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