On Wed, 23 Jul 1997, RPM - acct 3/5 wrote:

On Wed, 23 Jul 1997, Joshua Stratton wrote:

now what i'd really like to know is what happens when mr. freeze tries to
shoot someone in a very dry environment. i mean, he must be getting the
water for the ice from SOMEWHERE. maybe he has his henchmen haul along a
fire truck or something (this is one of my complaints about iceman too...)

about Mr. Freeze's ice laser....

I'm going with a concept that Ed Bercerra pointed me out to.
To be more specific, here's an article that talks about it.

'In the interference zone (of intersecting Tesla waves) energy can be
released like a pulse or a high temperature explosion.  Alternatively,
energy can be withdrawn from the interference zone, producing a cold
explosion. Precision is needed for the locating of the interference
zone. Good accuracy can be achived through narrow beams and a
substantial input of energy resulting in high energy density in the
interference zone.'  -Dr. Possony. 'warrior: there will be war'

Maybe the old model of Freeze's gun relied on liquids a bit much, but the
one he'll use with 2034 technology will definitely be more efficient and
have no need for those tubes that hook up to the tanks on his back (heck,
he won't need the tank). 

well, it's only a story. i'll see if i can dig up anything on this.
 

Also something to consider is this, and I'm no physicist so I can't
say how much of a factor this'll be, but an object dropping its
temperature from about 20-30 degrees celsius to -20 or worse is
sure to be stressfull on the material.

certainly a 40-50 C drop is going to be stressful on a given substance,
but brittleness is not as much of the problem as expansion/contraction
coefficients are in this scenario, i suspect. then again, all we really
know is that the freeze gun doesn't go as low as the liquefacation point
of air (around -180C IIRC) and that it's obviously below OC, or he'd be
called Mr. Brisk. since batman (i don't recall if BTAS Freeze had
henchskimos or not ;) was able to walk around normally I wouldn't even go
as low as -20C. then again, you might be right, considering that he walked
around in tights in the himalayas in one of the episodes- bats has an
amazing constitution.

still, it's all stress. it's been a long time, but i can mess around with
some generic materials and see what i can find on this subject. no, i'm
not a physicist either, but i almost was. more importantly though, one of
my good friends is a materials engineer and THATS what you want.

admittedly, ceramics do suffer from thermal shock problems, but I suspect
this is one of the things that'll be fixed in the future (remember that
ceramics don't deform under stress, but shatter. the problem is either to
make them more metal-like, or to make them really really tough.). ceramics
do have wierd behaviors though; for instance, to make them you have to
heat them up which initially causes contraction (part of the sintering
process, i think... ceramics really aren't my thing.)

maybe then, you'd want to place this story between Double Vision and Scoop
Chase to explain (as if it needed more explanation) the redesigned
hardsuits.


i'll see what my ME friend has to say on the subject, next time i see him.

-cpt kangarooski
-st942593@pip.cc.brandeis.edu
-<*>