Science Fiction Flashlights

Any infrared viewer still needs an illuminator; it would be nice to have corneas with “light intensification”, then the light of the moon, of the sun stars, without illuminator is enough.

Personally I would go with echolocation.

google :

The tapetum lucidum is a biologic reflector system that is a common feature in the eyes of vertebrates. It normally functions to provide the light-sensitive retinal cells with a second opportunity for photon-photoreceptor stimulation, thereby enhancing visual sensitivity at low light levels…

The tapetum lucidum is a reflective surface that causes the eyes of animals to look like they are glowing in the dark. Many species of nocturnal animals have this layer in their eyes.

I’d like to have the flashlight laser from Larry Niven’s Ringworld books. Can be used as a variable intensity wide beam flashlight or focused down to needle diameter to burn through rock, metal, etc

They didn’t mention the power supply but I think it s a tiny deuterium fusion reactor

The variable sword is wicked too. Looks like a jump rope handle and pressing the button causes it to spoil out invisibly thin wire that passes through a “stasis field” to make it indestructible

Like those 9000000000000lm zoomies…

Monomolecular lash (“m-lash”)?

I like SCI-FI :smiley: A liquid nitrogen cooled double walled light where the tail switch carries the motor and threw magnetic power circulates the fluid using a propeller, like in fish tank filters, It would have a combination of LED’s from the four centered SBT90.2’s behind a 60mm TIR lens. The outer part of the TIR lens would be a combination of other emitters functioning in a triangle pattern so you could have 5 sets of three emitters like, three UV, three 3000K three 5000K three Green and Three red. All running separately in there own groups for different needs so the emitter choices could be endless. It would be powered by two Tesla 54980 cells, can’t wait to here more on these!, With an led readout display of temperature, lumens, time, volts, all the goodies! It would also be USB and magnetically chargeable along with a portable folding solar panel for in field charging. Lets not forget to make it a power bank as well. Just what I could think of off the top of my head :smiley: I have high hopes for flashlight technology in the next 10 years :sunglasses:

Yep kind of like that. They discover a zero entropy technology called “stasis fields” that makes anything within the field indestructible and no time passes. So they make a handle with a tiny stasis field at one end through which the invisibly thin wire passes. Usually people extend it to about 1 meter length and it has a little red ball on the end of the wire so can see where it is (:

Some sort of super dense sci-fi power source, surely?

Didn’t Agent Scully have a Maxa Beam back in the day? And anything that looks like a lightsaber is surely a win?

Not sci-fi, but was just browsing through “Reaptown”, and it was refreshing to see this chick with a real flashlight, decent coverage and brightness, and not just some dinky AA Minimag or something.

In the Niven books, most species use some variety of fusion power. Usually deuterium, due to the scarcity of Tritium and the difficulty of fusing Hydrogen-1 a.k.a. Protium

However, in some books (and the Man Kzin novels), there are races that have total conversion technology. I remember one story where someone came up with a device to suppress the spin on the neutron which caused it to be converted directly to photons :slight_smile:

What about endothermic lights? That absorb heat from the environment around them and turn it into light? Because I sure as heck could use one of those right now. :weary:

Beat me to it. I read Ringworld around 1974.

As I recall they were part of a “tool box” used to smuggle in dual-purpose weapons.

I’m surprised no one mentioned Niven when reviewing modern “white laser” flashlights like the Acebeam W30.

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I’ve been wondering that myself. I stuck a fresnel lens in front of my W30 and was able to slowly burn dark paper. I’m not sure how many watts a Niven flashlight laser is but the number is finite. I don’t see any reason why we can’t have 1 kilowatt LEP flashlight lasers in 5 to 10 years, if not sooner, with the advances in the light emitters and in battery technology

Who needs guns? :slight_smile:

night vision glasses that look like regular glasses, with thermal capability, or contact lenses that do the same, flashlights are obsolete, disappeared due to lack of need like payphones, it is a science fiction after all,

that is entirely possible to do today

I vaguely recall in “Ringworld” by Larry Niven, the hero had a flashlight laser. He used it to illuminate things like a flashlight, but it could also be used as a weapon. In that mode the beam was strong enough to light fires and cut opponents and metal weapons in half.

Hmmm, I wonder how many younglings it could slice through…

nikola tesla did something crazy over 100 years ago.

Anyone here feel like we already have the sci-fi torches? It sure seems like that to me…

Read a story 45 or 50 years ago about a young man lost on a planetoid with a signaling laser that could be de-focused to be a flashlight.He was a young man on a planatoid with a creacher with tentacles however they were cut off by the laser device. A little fogy now.
chris