot will be easy to make man portable. A physical projectile I think will always be a part of man's technology considering the first was a rock and in the end "That makes Sir Isaac Newton is the deadliest guy in space." Mass Effects weapons are already made "in part" in the form of Gauss guns. The technology to insulate and focus the Gauss effect would make if more a realty as portable batteries become more powerful and electrical conduction becomes more efficient. The technology to "shave off a grain of sand" already exists in the form of how the bolt face "shaves off" a bullet from the top of a magazine, up the feed ramp, and into the chamber of a firearm. Given it will need to be a little more sophisticated to pull the same amount of "matter/ammo" each time and not jam all while needing to be able to duplicate the action each time the "fire impulse"(I imagine their weapons are fire-by-wire and not analog) was sent. In all truth I think a taser type weapon or neuromuscular incapacitating device would be more common in the future. I imagine such "civilized" societies would frown on killing instead focusing on incapacitating or paralyzing would be attackers. Its easier to boost volts than amps. There is already armor that can defeat tasers, i.e. material that doesn't allow the circuit to be complete, stop the probes from making contact with skin, or acting like a Faraday cage. However creating individual "taser" projectiles with deep penetrating barbs may be the answer. In the end it all comes down to pushing someone's off button and making them take the room temperature challenge. Weapons will change to match the biology of any other life we find but for humans: major trauma to vital organs, blood loss, or asphyxiation are the most easiest ways to get the job done. Creating a plasma/laser weapon would cause great local trauma but penetration will be needed to push the off switch. Even a small local 3rd degree burn is survivable depending on the location. As you've pointed out before vaporizing or atomizing weapons create local pressure hazards. "Sir Isaac Newton is still the deadliest guy in space." One can't try to destroy something without the risk of destroying ones-self or something unintended. I think whatever technology creates will be a mirror of the culture, a peaceful society will endeavour to reduce all risk of loss of life or life becomes cheap and each projectile may become like the bullets from Underworld(filled with a biological specific toxin). However, like in the game Subnautica, I don't think a sharp and pointy object will ever fall out of vogue. Love the show, keep it up.

[@vanquishte]

Fly like a majestic Egyptian penguin

[@splo1nger909]

Aqua_Hawk absolutely

[@benceborka2516]

Mr. Phaser I don't feel so good

[@garymurphy5133]

I totally agree,i very rarely set mine to maximum now.

[@sorenrohrbach2361]

Hang on Kyle... why you complaining about the ambiguity of the ship's corridors and the defiant computer when you live in a physics defying void and can create anything you want? You're like the Momo Yaoyorozu of markers, except you're not limited by an inability to create life; and I'd think any kind of corridors would be a nice change of pace from endless black that somehow has gravity, a floor, and enough lighting for us to see you perfectly well despite you, your clones, and the disembodied voice being the only things in there. ...... Wait a minute... lives in an endless void... can create anything he wants... looks like a Norse god... sometimes gets killed by his own creations... HOLY COW I'VE GOT IT! Kyle IS a Norse god, but he's NOT Thor's secret little brother! He's the primordial god of the Norse creation myth YMIR! IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW!

[@becausescience]

//sometimes i get lost inside//myself// -- KH

[@runefaustblack]

So... He's Thor's _father? _

[@cobraglatiator]

Miguel de Lima more like grandfather odin is thors father. in marvel and real life norse myth.

[@klynolder9528]

@@becausescience That... NM...

[@sonwuquan7980]

If this isn't in the footnotes, I shall be upsetti spaghetti

[@seanhampson4126]

The flute thing had me cackling

[@petersmythe6462]

This does make for an interesting discussion of what the best weapon is for fighting in environments that may have things like flimsy tin can pressure hulls and low pressure, pure oxygen environments.

[@Chemo735]

Vaporization is only messy when incomplete. Instantaneously heat a body to the point that the calcium in the bones and the carbon in the ashes melt and then evaporate, and there’s going to be nothing left except hot.

[@Gaston-Melchiori]

For some of you that didint get the diference between "Vaporisation" and " desintegration". They are not the same, Desintegration means that the weapon you use makes the atoms/molecules (it depends on the scale you are talking, going smaller requiers more effort) separated from each other by changing the intermolecular forces that keep them thogether. If you have, for example a weapon that can break the Van Der Waals or the Hidrogen bods in an object ( the forces that make the molecules stik to each other ) you could (in teori) desintegrate it, meaning that the object is now a pile of dust or sand. If you desintegrate someting in an atomic level (turning off the electromagnetic forces that keep them close) that object would blow in the wind to nothingness, because we cant see atoms. And there is another intresting thong, see if you use the weapon in a Mug that is dry you have a pile of dust, but if you use it in a human you have to consider the water, the water would wet the human dust and make it all stik to each other, making a pile of "human mud". It would not be like in the movies... At least that is what i think. That is if the cancelation of the intermolecular forces are only for a short ammount of time, if they are permanent or for a long time then the water will not be a problem i gess... I think its the nerdiest comment i leave, besides the one in the "why you dont want invisivility".

[@Gaston-Melchiori]

Aaaand if you desintegrate something or someone that object would expland, because now that molecules takes more room that they where thogether.

[@Gaston-Melchiori]

And i think the only use for desintegration weapons it would be in sneak attacks, if you manage to make the weapon silent you could infiltrate in a spaceship without having to deal with leaving bodys behind.

[@thiagoecb]

Disintegration? I don't feel so good about thi-...

[@thealientree3821]

NO SPOILERS!

[@nocx4592]

NO! NO! You feel fine, you DO feel.good!

[@KjoshWaddellBananasAreGood]

No disintegrations!

[@Zorro9129]

That just makes phasers that much more awesome.

[@mikefulton1963]

I can't remember *any* occasion in any Star Trek TV show or movie where they said anything about a phaser vaporizing anything, and it never once entered my mind that's what was happening.

[@aliozanerbektas]

Vaporization or disintegration? Are they the same thing?

[@Pfoffie]

Ozan I was wondering the same thing :)

[@axe693axe]

Nope

[@Da1ienx]

Yeah i dont remember ever hearing the term vaporization in star trek, i thought they said disintegration

[@alexixeno4223]

Vaporizing something is turning something to a gas. Even simply boiling water is slowly vaporizing something. Disintegrated would be closer to turning water into hydrogen and oxygen.

[@kharnthebetrayer8251]

I think it's that Vaporisation turns you into gas, Disintegration turns you into dust

[@axe693axe]

Vaporization actually has a pretty good representation of the Gory Mess it would make, just watch *Dr. Manhattan go ham in Watchmen.*

[@axe693axe]

When I think about it that's a better example than I thought; Kyle made excellent point that it wouldn't be instantaneous . Phaser has the same problem as Kratos *Axe* :3

[@CrazySaVaunT]

LOL @ 2:15 "THERE ARE FOUR LIGHTS!!" >:D

[@thebeatlesloveisallyouneed]

Love how he says 9 millimeter pistol as he shows an example of the most iconic.45 caliber pistol in history.