I will not argue with an actual physicist. I will ask a few questions, though:
(1) It's passing through hard vacuum. Can there be enough material there to ionize that you'd be able to see it? (Same argument seems to apply to Compton scattering.)
(2) Isn't Cerenkov radiation blue?
(And yes, I know, if it _were_ a laser we wouldn't be able to see the beam from the side in a vacuum in the first place.)
You know, (1) makes me think...let's suppose that you _wanted_ to create a visual effect like that of the Death Star Laser in hard vacuum. How could it be done?
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2008-03-04 05:17 pm (UTC)(1) It's passing through hard vacuum. Can there be enough material there to ionize that you'd be able to see it? (Same argument seems to apply to Compton scattering.)
(2) Isn't Cerenkov radiation blue?
(And yes, I know, if it _were_ a laser we wouldn't be able to see the beam from the side in a vacuum in the first place.)
You know, (1) makes me think...let's suppose that you _wanted_ to create a visual effect like that of the Death Star Laser in hard vacuum. How could it be done?