Freeze Ray in Science Fictions and Real Life

Science fictions always inspires scientists to create new technology. Futuristic weapons is one of the creations of science fictions. Setting the physics aside, science fictions can create all kinds of destructive weapons, from a light saber that could cut through everything to a tiny missile that can destroy a planet. In Ender’s Game, Ender and the other students in battle school use a freeze gun as a weapon to fight in simulated battles. The freeze gun can shoot and immediately freezes the target. Scientists have been trying to do the same thing and create a laser that can immediately decrease the temperature of the objects, and they have successfully created Optical Refrigeration(3). While science fictions treat freeze ray as a weapon that could potentially destroy the world, scientists had found other ways to make use of such technology to creating a better world.

History of Cryogenics and Freeze Ray technology

Cryogenics is the study of matter in extremely low temperature, approaching absolute zero. The technology started since 1877, when human are able to cool oxygen to its liquid form. Other related application of cryonic technology includes superconductors, cryosurgery, rocket fuel and freeze ray. In 1977, a group of scientist won the Nobel Prize in Physics for their development of methods to cool and trap atoms with laser light, which is the idea of freeze ray. And in 2001, a similar research that focuses on condensing dilute gases of alkali atoms also won the Nobel Prize in Physics. Science fictions had clearly inspire scientists in inventing the freeze ray, and it proves that science fictions’ technologies does not only work in the imagination world, but also the real world. Moreover, the technologies is not just some tiny inventions that would make your life a little bit easier, but they are some important inventions that would change the world.

Freeze Ray in Science Fictions

In science fictions, freeze ray is the weapon that could restricts people’s mobility and constrains all their actions. Instead of killing someone immediately, freeze ray hold them still, then it just come down to the race between death and the melting of the ice. Freeze ray might not be one of the lethal weapon that would kill you immediately like other weapons in science fictions, but it is definitely one of the most despicable weapon.

There are a lot of science fictions that use freeze ray as a weapon. The scariest of all has to be the one in Batman, where one of the villain, Mr. Freeze, tried to freeze the world. Mr. Freeze is a scientist, after an accident in his experiment, he uses cryonic technology to create a suit and a freeze gun, which uses diamonds as power and freezes any target.

In Ender’s Game, the freeze gun can shoot out a laser and freezes the suit. If you shoot your feet, you could not move your feet, and if you are shot in the body, you could not move and are out of the game. Although the freeze ray is for attacking, Ender is able to use this mechanism, turn it into his advantage. By shooting himself, he can get himself into certain position or forming a formation, and result in winning the battles. In most science fictions, freeze ray is a weapon that freezes people, a destructive technology. However, scientists in real life are like Ender, they are able to take the same concept and create things that would help the world.

Freeze ray in real life

Science fictions inspire scientists to create the freeze ray. Lasers usually transmit heat to the object, but scientists had found some cases it can absorb energy in an object and decrease its temperature(2). A carefully tuned laser can chill an object by dampening its molecular vibrations, causing the object to shed energy as fluorescent light. The laser works the same as the freeze ray in science fictions, which makes an object to quickly decrease in temperature. Scientists call this technology Optical Refrigeration, they did not transform the technology into a weapon but incorporate it to create other technology. Optical refrigeration can help in the advance of many other technologies. A simple application would be allowing computer makers a simple way to cool their machines' hardware, making possible faster and more powerful circuitry for computing and communicating(4). Another group of scientists is able to use the optical refrigeration technology to create an all-solid-state cryocooler that can be applied to airborne and spaceborne sensors(1). The freeze ray can create the absent of vibration helping airborne or spaceborne sensor to create better imaging of different places or even other planets. All of these applications of Optical Refrigeration help directly in communication and even in space travel technologies. Freeze ray may be a destructive weapon in science fictions, but in real life, it is definitely a constructive element in the advance of technology.

Conclusion

From comparing freeze ray in science fictions and in real life, it shows that although science fictions uses freeze ray as a harmful weapon, scientists in real life invent it to improve efficiency and help in other science decipline. With this analysis, it also tells that science fictions do create the idea for people to expand upon, but at the end, it is always up to us on how to make good use of the new technology.

Reference

1.OPTICAL REFRIGERATION EXPECTED TO ENHANCE AIRBORNE, SPACEBORNE APPLICATIONS. (2010, Jan 28). US Fed News Service, Including US State News
2.Lipkin, R. (1995, Oct 14). Optical refrigeration proves really cool. Science News, 148, 246.
3.Sheik-bahae, M., & Epstein, R. I. (2007). Optical refrigeration. Nature Photonics, 1(12), 693-699.
4.Laser refrigeration. (1996). The Futurist, 30(3), 6.