Scientists have been doing the thing with the beakers and bad 80’s music yet again and have discovered a way to extinguish fires with electricity. Yep they have somehow taken the thing that causes a shit load of fires and made it work against itself like a sex slave on Tatooine. The thing is such a super complex device that I’m not even going to attempt to explain how it works to you(because I don’t know). But picture the Ghostbuster proton packs putting out flames and you basically got it.
The researchers’ setup involves connecting a 600-watt amplifier to a kind of wand that directs the electrical current into a beam. The researchers then created an open flame about a foot high. From a distance, the wand was able to snuff out the flame entirely over and over again.
The process by which it does this is complex, the researchers say, and is actually not really well understood (there are a lot of different things happening at once, apparently). But critically, it seems the carbon particles (soot) generated during combustion are easily charged, and once charged they respond to electric fields in strange ways that affect the stability of the flame. Shake that stability hard enough, and the flame collapses.
Six-hundred watts is roughly what it takes to power a high-end car stereo, but the researchers think they could achieve similar effects with one-tenth the wattage. That means such a wave blaster could be pared down into a handheld unit or one carried on the back.
Yep proton packs. Seems neat, but I’m curious what happens to people who get in the way? Do they melt like the people in Raiders of the Lost Ark? Possibly, but the definitely stay off my f**ckin lawn.
[PopSci]
Black Sheep Codex 