Plasma Window

[Solfe]

I was reading the Wikipedia entry for Plasma Window which is quiet cool. Or not since it is plasma.

I was wondering what would happen if a person interfered with one?

I see the real world applications are not in human friendly environments; near a laser or radar system or inside a particle collider. I also note the temperature is 15,000 K and the power needed to operate is Kilowatts per inch. Would this device make a loud crackle and emit a lot of heat?

I am assuming that you could be burned or shocked by poking at it. Is that correct?

Solfe

(I hesitate at every posting - if I am in the wrong area, please move this to correct area. Thank you )

[Gigabyte]

I was reading the Wikipedia entry for Plasma Window which is quiet cool.

Did you mean "quite cool"?

Which it certainly is.

[Solfe]

Spell checkers are a curse and a blessing.

[Gigabyte]

If you spell like I do, they are a blessing.

[neilzero]

You can easily get burned from the plasma, but not shocked as the a typical plasma has about equal positive and negative ions, very small scale. The electric power to maintain the 15,000 degrees heat, could be low voltage, but likely is high enough voltage to be dangerous. My guess is the plasma makes little audible (lots of supersonic sound perhaps) sound, but an electric arc is noisy, but there are other ways to heat the plasma such as microwaves.
Logically we try to reduce the heat loss, by using mirrors to reflect the light back into the plasma and thermal insulation, but likely the air conditioning works hard to keep the room at tolerable temperatures for the people and auxiliary equipment.
Lesser plasmas (such as plasma TV screens) are much cooler than 15,000 k Neil

[ravens_cry]

Plasma windows, private space flight, and phasers.
Oh, the Future is on, baby!

[DrWho]

Plasma windows, private space flight, and phasers.

The 'phaser' looks interesting, but is a coherent beam of UV energy that safe? I sure wouldn't want to be looking straight into it!

[ravens_cry]

The 'phaser' looks interesting, but is a coherent beam of UV energy that safe? I sure wouldn't want to be looking straight into it!

I wouldn't want to be hit in the eye with a taser, but if used properly they are more safe then other options, like a gun. Hopefully a laser sight will be included so they can know where they are aiming at.

[DrWho]

Hopefully a laser sight will be included so they can know where they are aiming at.

Great - now you can get lasered at the same time as being fried by UV! But seriously, while the so called 'non-lethal' weapons are better than using real weapons, they're really not non-lethal at all. How many deaths have resulted from use and over use of Tasers? They become a crutch and so tend to get used in situations where alternative interventions could have been used instead. At least with Tasers, you have to be in close proximity to the intended target before you can discharge the weapon and so have more targeting control.

But with something like the above phaser which works from up to 100 meters away, the temptation would be to use it for crowd control where aim accuracy is moot due to all the chaos and movement that usually goes on in such situations.

[mugaliens]

If you spell like I do, they are a blessing.

Yeah, but you laugh like a killer whale, which is...

I'll walk away quietly, now. Nevermind! Nothing to see here...

Seriously, spell checkers are very nice for professional communications. I'm very thankful they exist!

While posting on message forums, however, I do try to ensure my posts contain proper spellling and grammar. Obviously, I'm not 100%.

Still, I try.