[Mito [PL]]

1. I am a man enjoying tech specs ^^.
2. Blob guns. If we'd propel a self-containing plasma blob with a continuous laser fire, that might be called a laser...
3. Beam cannons. Plasma properly contained in a huge laser beam might get accelerated to sub-light speed, plus it would reflect the photons from the laser so that the beam would be visible .

[Logrus]

what you're seeing is probably not the beam, but the spent gas from the chamber

Yet we still have to lead the target and that definitely would not have been necessary for a laser beam;) Still I like this explanation:)

[Chemieonkel]

Guns is just a term for a munition delivery system. You don't call missiles "racks or tubes" navy captains don't say "fire the shells!" When referring to massive deck guns, (Although tank drivers call "heat" or "sabot" oddly enough)

There's no reason why you can't use laser to describe something related in your fluff

The point with "HEAT" or "sabot" in a tank ist just the different kind of ammo. You although talk about Trebutchets, Harpoons oder Hornets (all secondary Weapons)

[Kolgena]

A long time ago people on the internet couldn't figure out the difference between a clip and a mag, and suddenly all weapons are now called lasers.

Also, qwadtep, light has zero mass, but it does have nonzero momentum. Maybe that's what you were thinking of.

[Aardwolf]

Whatever strict definition says light has zero mass... is stupidly strict.

If you had a planet made of half matter and half antimatter, and you let it annihilate, but mirrors trapped the photons inside the original sphere of the planet, none of the "mass" properties of the planet would change: it would still produce the same gravity, respond the same way to gravity, and respond the same way to impulses.

[jr2]

FTR, clips hold sets of rounds in the box. Like you buy a box with 30 rounds, they might have have 3 clips of 10.

Then you take the rounds off the clip(s) and put them in the magazine, which goes in the weapon.

[Rheyah]

Whatever strict definition says light has zero mass... is stupidly strict.

If you had a planet made of half matter and half antimatter, and you let it annihilate, but mirrors trapped the photons inside the original sphere of the planet, none of the "mass" properties of the planet would change: it would still produce the same gravity, respond the same way to gravity, and respond the same way to impulses.

Given that most anti-matter/matter reactions emit in the gamma spectrum, there isn't any mirror in the universe capable of reflecting them.  Further, photons are an exchange particle for the electromagnetic force - they don't interact with gravity at all other than to interact with its spatial curvature.  They don't generate gravity.

Photons have no interaction whatsoever with mass.  They are a quanta of the electromagnetic field.  Photon pressure is the result of interactions with the electromagnetic fields of other charged particles - it is not a true exchange of momentum or mass, but instead an interaction of two fields.

As a result you can put a neutron in an incredibly intense EM field and produce virtually zero acceleration - its only interaction with the field itself is through its magnetic moment which is not sufficient enough to accelerate it.

[Aardwolf]

While over-editing my reply, I finally decided to do my own research and discover a passage I can point to for proof the next time I have this argument with someone. Thanks, Rheyah, it never would've gotten done without you

From Wikipedia on "Mass-energy equivalence":

[...] the invariant mass of systems is conserved, even when massive particles (particles with rest mass) within the system are converted to massless particles (such as photons). In such cases, the photons contribute invariant mass to the system, even though they individually have no invariant mass or rest mass. Thus, an electron and positron (each of which has rest mass) may undergo annihilation with each other to produce two photons, each of which is massless (has no rest mass). However, in such circumstances, no system mass is lost. Instead, the system of both photons moving away from each other has an invariant mass, which acts like a rest mass for any system in which the photons are trapped, or that can be weighed. Thus, not only the quantity of relativistic mass, but also the quantity of invariant mass does not change in transformations between "matter" (electrons and positrons) and energy (photons).

I like being right

[Phantom Hoover]

Both Rheyah and that passage you quoted make it pretty clear that in these arguments you keep having you're not any more 'right' than the other person, you're just both speaking at cross purposes to each other.

[Aardwolf]

No, Phantom Hoover, this isn't some bizarre reversal of that other thread.

I'm pretty sure Rheyah and I were not talking past each other, and that Rheyah learned something new today.

[Mongoose]

Yes, I'm sure that someone with doctoral-level physics experience who "work(s) in laser driven pulse plasma accelerator systems" learned something about the nature of light from a Wikipedia quote.

[Rheyah]

Strictly speaking the gravitational interaction of the mass of the system only propagates at the velocity of the photons themselves.  The photons themselves are entirely massless - the conservation of the mass within the system contributes to their momentum.  They definitely do not interact gravitationally and in the rest frame of the photon, you will find no field around them.   If you do find a gravitational field around a photon, there's a Nobel prize in it for you.

Thus, they remain massless.  It's a trick of mathematics that results in the interpretation you speak of - which while strictly speaking correct, is what in physics we refer to as a bit of a mathematical dodge, usually used to make computation of masses a little easier

And the PM you sent me - I've been recovering from a shoulder operation and am stoned out of my head on codeine.  No offence taken.

EDIT:  I should also note that momentum is not dependent on mass.  The momentum dependence in special relativity can be attributed to both velocity and mass.  You can start a huge row in most physics departments by claiming to be a proponent of one or the other.

[Rheyah]

I should also note that the only methods we have of "weighing" a system rely on the coloumb force, with which photons interact.