Power Weapons effect on the local atmosphere

[Nerdynick]

I was thinking of this in the middle of the night, but power weapons disintegrate matter that comes into contact with the power field right? Now, if you swing a power sword around, wouldn't it destroy the air it came into contact with as well? Meaning that it would leave behind a vacuum, so it would actually suck things towards the blade.

Sorry, this has been bugging me for a while.

Cheers!

[joebloggs1987]

The surrounding air would fill the vaccuum, and have no aparent affect on a person. The air has a lot less mass.

[omegoku]

It would only cause a minor disturbance, so some dust might get dragged into the path of the blade, but its not gonna drag an orK of its feet or anything.

A barely noticeable effect that would cause the blade to possibly spark a little and hum

[The_Giant_Mantis]

Matter is very rarely destroyed, physically speaking.. I think destroyed in this case means disintegrated. It doesn't erase the molecules it hits, it just scatters and 'disrupts' them on the molecular level so the overall structure is ruined. Disintegrating something turns it into dust (sometimes microscopic dust, but dust regardless), it doesn't just poof it out of reality altogether.

Air is already quite disperse and regardless, 'disrupting' it would have no real effect. I can see power weapons steaming a bit in rain or mist for dramatic effect, but not constantly leaving a vacuum in their wake (more than any sword does when you swing it.)

[ChadMS]

Blimey, this thread has turned into a physics convention! I reckon the power sword would only break up molecules into their individual atoms, rather than destoying them entirely. Or it might even cause a reaction. Maybe ozone would be formed?

[darkben]

i thought that power weapons had an energy field that cleaved apart solds eg armour and orks

[The_Giant_Mantis]

i thought that power weapons had an energy field that cleaved apart solds eg armour and orks

It's not a force field in the traditional science fiction sense which just pushes outwards, it's a disruptive field which does something subatomic to things it hits, which is why a blunt object works just as well as a power weapon as a sharp one (GW isn't very specific though). Monomolecular cutting swords appear in Necromunda and other games, and they seem to work a bit more like you suggest, but power swords are considerably more horrible.

Think about it though.. If the power sword was destroying matter then it would be producing energy.. A lot of energy.. It wouldn't just be glowing a bit, it would be exploding, blowing up its user, and probably everything in a several mile radius around him as well..

[Intrepid]

If the power sword was destroying matter then it would be producing energy.. A lot of energy..
More specifically, it would be converting the matter into energy, which is what nuclear weapons do instead of using traditional explosives. Even on a small scale, such behavior would put out so much hard radiation that any exposure would be fatal.

Power weapons probably work by using a shaped 'force field' to put massive amounts of pressure on an impossibly thin surface area--the same principle as sharpening the physical blade, only with a high-tech power source. Such a blade would have minimal effect on gases, especially if it powered down slightly when not in contact with a hard surface. For dramatic effect, however, it's possible that the energy field would ionize the air around it. That would convert the oxygen into ozone, which smells roughly like the air immediately after a good storm.

[LordTrebor]

Great... now even the nerds have gone green.:sinister: JK

Since "Matter can neither be created nor destroyed." is a basic law of physics I doubt anything that drastic is happening.

Now in a universe where daemons inhabit an alternate dimmension... well I guess anything is possible.

[Nerdynick]

Many seem to have taken my liberal use adjectives wrongly. Having actual matter destroying fields is a rediculous amount of energy. I did mean just breaking bonds between atoms. And I also didn't mean a vacuum strong enough to pull large objects towards the blade, I meant more of a table lamp or decapitated heads.

[rafis117]

The way that I always understood power weapons was that they put out so much energy that they broke up massive proteins/cells/molecules/etc into their component parts just by applying so much energy to a given area. It works. We (year 2009) don't have that technology, but it would make sense that in the intervening 38,000 years someone had said "what if...".

That is what the "energy field" is; matter disruption on the macro, visible level. The sword has so much energy that nearby molecules are shattered and blasted nearly into oblivion.

Dramatic and over-compensating? Durr; it's 40k. Realistic? Probably, if you throw enough energy into a certain space you could get a similar effect. Atmospheric disturbances? Probably not. There is the same amount of matter in a given spot, and a gratuitous amount of energy (thus more reactions) so it would make sense that over the period of a couple of seconds the effect would be canceled for the atmosphere, or any fluid that this is tried on. No silly swamp-shorts-out-energy-weapon physics going on here, thank you.

Solids on the other hand...


In summary; power swords are a green technology (in terms of the environment). They are an anti-green technology in terms of gameplay.

[CaptainSarathai]

I've always believed that Powerweapons had an energy field around them that was quickly discharged when the weapon struck something. Thus for a sword, it would disperse the energy along the blade, focusing all of that force onto a small edge. For power-hammers and the likes, it would disperse the force across the whole of the flat surface, which just makes it that much better at turning your head into jelly.
Ditto for Powerfists and Thunderhammers. Friends and I have speculated that the "recoil" from clapping two powerfists together would simply rip your arms off.
I'm pretty sure that there are GW stories and BL material that talks about powerswords burning off any material that gets onto them, like blood and flesh.

I imagine that they would smell like ozone, they would be very hot but not lethally so, and they would crackle and spark.

As to monomolecular weapons: Necromunda isn't the only one that has them. The Chainsword is said to have monomolecular blades in the last SM codex.

We also have to remember that 40k is speculative science fiction. Therefore, while they do try to keep the technology feeling very real and very plausible, there are still some things which make perfect sense except for one little tiny thing. Sort of like "yeah, that would work, if e=mc^3"