14 DAY TRIAL // Just days ago, American multinational corporation Boeing patented a Star Wars-like force field and, well, rocked our little world. The force field, generated by firing lasers into the air, promises to keep military vehicles, aircraft and vessels safe from shockwaves.
Even cooler, Boeing imagines it being used to protect buildings, maybe even entire cities. True, it will be a while before force fields like the one described by Boeing become mainstream, but at least now we know for sure that the day sci-fi technology is made real will eventually be upon us.
How Boeing's force field works
In its patent for this emerging technology, the American multinational corporation does not call its laser-induced force field a force field. Instead, it refers to it as a method and a system for attenuating shockwaves by means of generating an electromagnetic arc.
It all sounds really fancy but it really isn't all that complicated or out of this world. As explained in the video below, what Boeing has in mind is a system able to detect an explosion by zooming in on the light produced by it and that fires lasers in response to the blasts it records.
The lasers heat a section of the air surrounding the vehicle, the aircraft or the vessel they are supposed to protect and, in doing so, birth plasma. It is this plasma created by firing lasers into the air that Boeing says can act as a force field and keep shockwaves at bay.
More precisely, Boeing explains that, having a temperature and a density different to that of its surrounding environment, the plasma can both block and absorb shockwaves. Simply put: the force field takes the hit and the vehicle, ship or aircraft behind it stays safe.
“The second medium [the lasers-created plasma] may attenuate the Shockwave by one or more of reflection, refraction, dispersion, absorption and momentum transfer,” the multinational corporation writes in a report describing its force field concept.
“The method and system may include a sensor for detecting a shockwave-producing event, determining a direction and distance of the shockwave relative to a defended target and calculating a firing plan, and an arc generator for creating the second medium,” it adds.
Not exactly a foolproof force field
Boeing's laser-made force field might be able to protect military vehicles, vessels or aircraft against the shockwaves produced by explosions on the battlefield, but unlike in sci-fi movies, it would have no effect whatsoever on debris like shrapnel.
What this means is that, although fitted with Boeing's Star Wars-like protective system, the cars, planes and ships of the future will still have to be armored to make sure the people inside them are kept safe from the flying debris resulting from bomb blasts.
