Warfare at the Speed of Light

unassimilatible writes "From the They Said It Couldn't Be Done Dept., the Oakland Tribune reports that the Lawrence Livermore Labratory is ensuring that the Pentagon, inside of a decade, could be armed with a beam weapon that is near-instantaneous, gravity-free and truly surgical, focusing to such hair-splitting accuracy that it could avoid civilians while predetonating munitions miles away - perhaps someday even being mounted on Humvees."

Comments

Re:Quantum Leap

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Would a gravity-free weapon (even with light) defy General Relativity?

Gravity is the curving of space-time and light travels through space-time - curved or not.

If space-time is curved, then light travels a curved path.

The entire near-instantaneous, gravity-free line is fluff. You can't send a beam faster than light and as long as the beam has momentum (which light does) then it will feel the effects of gravity..

Will the enemy start using mirrors?

It depends on the frequency. Regular mirrors work for visible light. Doing optics at other frequencies can be very tricky.

For instance, your see through microwave door is opaque to the microwaves.