(Blarg D Impaler @ Jul. 25 2007,19:49)
QUOTE
I think that the Lasguns would make a crack when they fire. When I was in college I went to the office of my physics professor. Across the hall I heard an intermittent popping sound, which I went to investigate. In the room was an upperclassman setting up a continuously firing laser for some sort of experiment. I asked him what the popping sound was and he responded that it was molecules of Oxygen (made up of 2 oxygen atoms) staying in the beam long enough that they were being heated up and forced to disassociate. Considering the lack of safety protocals being used the laser had to be a rather low-powered one.
If you have a wide enough beam, which it would have to be unless you want to inflict needle-prick wounds in your targets, you are going to catch more diatomic molecules to be split up. That, and if you actually want to heat/melt/burn your targets enough to actually damage them then you have to have a very powerful beam. So, if you have a rather wide beam that is very powerful then you are more than likely going to disassociate a lot of diatomic molecules into their component atoms. What would a lot of "pop" sounds happening at the same time sound like? Probably a "crack" sound.
This is a new one - our beastie boasts 9kW power, and if your hand strays in the lone of fire then THAT would go pop 
. But no molecules ever popped apart, and I storngly doubt the splitting of a molecule would make a sound.
Curious.
?I'm not so bothered by the background, as all the confusion about it. On this particular subject it seems to me as if every new piece of info contradicts each of all the previous contradictions. I don't want complete consistency, just a little bit. Anything.
