I was talking to a friend about forerunner weapons and hard light and we came to realize that because light is just the reflection and energy produced by excited or reflective molecules, forerunner weapons possibly really are just molecular energizers and because their shots project molecules at such a fast rate, they glow bright from constant collision and energy production.
Just a thought. What do you guys think?
I think “Glowing Reflective Molecules” is a little long to say in conversations.
HardLight is just the name for it, just like how the “Warthog” is really a M12 Light Reconansanse Vehicle.
> I think “Glowing Reflective Molecules” is a little long to say in conversations.
>
> HardLight is just the name for it, just like how the “Warthog” is really a M12 Light Reconansanse Vehicle.
Exactly, just wanted to see what the community thought, thanks!.
now i may be wrong.
normal light is merely energy, it has no physical mass, this is why e=mc2, anything with mass cannot exist on the same level as light, now hardlight, both weapons and sheilds would be quote different, they obviously have mass, atleast in some form, or else they would not be able to interact and impede physical objects, thus hardlight is merely light with mass…
but then again, i never liked physics so i could be wrong.
It could be possible that the light is dense enough to where it interacts with matter like a hard surface, but your armor (and anything near you) would melt before it reached that amount of power without proper containment.
TBH, Ceramic plating would have been more practical (but I guess that’s why it’s a video game)
It would make much better projectiles than shielding
It is sci-fi, sometimes you have to ditch actual science for things to make sense. If Star Wars was scientifically accurate…it would be very different and dull. Same with Halo, but it is more grounded in reality.
> now i may be wrong.
>
> normal light is merely energy, it has no physical mass, this is why e=mc2, anything with mass cannot exist on the same level as light, now hardlight, both weapons and sheilds would be quote different, they obviously have mass, atleast in some form, or else they would not be able to interact and impede physical objects, thus hardlight is merely light with mass…
>
>
> but then again, i never liked physics so i could be wrong.
Good info, but I am a bit vague on what you’re getting at. Personally, I agree and find everything you said true, but I just think hardlight shielding and such are really molecules fused together cause serious molecular excitement creating a warm/hot solid mass.
> > now i may be wrong.
> >
> > normal light is merely energy, it has no physical mass, this is why e=mc2, anything with mass cannot exist on the same level as light, now hardlight, both weapons and sheilds would be quote different, they obviously have mass, atleast in some form, or else they would not be able to interact and impede physical objects, thus hardlight is merely light with mass…
> >
> >
> > but then again, i never liked physics so i could be wrong.
>
> Good info, but I am a bit vague on what you’re getting at. Personally, I agree and find everything you said true, but I just think hardlight shielding and such are really molecules fused together cause serious molecular excitement creating a warm/hot solid mass.
Solid light is going to be a little bit more than “warm” 
> > > now i may be wrong.
> > >
> > > normal light is merely energy, it has no physical mass, this is why e=mc2, anything with mass cannot exist on the same level as light, now hardlight, both weapons and sheilds would be quote different, they obviously have mass, atleast in some form, or else they would not be able to interact and impede physical objects, thus hardlight is merely light with mass…
> > >
> > >
> > > but then again, i never liked physics so i could be wrong.
> >
> > Good info, but I am a bit vague on what you’re getting at. Personally, I agree and find everything you said true, but I just think hardlight shielding and such are really molecules fused together cause serious molecular excitement creating a warm/hot solid mass.
>
> Solid light is going to be a little bit more than “warm”
The energy is just made of molecules, not electricity or plasma, so I doubt it gets too hot, though you may be right.
It is “Hardlight”. You know those energy bridges you always cross in Halo games? Those are made of hardlight, not regular light.
Simply, ‘Light’ as we humans know it (visible) is merely the frequencies of electromagnetic radiation that we can perceive with our eyes, but actually spans the entire electromagnetic spectrum from Gamma-Rays to Radio waves, high frequencies to low frequencies. The particle responsible is the photon and has zero mass. I’m not sure which video it was but 343i, maybe the forerunner ViDoc, mentioned that with advanced forerunner technology and supremely elevated physics knowledge, they were able to harness light’s minute mass so that it could be used as a reflective surface, thus the name ‘Hard Light’. Again, not actually possible and as mentioned earlier, this is sci-fi so we elaborate and extrapolate various scientific principles to reach the desired creative result.
Background physics for any interested parties: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_spectrum and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photon and then you can keep reading onto the Lorentz force law etc if you’re super keen. 
*Any errors attribute to lack of sleep!
