this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2024
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Science Memes

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1138
I can whistle at the speed of sound (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 250 points 4 months ago (6 children)

It'd be impressive if they fire it at like half the speed of light

[–] [email protected] 75 points 4 months ago (2 children)

I mean, any other non-c speed really.

[–] Glowstick 102 points 4 months ago (3 children)

Actually, c is the speed of light in a vacuum, but light travels slower through a medium, like air. So lasers shot through air will actually travel slower than c.

[–] Bassman1805 56 points 4 months ago (2 children)

(For anyone curious, the speed of light in earth air is like 99.97% as fast as in vacuum)

[–] jaybone 22 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Bunch of nerds in this thread.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 4 months ago (1 children)

You're in science_memes what did you expected?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

hot science girls

[–] Eheran 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Where?

[–] ODuffer 4 points 4 months ago

In your area

[–] ASeriesOfPoorChoices 6 points 4 months ago

exactly where they should be.

[–] LilDumpy 5 points 4 months ago

Ya, but that's JUST slow enough to be able to see it.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Maybe it's going to be space lasers.

[–] 5oap10116 34 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Do you know what the religious affiliation of these space lasers will be?

[–] dohpaz42 21 points 4 months ago (1 children)

You have a lot of chutzpah to ask such a question. Oy! What would your mother say?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago

“You’re so skinny why are you not eating”

[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Flying Spaghetti Monster

[–] 5oap10116 9 points 4 months ago

rAmen

[–] marcos 7 points 4 months ago (1 children)

A laser strong enough to be used as a weapon will probably not leave a lot of medium on its path.

But the front-most part will still travel at less than c. It will just speed-up after a while.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I'm curious. What happens to the medium? Does it simply get pushed aside? Or pushed along? Or will it eat up some energy and react to something else?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago

Much like lightning, a powerful enough laser will ionize the air. That ionized air is hot and rises, just like the ionized gasses from combustion.

A powerful laser will look like a beam of fire.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I would be especially interested in speeds larger than c 🙂

[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

[–] [email protected] 18 points 4 months ago

Imagine if they made it fire so slow that you could just do a dark souls dodge roll to avoid it

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Would you accept 10,000 times slower than the speed of light?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Still too fast to dodge.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

Pffft. Amateur.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

just shine a laser through a thing of zircon (n=index of refraction=1.923~2)

so speed of the laser in the zircon = c/n ~c/2

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago

Then we could finally have Star Wars laser guns.