# How long before society develops a working phaser? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 11, 2013, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-before-society-develops-a-working-phaser/668577 "2013-09-11T15:57:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2013, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-before-society-develops-a-working-phaser/668577/41 "2013-09-12T17:53:02Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > _A Gift from Earth_ was by Niven. Did you mean to say that that was the earliest appearance in Niven’s works, but that it showed up in someone else’s works before that? Hai. That was the first time I recall it appearing in Known Space literature, but I’m morally certain it was suggested in Golden Age science fiction. I’m just too busy right now to attempt to look it up. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2013, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-before-society-develops-a-working-phaser/668577/42 "2013-09-12T17:56:20Z")
In Stanley Weinbaum’s 1934 story _A Martian Odyssey_ Tweel uses a “gun” that shoots what appear to be glass slivers, propelled by steam (apparently) expansion in the gun’s handle. The sliver apparently has a toxin in it to killwhat it hits. The only difference appears to be that in Niven’s works, the toxin and the vprojectile are one and the same (although, to be honest, you can’t rule that out in the Weinbaum story, either. But I doubt that Weinbaum considered it.) ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Excellent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f19dbf/32.png) [@Mr.Excellent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Excellent)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2013, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-before-society-develops-a-working-phaser/668577/43 "2013-09-12T19:22:01Z")
Part of the problem - long bemoaned by anesthesiologists - is that there isn’t a huge margin between rendering someone unconscious (or even immobile) and killing him. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2013, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-before-society-develops-a-working-phaser/668577/44 "2013-09-12T20:32:14Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > Hai. That was the first time I recall it appearing in Known Space literature, but I’m morally certain it was suggested in Golden Age science fiction. I’m just too busy right now to attempt to look it up. > > Stranger Asimov- Hostess. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2013, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-before-society-develops-a-working-phaser/668577/45 "2013-09-16T00:50:21Z")
> [@Mr.Excellent](#): > > Part of the problem - long bemoaned by anesthesiologists - is that there isn’t a huge margin between rendering someone unconscious (or even immobile) and killing him. Very true, and why it would have to be some kind of ‘smart’ toxin; one capable of shutting down the somatic nervous system without affecting the core life-sustaining functions. Frankly, this probably delves into the realm of nanotechnology and biologically engineered organisms rather than more simple biochemistry. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2013, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-before-society-develops-a-working-phaser/668577/46 "2013-09-16T01:02:13Z")
The real problem is inventing the transtator. Once you’ve got that, whether you want to invent phaser, tricorders, or communicators–it’s a piece of cake. ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2013, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-before-society-develops-a-working-phaser/668577/47 "2013-09-16T01:29:53Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > Actually, if what you desire is a ranged weapon which can immobilize a target with minimal chance of permanent harm, a gel projectile containing a regulated neurotoxin with solvent that would allow it to rapidly penetrate through skin is probably the most feasible. It would not be instantaneous, of course, and would only work against exposed skin or light clothing, but there are existing toxins which can cause almost complete loss of neurological function within seconds of entering the bloodstream. If you could tailor such a substance or have targeted delivery such that it temporarily disables function of the somatic nervous system but leaves the autonomic system and spinal cord unimpaired. It would still probably be incredibly painful and/or terrifying (like when you wake up with sleep paralysis) but potentially workable with only modest advances in biochemical knowledge and technology. It’s not as cool as a phaser, but you also won’t paint the room with protoplasm if you forget to change the setting to ‘Stun’ > > Stranger Sounds like Doc Savage’s “mercy bullets”. ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2013, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-before-society-develops-a-working-phaser/668577/48 "2013-09-16T01:32:54Z")
> [@Mr.Excellent](#): > > Part of the problem - long bemoaned by anesthesiologists - is that there isn’t a huge margin between rendering someone unconscious (or even immobile) and killing him. A hammer? ---
**Author:** ![Find\_Friends](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c37758/32.png) [@Find\_Friends](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Find_Friends)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2013, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-before-society-develops-a-working-phaser/668577/49 "2013-09-16T01:51:40Z")
> [@El\_Kabong](#): > > Which reminds me, hope this isn’t too much of a hijack, but: > > In the original series, IIRC, if someone is hit by a full-power phaser discharge, they just sort of…evaporate. Would it not be more likely that the unfortunate victim would blow up like a bomb, as all the water in their body instantly flashed to steam? If you’ve ever seen accounts of boiler explosions, I wouldn’t give the person firing the phaser much of a chance of survival if they were standing within 50 feet or so of their target. > > I welcome correction if I’m getting this wrong. No correction necessary. In fact, \*The Making of Star Trek \*listed the fourth level of phaser effect as “convert matter to energy” without any apology. I’ve mentioned the obvious problem to some sf friends, and they didn’t seem to have any problem with it. They assumed that the matter simply ceases to exist. Conservation of mass, anyone? It always seemed to me that they were much too intellgent not to know about this. Maybe they figured it was fiction, so who cares? * * * I have considered two possibilities to explain away the obvious problems with a total conversion scenario. First: The phaser at that setting very efficiently converts almost everything to neutrinos! These “ghost particles” could pass through several light-years of lead without any interaction, on average. Second, based on a sister’s remark after she saw the hobo scene in _ **City on the Edge of Forever** _ – (She thought that he accidentally “beamed up” to the ship, although there wasn’t one in that era.) – The highest level works much like the transporter, except that there is no focus, and the target has its molecules scattered across a wide volume of space. That was the fate of the villain in _ **Wolf in the Fold** _, but with an actual transpoter gimmicked to dispersal. * * * Of course that raises the question of how the transporter works at all, since changing matter into energy would tend to destroy everything nearby, before the energy could be tranformed back into matter at the goal site. _Spock Must Die_, although often panned as not a good adaptation novel in many ways, shows Scotty explaining it away rather well. Scotty says that it is really a misconception about transporters. rather than convert matter to energy: \<\< It scans the object to be transported. And then it produces a ‘Dirac jump’ through hyper-space at the site (for each particle). \>\> (A paraphase from memory.) A “Dirac jump” is presumably the production of a particle-antiparticle pair, named after the Physicist Dirac. The explanation seemed incomplete to me. I assume that there is at first a virtual pair. The matter particle appears at the site. The antimatter particle is drawn back through hyperspace to annihilate the original particle. (Hence no replication.) It all actually exists on the virtual level so it is really just as if the original particle went through hyperspace. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-before-society-develops-a-working-phaser/668577.md?page=2)