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TeMPOraL01/21/20252 repliesview on HN

> not reliable (only works with low humidly)

That's merely an engineering issue. Keep spraying it with water or something. You do it right, and you might even get the familiar buzzing and shimmering of Star Trek force fields!

> prone to breakdowns

Ah yes, that's very much like Star Trek force fields.

> and might randomly kill people

That might be an issue for Starfleet. A real-world military today will definitely see this as a feature.

Ultimately, you're not wrong, but I would hope some military or other entity with deep budget would try building it anyway, simply because science isn't about "why?", it's about "why not?". I would also imagine, should this design work and became widely-known, some hacker would build and operate it just because.


Replies

andrewflnr01/22/2025

> A real-world military today will definitely see this as a feature.

Real world militaries are still pretty picky about who they kill. In particular they don't like killing their own soldiers, who are most likely to be in the discharge path for a shield around their own stuff.

bluGill01/21/2025

water would be high humidity not low.

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