Is the Green Lantern ring possible with the technology we have now? , page 1

Originally posted by jacktorrance
(Mods, if this is the wrong forum you can move it - I thought about Grey Area and Skunk Works, but I'd like to get the scientific perspective on this.

Also, I did do a search, and there were pages of Green Lantern related items - but I didn't see one asking this question. If anyone has a link to a thread/or this is a duplicate, you can link me there and delete this! Thanks!)

Okay, so this topic came up between some friends. It started as "What superpower would you want.." discussion, and ventured into Green Lantern territory.

One person in the group stated emphatically that we have that technology now. And no, he's not a person that believes the military is about 20 years more advanced than we know. He believes it is possible with technology that we are aware of.

He could only link to a wikipedia article that basically said harnessing enough energy and turning it into mass is a concept that could be used in the future - but he used that as fact that we can do it now.

So my question is, is it indeed possible? What would be the science behind something like that? Something that could literally take anything your mind could think of and turn into an actual physical force that could inflict damage.

What would be the mechanics of it? Would you have to know the workings of a device before you could create it (i.e. a gun - would I have to know the individual parts of the weapon and how they operated to produce it in my mind?)

Do we have the technology now? (I know our military has the heat ray weapon
, but it isn't a physical manifestation of an oven or fire, or something similar - just heat, so I don't consider that the same thing.)

Any and all thoughts on the matter are appreciated!

That isn't actually how any ring would work in real-life. Energy to matter conversion would be akin to a Star Trek replicator. Of which your talking huge, huge, huge numbers to even create a few grams of matter. So this would never work in real-life for the way you are thinking.

The only way to approach creating a power ring would be to base it as a holographic projector. It projects whatever you want, then you turn said hologram into what's known as 'hard light'. Simply put, the light from your hologram has now became solid & can physically interact with the world around it.

Fact is that we don't have the technology to transform ourselves into GL's, but there is no doubt it will be possible in the future.