How many mSv of radiation would a bolt of ionized plasma deliver?

AI Thread Summary
Ion weapons in Star Wars, designed to disable electronics, raise concerns about their potential harm to living beings if accidentally hit. The discussion highlights that while the lore claims these weapons do not affect organic material, the physics suggests otherwise, as any weapon capable of damaging technology would likely cause serious injury or death to humans. The conversation also touches on the nature of radiation, comparing ion weapons to lightning and discussing the effects of both ionizing and non-ionizing radiation. Despite the fictional context, the implications of radiation exposure, even from non-lethal sources, are acknowledged as significant. Ultimately, the debate emphasizes the need for plausible technobabble to reconcile science with storytelling in the Star Wars universe.
Razorback Gorilla
Messages
1
Reaction score
0
I'm a huge Star Wars fan and it just occurred to me, that the ion weapons used to disable droids, ships and other electronics would cause serious harm as well, to living beings, if they got accidentally hit by a bolt. Ionized radiation can give a person cancer, and the amount of microsieverts to do that is roughly between 1000-4000, with 4000 being fatal in a manner of days.

I'm trying to figure out how many microsieverts are packed into one ion bolt, but its hard because I don't have any numbers. The bolt is fairly small, but I don't know how many particles packed together is in equivalency to microsieverts.

The Star Wars Wikipedia is no help either as it just says it doesn't harm organic beings. While this may be true initially, could getting hit with one stray bolt give you cancer down the line?
 
Physics news on Phys.org
Realistically, any 'bolt' of sufficient strength to substantially damage a starship, fighter, or walker will almost certainly kill someone if they were hit by it. There's just no way that I am aware of for a projected energy type weapon to ignore organic material (and all that water its keeping in) while damaging technology. This is true of both ionizing and non-ionizing radiation, along with particle radiation.

But why let a little thing like that get in the way of a good story? If they say ion weapons don't harm organic beings, then just run with it.
 
Razorback Gorilla said:
Ionized radiation can give a person cancer, and the amount of microsieverts to do that is roughly between 1000-4000, with 4000 being fatal in a manner of days.
I think that should be milliSieverts in your sentence. 1000 microSiverts is 1 milliSivert, which is roughly the average annual effective dose from background radiation, and quite survivable in the long term.

In a Star Wars scenario, you're talking about accelerating charged particles to a sufficient energy that they would do dramatic physical damage on impact with a solid surface.

In radiation therapy, we will sometimes deliver ablative doses in a single fraction. That's enough radiation to kill all the cancer cells at once. Such doses are typically on the order of say 20-30 Gy. But by definition, 1 Gy = 1 J/kg. Simply to raise the temperature of a 250 ml cup of coffee by 1 degree, you need about 1000 J. So if we were to bump up the radiation dose by a couple orders of magnitude, deliver say 3000 Gy and completely sterilize any living cells, that's only enough energy to raise that cup of coffee's temperature by a few degrees. The porcelain holding the cup together would be just fine.

So if you're talking enough energy to instantaneously blow a hole in a droid, the air scatter alone is likely to be quite deadly.
 
Razorback Gorilla said:
it just occurred to me, that the ion weapons used to disable droids, ships and other electronics would cause serious harm as well, to living beings, if they got accidentally hit by a bolt.
Not necessarily. Make its technobabble based on tesla coils - those pose a limited health risk if properly done, but they will still fry most electronics anyway.

But make no mistake - it's all about cooking up quality technobabble.
 
Just to clarify, all plasma are ionized but not all plasma emit ionizing radiation.

Using a terrestrial example, lightning can produce ionizing radiation comparable to the dose you might recieve from ~100's of xrays, while a neon sign emits no ionizing radiation.

Lightning might be a good analog, so it's probably not great for you, but unlikely to give you a fatal dose? Minus the physical effects of being hit by a bolt of lightning itself.
 
Also I just wanted to add, non-ionizing radiation != harmless. The public limit for the averaged power density of say mmwave is like ##10 \frac{W}{m^2}## for 30m. Some area denial weapons the US use are based on mmwave and are probably not pleasant to be around. Below mmwave the allowable limits go higher until you basically don't have far field radiation anymore.

When we do research involving non-ionizing radiation it's generally good practice (and required) to ensure that the power density is safe for both the public and the people working on the system (whom have a higher limit).

I don't think there's really anyway to skin this cat where it's completely "harmless" without:

But make no mistake - it's all about cooking up quality technobabble.
 
QuarkyMeson said:
Also I just wanted to add, non-ionizing radiation != harmless.
Indeed. If this were the case then I wouldn't be able to reheat my chicken in the microwave.
 

Hot Threads

Recent Insights

Back
Top