Are we talking about Halo or Physics class?
> Are we talking about Halo or Physics class?
If you were to delve into the fictional physics of Halo, you’d realise how fascinating it can be. Now, a discussion on slip-space and faster-than-light travel is always a great one! The very premise of Halo’s universe is how we can travel FTL and skip through portals or holes in space-time. It’s the creative extrapolation of fantastic physics pioneered by Einstein etc over 100 years ago… not to mention plasma based weapons. Anyway, yeah… I was just offering some ‘light’ (ha… I know, I know) on the HL shield.
Forerunners had control of technologies humans couldn’t begin to comprehend. If they wanted to harden light they probably could even if current physics say no.
It’s probably that they fire high energy photons which can be really hot and tend to vaporize things. Hard light is also legit as well but its used more for architechture like bridges or decoration like the glowy light things you see on the walls and stuff.
Technically light does have “mass”. On a sunny day you way more than you do at night. Not by any amount that could be measured practically but its still there. It’s because the impact of light on your body slightly pushes you down making you heavier. “Little known fact” matter and energy are the same thing in different forms. Matter can be destroyed but only if that destruction produces an “equal” amount of energy. E=mc^2 Look it up it should be an easy enough thing to find. Here there’s this…
If you calculated precisely how much energy was being converted into mass, in a few simple lines you could show that E = mc2, the most celebrated equation of all time.
that’s from here
Anyway so that means technically theoretically light has mass, not a lot, but it’s there.
Or it would mean that light exists outside of time.
whichever, take your pick.
ALSO, hardlight would technically be possible by giving light more mass. Possibly by speeding it up. As things speed up they gain mass, so if you speed up light then it should get more mass. It is possible to speed up light, we’ve done it before. Again, look, its the internet I’m sure you can find it.
Could be…or it could be space magic.
> I think “Glowing Reflective Molecules” is a little long to say in conversations.
>
> HardLight is just the name for it, just like how the <mark>“Warthog” is really a M12 Light Reconansanse Vehicle.</mark>
That isn’t right, its called a puma.
I am no physics major (complicated math isn’t for me) but i am sure that we currently have no ways to realistically give light/energy the same properties as a physical object on the level of the Hardlight Shield.
The Forerunners are incredibly enigmatic and technologically superior. Who knows how they discovered to use cool things like hard light bridges, ammo, and shields? Besides, Halo contains many features not grounded in reality; HS being one of them.
> Technically light does have “mass”. On a sunny day you way more than you do at night. Not by any amount that could be measured practically but its still there. It’s because the impact of light on your body slightly pushes you down making you heavier. “Little known fact” matter and energy are the same thing in different forms. Matter can be destroyed but only if that destruction produces an “equal” amount of energy. E=mc^2 Look it up it should be an easy enough thing to find. Here there’s this…
>
> If you calculated precisely how much energy was being converted into mass, in a few simple lines you could show that E = mc2, the most celebrated equation of all time.
>
> that’s from here
>
> http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/physics/theory-behind-equation.html
>
> Anyway so that means technically theoretically light has mass, not a lot, but it’s there.
> Or it would mean that light exists outside of time.
> whichever, take your pick.
>
> ALSO, hardlight would technically be possible by giving light more mass. Possibly by speeding it up. As things speed up they gain mass, so if you speed up light then it should get more mass. It is possible to speed up light, we’ve done it before. Again, look, its the internet I’m sure you can find it.
Yes, I know photons have mass. I mentioned that in my post as ‘minute mass’ because it’s so infinitesimal that we assume it’s zero in most cases (exact amount being 1x10^-18 eV/c^2 - which you can see has an obvious relation to e=mc^2). Light The speed of light, c, is also an invariant quantity (same in all frames of reference or always the same) and is one of the tenants of special relativity. It wouldn’t be possible to give photons more mass, as you can’t increase it’s speed, it’s already at the limit. What we do to light is actually change it’s frequency/wavelengths to create different properties of photons, but they travel the same speed - related by the equation f=c/wavelength. Examples of this are lasers (light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation).
I wish I could remember, I’m sure it’s the Forerunner ViDoc, but 343i stated the forerunner were essentially able to harness the Higgs field (everyone should be aware of the Higgs discovery earlier this year) / mass field of photons to create a reflective barrier. HLS reflects, I believe… even rockets. The exact nature of this is, of course, fictional but we can have a solid grounding to attempt to explain the properties
Oh, and the Maxwell Equations are just as celebrated, even stated to be some of the most important in physics by Einstein.