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Hand held phasers are shown several times being used to heat things up or melt them. This implies heat which would adventually cause vaporisation. Maybe thats just an off shot of what it really does but it does transmit heat.

Hand held phasers are shown several times being used to heat things up or melt them. This implies heat which would adventually cause vaporisation. Maybe thats just an off shot of what it really does but it does transmit heat.

Any type of energy weapon would produce heat. The ability to heat rocks does not mean the effect in question is vapourisation. As I said earlier, the fact that there is none of the effects associated with vapourisation means it can't be.

The neutrino idea could work, perhaps vapourisation referring to matter being changed into neutrinos

Then do you agree that it is not vapourisation?

I agree that a Phaser primarily does not vaporise stuff but stuff does get vaporised by it as a side effect.

I was under the impression that Phasers shifted matter outside of our dimensions as its primary function.

I neither agree nor disagree. I am merely putting forth theories that may or may not work, that can be adapted, accepted, or disposed of as necessary.

However, clearly in the sense that the solid/liquid is not be changed to gas, I do agree. The actual term and meaning of the word "varpourisation" may have changed in the Trek universe to incorporate other things.

Teaos wrote:I agree that a Phaser primarily does not vaporise stuff but stuff does get vaporised by it as a side effect.

Then where is the vapour? The overpressure? The scalding of every one in the room?
These things are inevitable when you vapourise something as big as a human.

I was under the impression that Phasers shifted matter outside of our dimensions as its primary function.

That would explain where all the mass goes.

Thorin wrote:The actual term and meaning of the word "varpourisation" may have changed in the Trek universe to incorporate other things.

How could you change the term 'vapourise' to mean something completely different? The definition of 'vapourisation' is turning something into vapour, how could it mean something else?

Personally I treat it as a sort of slang word. E.g, we have assault 'rifles' yet they aren't rifles.

I'm saying most of the matter gets phased out but a small bit like 2-3% gets vaporised. Not really enough to cause any problems for anyone.

It would be like a side effect of using phasers.

Possible. We have seen that phasers naturally heat things up, its possible some of the target mass gets vapourised before getting 'phaserised'.

Which just leaves us with the question of 'where does the rest go'?

I meant that the word wasn't utterly changed, merely added more things in, even as you said, like a slag word.

Regarding where the mass could go, neutrinos seem like a nice idea.

I meant that the word wasn't utterly changed, merely added more things in, even as you said, like a slag word.

Very well, I misunderstood what you meant.

Regarding where the mass could go, neutrinos seem like a nice idea.

I'll take your word on that, my physics knowledge isn't great.

Well neutrinos are still a bugger for all the scientific community. They can't be tracked, and it takes, I believe, 100 trillion kilometres of lead to stop only 50% of the neutrinos. They have no charge or ionisation, so it is very difficult to see where they've been. They have a tiny mass, but it is above 0, so with enough of them they could make up the mass of whatever was "vapourised".

And I just realised I said slag instead of slang

The advantage of neutrinos to explain magic disappearing acts is that they have mass, but no charge. This means they can carry away energy, but only interact very weakly with the matter they pass through, with a mean free path of something like several light-years through lead IIRC - my knowledge of science is pretty broad, but strictly layman's).

So, its pretty much a wild card what the effects would be for a room in which someone was turned into neutrinos?

If someone was turned into neutrinos they would simply disappear.

Which fits perfectly with what we see on the show. Sounds like a good enough explaination to me.

Doesn't really make sense to me. As far as I am informed (and I could very well be wrong!) neutrinos are elementary - yet a person's makeup is of atoms which are NOT elementary. Even if we posit that a phaser can overcome the strong and weak forces between the quarks of a persons atoms; how do you turn those quarks, which have charge, color, and spin, into a neutrino, which has no charge, color, or spin, and which is NOT composed of quarks by definition?

Besides, neutrinos have a VERY smal mass, and must therefore have relatively high energy to be converted from any given mass. I have never seen demonstrated a phaser with enough energy to overcome the strong and weak forces within a humanoid's entire count of atoms, PLUS enough to overcome the electromagnetic force between all those atoms, PLUS enough to convert all that matter to enough energy to justify neutrino conversion. A quantum a/o dimensional shift by changing the spin of a body's component quarks seems to make (somewhat) more sense.