Hobbyist Builds Working Replica of Iron Man's Laser Gauntlet 78
Zothecula writes "Given that most real-life superheroes don't have the budget of Tony Stark or Bruce Wayne, you would assume that their gadgetry wouldn't be quite on par with what we're used to seeing in the movies. German cyber weapons hobbyist Patrick Priebe, however, has built his own working laser gauntlet... just like the one made famous by a certain Iron Man."
but.... iron man doesnt shoot lasers.... (Score:5, Informative)
Iron man's suit makes use of the absurdly abundant energy produced by his arclight generator to produce high density plasma. His gauntlets are actually high density plasma thrustors. He uses them to fly with. Lasers just don't have that kind of specific impulse. Think more "plasma based jet port", and you are on the right track.
Sadly, you will discover that containing high density plasma isn't a walk in the park, and would make your containment system quite magnetically attractive to just about anything ferromagnetic. That's because to contain the plasma, you would need a bitchin strong magnetic field. Like what's inside an MRI machine.
It HAS to be high density plasma, because low density plasma thrustors don't have enough thrust either. (Work fine in outer space. Not so hot on the earth's surface.)