Darn... maybe I was thinking MW hour. Assuming 1 shot/hour at 1 sec duration. That should give u the gigajoules =). Shot once and recharge for a hour. If not, look like science didn't advance that much in a 1000 years...in the LoGH universe. Or that beam isn't good for heating frozen dinners. --- Walter Amoswrote: > On Thu, 12 Oct 2000, Josh Yuan wrote: > > > 120 MW = a few hundred gigajoules of energy.(300~ > ?, > > physics major with the W->J conversion?) So even > if > > the beam lost 95% of its energy at max range, that > is > > still a few gigajoules of energy. I am assuming a > 1 > > sec firing period. > > Remember: POWER = ENERGY / unit time! Thus your > above conversion W->J > isn't quite correct, since Watts are a unit of > Power, and Joules are a > unit of energy. In fact, by definition, 1 Watt = 1 > Joule/second! > > (...oh, I overlooked that you said a 1-second firing > period... > anyway... your joules estimate is incorrect) > > 120MW = 120 MegaWatts = 1.2x10^8 Watts = 120 million > Joule/second, > = 0.12 gigaJoule/sec > > Your handy-dandy Energy and Power units conversion > chart: > > 1 Joule = 10^7 erg = 0.239 calorie = 0.738 ft.lbs = > 2.78x10^-7 kW.hours > > 1 electron-Volt (eV) = 1.6x10^-19 Joule = 1.6x10^-12 > erg > > 1 horsepower = 746 Watts = 550 ft.lb/sec > > And, for those wanting to calculate nuclear yields, > here is the energy > equivalence of mass according to E=mc^2: > > 1 kg = 8.897x10^16 Joule > > ...so if I could find the amount of energy released > per ton of TNT > explosion, I could work out the number of Megatons > per unit mass of > total matter conversion (so you could say an X > pounds antimatter bomb > would yield Y Megatons of energy)... > > ============================================================================== > "Zu jeder Zeit, an jeder (sic) Ort, bleibt das Tun > | Walter Amos > der Menschen das gleiche..." - Galactic Heroes II > | amos(at)sedl.org > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get Yahoo! Mail - Free email you can access from anywhere! http://mail.yahoo.com/