Talk:Particle beam

Could a magnetic field disrupt a particle beam passing through it?

Is "Partical Cannon" a misspelling or the actual name from the game? --165.95.12.115 23:00, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

What am I missing?
This sentence doesn't make any sense. Is somebody trying to mess with my head? "This beam weapon is undoubtedly also very hard not to notice; particles travelling near the speed of light are not usually seen on a battlefield." Is this trying to say that these weapons probably don't exist yet, even in secret, or that they would be impractical for some reason I'm not understanding? -Toptomcat 13:36, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

-- Thoe whole paragraph is just waffle - read this again from the standpoint of an Encyclopedia:

Particle cannons are not likely to be used in a near future conflict as the power needed to project such a highly powered beam surpasses the production capabilities of any standard battlefield powerplant. This beam weapon is undoubtedly also very hard not to notice; particles travelling near the speed of light are not usually seen on a battlefield. It may be possible to use particle beams as part of the Strategic Defense Initiative (dubbed "Star Wars"), but the problem of a viable power source still stands, even more so in space. It may be possible in the future with possible fusion power, but this technology is not expected to be perfected and be in mass use for several decades. If perfected this could herald a new horizon in conventional weaponry, being easily as dangerous as any kinetic weapon, and effectively making any substance it comes into contact with an explosive.

then, if you agree that it's just someone's ramblings, please delete it!

Either they are being used already by the US in warfare or they are planning soon on using it. Particle beams are listed as Electronic Warfare weapons in the newly released publicly available FM3-36 Army EW Manual. I don't know how to put this in the discussion section and don't have a Wikipedia account. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.226.187.204 (talk) 20:40, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Charged Particles
Particle beams do not necessarily have to be made of charged particles, in fact, if all the particles have the same charge, it would be hard to make the beam cohesive, as the particles would repel each other and cause the beam to spread out.
 * That is correct. The problem is knowing how to accelerate particles to high speeds without using magnetic fields though. ScienceApe (talk) 22:39, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

"A particle beam is an accelerated stream of charged particles or neutrons (often moving at very near the speed of light) which may be directed by magnets and focused by electrostatic lenses, although they may also be self-focusing (see Pinch)."

Hmmm, so could someone please explain to me exactly, how the neutron beams are directed electromagnetically?

And another thing: "near the speed of light"; a phrase very popular with tabloid journalists and others of that ilk, but completely meaningless to those with any knowledge of Special Relativity.

All in all, a very poorly written article, or to put it another way, largely a load of bollocks! :) 68.228.208.191 (talk) 04:20, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Their is a book called "The joint 28th advanced beam dynamics & novel accelorators workshop" Titled Quantum aspects of beam physics edited by Pisin Chen & Kevin Reil. This book explains the physics behind particle beams and particle accelorators. The "PBW" or Particle beam weapons have been under development by the military since 1950's and have had numerous people to include Robert M. Roberds a retired Air Force colonel from 1975 to 1977 was the first technical manager of the Air Force Particle beam technology at weapons lab in Kirtland AFB in new mexico.The point is A PBW is not to far from the future as one might of thought.(User talk:Nroy187) 11:03 am 21 august 2009

News
Our wikinews states that: "The first particle beam is successfully steered around the Large Hadron Collider accelerator ring at CERN near Geneva, Switzerland.". Shouldn't that be mentioned in the article? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 05:06, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Fiction section
Is it just me, or does having about half the page devoted to particle beam weapons in video games tend to cheapen the entire entry? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.166.80.82 (talk) 18:37, 10 February 2010 (UTC)


 * (Note that I moved this other person's comment to the bottom of the page, and gave it its own section, as it is customary to keep each conversation in a separate section, and to add sections in chronological order in which they were initiated.)


 * I agree with you that this appears to be one of the less attractive tendencies of Wikipedia. A similar thing happened long ago in the article Positron.  It had a lengthy list of comic books, TV shows, and movies that mentioned the word "positron" however tangentially.  You will see that now there is simply a link at the bottom of that article to Positronic brain.  All the fictional stuff branches out from there.  Asimov devotees and Brent Spiner fans still have a home, but it is now located in a more appropriate article.  Let's wait a while to see if anyone else chimes in with their opinion about what to do with this stuff before we crank up the bulldozer!  :)  CosineKitty (talk) 19:41, 10 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Fair warning: my aforementioned bulldozer is getting restless. In fact, my current opinion is to delete the entire list of fictional particle beams.  If somebody else wants to move these to a dedicated article, that would be fine with me, but I won't help defend it from deletionists unless there are some reliable source citations in each case to support notability.  I will wait a few more days to see what happens.  Otherwise, I will assume nobody else wants these here either.  CosineKitty (talk) 19:03, 13 February 2010 (UTC)


 * After 11 days, nobody objected, so I removed the listcruft. CosineKitty (talk) 19:00, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Comments on Military section
User Hawkpro1go (talk) edited the main article, adding the following text to the subsection Military, which i moved here into the discussion page:


 * Did you realize that what was said is a contradiction in itself? Saying the power needed to project a high-powered beam of this kind surpasses the production capabilities of any standard battlefield powerplant, and then going to say that a Government plan uses the described beam is completely outrageous to be put for public knowledge.

Let me just add that i basically agree on the statement being misleading, beside the fact that this text part describes hypothetical usage (if weapons like this could be built, then...). Since the Military (or as weapons) section until recently made up a large part of this article (and was already there before recent edits), i was reluctant to remove parts of it. Based on the comment, i will proceed being bold, removing the contradictory statements from the Military subsection, thus shrinking it to an appropiate size in comparison with the other usages (which are much more common and less speculative). BR84 (talk) 13:26, 30 December 2011 (UTC)